Menu for Hope: the Melbourne Gastronome prizes

Food blogging royalty and general domestic goddess Pim from the blog Chez Pim has organised the 6th annual Menu for Hope, an annual fundraising campaign hosted by food bloggers around the world to raise money for the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

Food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering an array of food-related items for the Menu for Hope raffle. Anyone – and that means you too – can participate. For every US$10 donated, you earn one virtual ticket to bid on an item of your choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim on Monday, January 18.

You can read more about the details of the Menu for Hope initiative here (and cheers to Ed for organising the Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand side of things). Importantly, none of the money is collected by the bloggers: all donations are collected by a third party site (a very good online fundraising company called Firstgiving) that sends the money directly to the WFP. This year the donations will be targeted towards a WFP initiative called Purchase for Progress – read more about it here.

I've been very impressed with the list of prizes that other local food bloggers have come up with, so I called upon some lovely friends of mine to help me organise two prizes for Melbourne Gastronome to host.



The first prize that Melbourne Gastronome is hosting is (drumroll please)...

AP27 Six months supply of Small Batch specialty coffee worth $250+

250g bag of specialty coffee roasted by Small Batch (as seen at Auction Rooms) sent to your address each fortnight for six months. Rotating selection of whatever’s best that week, be it a blend, single origin or Cup of Excellence. Please specify if you prefer filter-oriented or espresso-oriented.


Yep, like the description above says. If you are the lucky winner of Prize AP27, a 250g bag of coffee will sent to your address every fortnight from Small Batch, the coffee roasters whose coffee is sold at Auction Rooms. Each fortnight for six months, Small Batch will send you a bag of whatever the best roasted coffee is for that week: sometimes a blend, sometimes a single origin, sometimes a Cup of Excellence. Because they're lovely that way, please let Small Batch know whether you'd prefer your coffee to be filter-oriented or espresso-oriented.


And the second prize hosted by Melbourne Gastronome is...

AP28 Brunch for four at Auction Rooms plus 12 Sugadeaux cupcakes total value approx $140

Brunch and syphon coffee demonstration for 4 people at Auction Rooms in beautiful downtown North Melbourne PLUS box of 12 Sugadeaux salted caramel cupcakes (or other Sugadeaux flavour of your choice), delivered to you personally at your Auction Rooms brunch by Melbourne Gastronome (schedule permitting!).


Regular readers of Melbourne Gastronome will know how much I love Auction Rooms, and not just because it's owned and run by my friend Andrew. It's my favourite brunch venue in Melbourne: read about my previous visits here and here. If you haven't already been, shame on you!


If you win Prize AP28, you and three of your friends will be treated to an Auction Rooms brunch with bonus syphon coffee demonstration. Thanks, Andy!


BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, THERE'S MORE. As well as receiving brunch for four and a syphon coffee demo, the winner of Prize AP28 also gets a box of 12 Sugadeaux cupcakes! I've taken the liberty of choosing your flavour (my favourite): salted caramel. Look at it and drool, my friends...


Like I said, I've taken the liberty of choosing salted caramel cos it's my favourite, but if you don't like the sound of it you can choose one of Sugadeaux's other flavours instead: browse the full range of flavours on the Sugadeaux site. I can also recommend these other outrageously good flavours that I was lucky enough to sample when the lovely Jess from Sugadeaux invited me along to a recent Sugadeaux cupcake tasting:

Raspberry White Choc and Strawberry Shortcake


Toffee Apple and Caramel Popcorn


Read a full report on the Sugadeaux cupcake tasting night here on Eating Melbourne. Sugadeaux cupcakes are also regularly available for purchase at Amsterdam Street, my favourite local cafe.

So, you get 12 cupcakes as well as brunch for four people! You can elect to either pick up the cupcakes yourself from Sugadeaux's South Yarra location, or have yours truly deliver the cupcakes to you personally at Auction Rooms (schedule permitting... just be sure to give me a bit of notice!).


Finally: I'm afraid I've been a little late off the mark, because the Menu for Hope finishes on 25 December 2009 (Christmas Day). So you've only got a week to get your skates on and donate to enter the Menu for Hope raffle.

How To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice (AP27 and/or AP28! But you might also like to look at the full list of Australia-Pacific prizes, and the full list of worldwide prizes).

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.

3. Please specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code. Each US$10 (a little over AUD $11) you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of US$50 can be 2 tickets for AP27 and 3 tickets for AP28: "2xAP27, 3xAP28".

4. Please check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

I really hope that lots and lots of you will enter: at $11 a ticket (which is going to a very good cause) there are some really great prizes up for grabs. Thanks and good luck!

ps And a BIG thank you to my gorgeous lovely generous friends Jess and Andy for donating prizes for Melbourne Gastronome to host! xx