This Food Award nomination comes as a complete surprise, mainly because my blog is about travel and photography.
I have published a few food posts recently including a post on dining haunts in southern Italy’s Cosenza, Calabria and Food Porn in Rogliano, Calabria, so maybe this is the reason for the nomination?
Firstly, thank you, Mohamad from Martial Path for this Food Award nomination – it’s humbling to think that you enjoy my posts enough to nominate Image Earth Travel for an award.

If you haven’t checked out Mohamad’s blog yet, then do so as it’s inspired by the legendary Bruce Lee. Mohamad also writes about his journey through learning Martial Arts – kickboxing. At the ripe age of 17, he started writing short stories so pop over to his blog and show him some support. 😉
A little background on the award
Not hearing of this award before, I visited the award’s creator Elisha from the Africa Boy blog and left the question of why he created the award.
I read that Elisha likes to bake and drink coffee so thought that this maybe is enough reason. And yes, Elisha confirmed that he realised the blogosphere is lacking in the food award nomination arena so decided to create an award to fill the gap. On to the award…
Award rules
- Thank the person that nominated you
- Pingback to the creator Elisha at https://africaboy.home.blog/
- Use the same featured image as your nominator
- Answer the five questions
- Create five questions about food
- Nominate five people
Mohamad’s five questions
Here goes with answering Mohamad’s questions as best that I can…
1. What is your favourite baking recipe?
Favourite savoury or sweet baking recipe?
I’d have to say that for a savoury recipe it’s my chicken and mushroom pie – although I haven’t made this in ages – deliciously hearty and wonderful during the winter months.
I’m told I make a mean lasagna, which is also a favourite and share one of my luscious creations with you…
For a sweet recipe, this has to be the moist Lemon Drizzle Cake as it’s super easy to make, tastes divine, and loads of people love this cake. You can also substitute lemon with oranges or mandarines. Or, why not mix the three together for a zesty tangy flavour?
I love experimenting with recipes although also experience disasters when it comes to baking cakes or cookies.
2. Do you prefer to have pancakes and orange juice for breakfast, or pie and cream?
If I have to choose, then it’s pancakes and orange juice for breakfast although I never make pancakes – think I should start? Don’t think I’ve ever had pie and cream for breakfast.
Typically, I make my own Bircher Muesli, with loads of extra bits (dried fruit, raw almonds, cinnamon, natural yoghurt, and more) thrown in as love this for breakfast plus it’s so healthy.
3. If you want to eat out with your friends, would you rather eat at a fast-food restaurant or at a regular diner?
I’m not a fast food person at all and don’t enjoy the fatty smell that hits you in the face when entering one of these restaurants.
Where I live in Australia, there aren’t any ‘diners’. I’ve only eaten at a diner in the US, which served up a greasy breakfast with awful coffee, so not that impressed.
Much prefer a restaurant where hopefully, I get to taste a delicious meal shared with friends or family.
In southern Italy’s Cosenza in the region of Calabria, the city offers fabulous restaurants serving inexpensive fresh local ingredients for homemade dishes served with local wines – wonderful!
A couple of restaurant photos to get your tastebuds salivating and drooling…
The traditional Calabrese ‘Tagliere’ for starters.

Another traditional Calabrese dish for Primi (first dish) of freshly homemade Lagana con Ceci (pasta with chickpeas). This dish sounds pesante (heavy) although the pasta is light and together with few ingredients makes a heavenly dish that’s not spicy but very flavoursome.
I could go on but check out my favourite restaurant haunts in Cosenza.
4. What is your favourite hometown recipe?
This is a hard question as hailing from a European background but born in Australia, ensures learning a fusion of foods whilst growing up. So, I don’t really have a favourite.
I learnt to make the traditional (no cream) Carbonara whilst in Cosenza – never had this dish whilst growing up.
Voltini – thinly sliced pork wrapped around fresh spinach and parmesan cheese. I then cooked these gently on a low heat in a tomato-based sauce. Substitute whatever meat you prefer for this dish.
My hometown doesn’t really have a specific recipe unless you count a BBQ or meat pie as one?
Instead, I love to cook Thai, Italian, and Indian dishes, but also create new variations to the more traditional dishes.
Nilla’s special Thai fried rice with chicken, baby corn, and topped with egg omelette.
My fresh Fuselli (pasta) dish with real salmon chunks, sun-dried tomato, and topped with fresh chives and grated parmesan cheese.
Enjoying a traditional enticing Apericena (pre-dinner) accompanied by the very popular Italian summer drink – Aperol Spritz, with friends at a favourite haunt in Calabria.
5. Do you prefer eating cheesecake or custard?
I enjoy eating both although much prefer eating cheesecake, especially berry – any berry – cheesecake. Made a mixed berry one topped with fresh strawberries in southern Italy and although very yummy with a crunchy base, the middle part turned out quite soft.

I did add Gelatine with the creamy cream cheese mixture but still didn’t set after refrigerating overnight. Does anyone have any ideas why the filling turned out soft?
My nominees
- Cook the Beans – follow Ana on her Vegan recipe quest.
- Dish Dessert – check out wonderful recipes from Khadija, a Moroccan professional cook.
- Lithuanian in the USA – Liucija shares traditional Lithuanian recipes in style.
- All Day I Eat – Pat shows you healthy Japanese cooking with flair.
- Anusha’s Cuisines – Based in Dubai, Anusha cooks incredible traditional Indian recipes, which she happily shares with anyone that loves food.
My questions to nominees
- Have you ever made Gnocchi from scratch? If so, did they turn out heavy or fluffy light?
- What street food have you tried on your travels?
- Are you game to try local dishes when travelling to different countries?
- What is the most bizarre dish you’ve tried?
- What is the best cake that you ever made? Can you post a recipe in the comments, please?
Hope that you guys enjoyed reading this fun and unusual post! Would love to hear your thoughts, so please share some below to start a food chat… 🙂
Nilla

Visit Nilla’s Photography for global images with more still to upload. Weekly updates of new travel and photography destinations at Image Earth Travel.
Ciao Nilla. I’d readily subscribe to your recipe/food blog 🙂 Maybe you could just intersperse your travel musings with some culinary inspiration (especially cucina Calabrese). There is a Calabrian chef in the UK called Francesco Mazzei. He has 3 restaurants in London and a great cookbook called Mezzogiorno. I interviewed him before COVID-19 hit and will put up the interview soon on my Blog. Have you heard of him? You could always put your recipes on Insta (I can’t seem to find you there). Un salute
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Hi Mickey,
Thank you for your feedback and taking the time to comment.
Ha, ha, I intersperse food and sometimes recipes in this travel and photography blog. I don’t know of Mazzei but will check it out…
I’ve published many posts on Calabria and its delicious food, check this one out: 18 Delectable Dining Haunts in Cosenza, Calabria. If you check my Italy destination, I’ve published around 63 posts on this spectacular country and especially Calabria. 😉
I don’t have an Insta account but everyone is ‘telling’ me I should have as I’m also a professional photographer.
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Congrats
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Thank you!
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Most welcome
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hi nilla. the starter plate in Calabria looks fantastic. I’m interested in the starter plate pictured in number 4. looks like sausage rolls ? and mini hamburgers – a definite international. no upper case letters, broke my wrist last week cleaning a cupboard. stay safe. louise
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Hi Louise, sorry to hear about your wrist – sounds painful!
So No. 4 is deliciousness and definitely not sausage rolls or mini hamburgers as we know them…
The pastry (I call them pillows) contains a Calabrese sausage. The pastry swirls are typically Ricotta and Spinach but sometimes they’re stuffed with ‘Nduja (traditional Calabrese spicy sausage and chilli paste) with tomato or just on its own. The ‘mini hamburgers’ are typically stuffed with Caciocavallo (local cheese made from sheeps or cows milk) and Sopressa or Prosciutto. It’s always traditional local produce.
Have I made you hungry yet?
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Dear Louise,
I hope that your wrist has healed completely.
Dear Nilla,
All of this Food Award nomination and yummy dishes are making me very hungry and teasing my appetite!
I particularly like the “enticing Apericena (pre-dinner)” and your “special Thai fried rice with chicken, baby corn, and topped with egg omelette”.
When it is advisable to stay home and maintain spatial distancing so as to avoid contracting and spreading the coronavirus, going out to have some sumptuous meals or exquisite cuisines may not always be possible. Therefore, I would like to offer you and your family and friends some tempting and mind-bogglingly presented food in one of my posts entitled “🦅 SoundEagle in Edible Art, Glorious Food and Festive Season 🍣🥗🍜🍲🍱” published at https://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/soundeagle-in-edible-art-glorious-food-and-festive-season/
Please enjoy! Happy Autumn to you and Louise!
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Ha, ha, I’m glad that you like my food photos as this type of photography isn’t my greatest strength!
Enjoyed your post on food art – very creative! Left you a comment.
Happy Autumn to you! Australia is in Spring right now, but feels more like summer already…
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Congratulations Nilla..!! A well deserved award and perfectly unsurprising given your expertise in describing Italian food and wine.. 😊😊
I believe before coming to Calabria, I have to fast for a month. Because from the looks of it, I think I am going to spend a lot of time in restaurants than the tourist destinations over there.. 😊😊
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Thanks Abir for your great feedback!
Ha, ha, the food is excellent in Calabria and yes, you will have to fast for a month before visiting.
You will spend a lot of time eating although you can combine eating and sight-seeing very easily… 😉
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Haha.. Thanks for your vote of confidence, though a lifetime is insufficient to combine food and sightseeing for any single region of Italy.. 😊😊
I will fast prior to visiting, for sure.. Will try to visit the scenic spots post having my meal.. 😉
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Sounds like a great plan Abir and sure you’ll enjoy the region! 🙂
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Hi ma’am, I have nominated you for the Liebster Award please have a look… https://krishnac003.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/leibster-award/Rekha ma’am, I have nominated you for the Liebster Award please have a look… https://krishnac003.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/leibster-award/
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Thank you Krishna for nominating my blog!
I’ll try and respond in the next few weeks so, stay tuned. 🙂
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Congrats on the award Nilla. Your food and drink photos are great. 🙂 x Have a great weekend xx
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Thank you for your feedback Gill! I’m not great at taking food photos and still trying to learn the art.
Hope you weekend is cool. 🙂 x
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Delicious!!!
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Thank you Giovanni!
Hope you and your family are OK. 🙂
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We’re fine! Thank you very much 🙂
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Excellent, happy to hear that… 🙂
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that carbonara looks so delicious! pie and cream for breakfast? Mmm well i have been known to have dessert for breakfast – fruit tart, or cheesecake or chocolate cake … Hope you’re faring well during the virus crisis. cheers Sherry
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Hey Sherry, I think your breakfast substitutes sound much better than pie and cream. I have been known to eat cold lasagna at 3am on New Year’s Day! 😉
All OK here so far…hope that you and your family are also faring well during these times…
Many thanks for your comment.
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Pie and cream for breakfast? No thanks. Your food looks way better than any takeaway. The one time I had problems with a cheesecake not setting I accidentally bought low fat cream cheese instead of full fat. I wonder if that was your problem.
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Thanks for the vote of confidence, I don’t often use recipes and just throw ingredients together and a little magic.
Thanks for the tip Carol. I’m told the Philadelphia cream cheese is the best for a cheesecake and in southern Italy, it was quite expensive so I used a different band as I needed loads – big cheesecake to feed an army! Maybe it was a lower quality cream cheese as I did also add gelatine to be sure it set, but no luck. It wasn’t sloppy, just soft.
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Congratulations !!!
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Thank you!
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Your recipes look great, maybe you should start a cooking blog too. Image earth cooks?
Congrats on the award.
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Thank you and that sounds like a great title!
Although I’ve got too much to write on travelling yet to start another blog… 😉
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I know, I keep wanting to branch out but stick with my travel theme because of time constraints and. Because I love it. Although am writing about closer to home travels right now.
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Same with me and I still have too many journals I’ve just collected from storage to digitise yet…around 20+ years of travel stories.
Yes, just checked your ‘duck’ post out. 😉
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Congratulations
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Thank you! 🙂
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Congratulations 🎊 the food looks so delicious wish I could just grab it from the screen and have it 😋
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Thank you! I’ll have to re-create some of these recipes as I was getting hungry writing about these dishes and finding the photos. 😉
Many thanks for your comment – much appreciated. 🙂
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Congrats Nilla
Your answers blew me away
Thank you very much for showing your support
And yes
I think you should start making pancakes cuz they are sooo good
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Thanks again Mohamad for the nomination!
Ha, ha, will have to start making pancakes. Do you have a special recipe you use?
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You are most welcome
Well i can tell you my mom’s recipe
She likes to think outside the box so I recommend mixing Cocoa spread with the original mix and adding chocolate syrup and bananas on the top.
And side strawberries (optional)
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Sounds delicious!
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It is
I grew up on it
But it’s kinda full of calories so I don’t recommend eating it on regular breakfasts
It may ruin your workout 😅
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Lucky you! Sounds like your mum spoilt you… 😉
Think I’ll try it as a special treat then and stick to my muesli.
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Oh actually my mom is quite athletic
She doesn’t eat sweets
But when I was a kid
I wasn’t into sports like now so I used to consume a lot of sugar
It’s kinda intimidating when I remember it😅
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I need to get back into more exercise. The self-isolation chapter is taking its toll.
Think we all ate loads of sugar when we were young, but still do…
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Yes indeed
If you want
I could give you some pointers on how to do a light workout even during the isolation
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Sounds great! I’ve got a bad lower-back and the reason I do yoga stretches as this helps a lot. 🙂
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Oh that’s awesome
Actually yoga stretches help a lot in solving your problem
Keep at it
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Thank you and yes, yoga and if it gets really bad and I can’t walk, then it’s a course of acupuncture. Luckily I haven’t had acupuncture for 7 years – fingers crossed it stays that way. 😉
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I hope so too
The most i
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It is
I would recommend not to eat it on daily breakfasts cuz it’s full of calories that might ruin your workout 😅
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Ha, ha good tip thanks!
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You are most welcome
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