The Australian Commonwealth Government raised taxes on ready-to-drink (RTD) alcoholic beverages by 70% this week.

I awoke to a hangover. A dull pain knocked at the back of my skull. Had I been an alcoholic hypocrite? Heavens, no! This was a very special hangover. Chocolate. Read about a new venture in Melbourne which will certainly keep the bar high for the chocolate scene.

Bloggers aren't always quick off the mark. Heavens! It took Melbourne's community a whole evening and maybe a night to document the second Bloggers' Banquet. Ella and Furry had a lovely venue for a bayside gathering and we listened to the parrots, breathed sea air and, um, cried through the wood-fired oven smoke. Another successful bloggers' event for Melbourne!

Busy, busy, busy. That's been the past few months. Some of the activity has been on a new site, some on a few tweaks to Syrup & Tang, and a whole pile of unfoodieness has been keeping me away from food and cookbooks. This must stop! Here's a small update for the curious.

Just a quick heads-up to anyone who hasn't seen mention on other blogs around town. On Saturday, 5th April the next Bloggers' Banquet will take place.

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival held its first 'Out of the Frying Pan' talkfest last year and has repeated the event in 2008. It's goal is to bring together industry and media to talk about issues (which can be interpreted in many ways). This sort of thing can be a mixed bag when there are so many not-quite-overlapping points of interest and last year's was an odd mix of industry discussion and wannabe cookbook writers. This year there seemed to be more media representatives but less industry (chefs, producers, PR people) and though the focus was better, perhaps, the format rather undid it.

Melbourne is alive with the annual Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. A special event as part of the two-week festival is 'A Taste of Slow', held this weekend. I attended two sessions and came away disappointed, with the feeling that Slow Food is still failing to get its message across or perhaps even to know what its message is. I didn't expect to hear clichés about obesity or endure junk science but that was part of what I heard.

Last night (12 Nov) saw a get-together of some of the Melbourne foodblogging population. What a lovely bunch! Click through to read a little more and see a yummy pic of my contribution to the banquet.

Something interesting is going on at The Age newspaper in Melbourne. In the space of eight days, the newspaper has published two pieces about slavery in the West African cocoa growing industry. In September it also published a piece about this issue by a prominent Christian activist and anti-slavery campaigner from Britain. Why now?

What do you do when you find dinner too enjoyable? How is an irritable, jinxed diner like me to cope with a meal which delivers no disappointments and offers barely a scrap to quibble about? I felt embarrassed at how effusive I was. I sat through the meal thinking of all the people I needed to tell. I was dining at one of Melbourne's most avant garde restaurants, Interlude.