Blogger Meet-Quaker Bowl

Hey everyone, after such a  long time I finally got to attend a blogger meet. For once it was
not related to beauty. It was related to food and nutrition.But this too came with
a catch, it was a meet about ‘oats’ by the famous brand Quaker and guess what? I do not like oats unless it’s just coating some double fried cutlets or potato wedges 😛 or completely hidden in some tasty food.All this hate for oats(mostly with milk) started when I had it for the first time when I was in the 5th grade and I puked. Ages later I still dislike the very sight of that combo.
Anyways that’s irrelevant to what today’s post is about.I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation for the #QuakerBowl event that would help me in a drift away from my dislike for ‘oats’.

It all began with me entering JW Mariotte for the very first time. The event got delayed by at least half an hour but was worth the wait as I met all my blogging friends and made a new one too.As usual, the IndiBlogger crew started the event with a sassy intro.Angel by Taher Shah played as a joke and a so called “mystical man”(aka Vineet Rajan from IndiBlogger team) came on stage to make all bloggers do some weird fun exercises.There it was, my motivation began. But then there was a vending machine giving free chips and soda which I could not resist throughout the event. My motivation had to wait till the event got over.:P

As the fun intro ended, we were waiting for a celebrity chef to arrive.In the invite, it wasn’t disclosed as to who the celeb chef would be.My mom guessed it could be Vikas Khanna, her favorite chef and hell yeah, she was right. I’ve had a crush on him ever since I saw his cooking show and of course his cute smile.My mom always said, “I wish you get a husband like him“. Hoping this comes true as well :).

The moment Michelin-starred chef Vikas Khanna entered the venue, I couldn’t believe my mom’s words were true.He is the Nutrition Ambassador of PepsiCo India and will help drive the brand’s nutrition portfolio by partnering with Quaker.Quaker is the flagship nutrition brand from PepsiCo aimed at supplying tasty and nutritious choices to consumers.He started his speech by thanking his mother and father to whom he has always been grateful.He referred to them as ‘earth’ & ‘skies’. Initially, it was really hard concentrating on his speech with that cute smile on his face.After getting back to my senses I got to hear some amazing tips by him and made a note of it.He also made us aware of many aspects related to eating unhealthy in modern times.We had some fun quiz rounds for which many hampers were won by fellow bloggers, sadly I wasn’t one of them.
The event then proceeded to a fun challenge where one had to guess the ingredients of soup kept in shot glasses. Chef Vikas randomly chose some people initially to do so and gave them 60 seconds to make a note of the ingredients their taste buds could guess.Most of them could not guess the majority of the ingredients and just wrote salt, water and submitted the answers to Mr. Vikas. Very few wrote oats which were surprisingly present in the soup. Mr. Vikas was amazed as well and shared a tip right away “Oats flour can be used as a soup thickening agent instead of corn flour“A new set of people were then chosen for the same challenge but with another set of soup shot glasses.The winner was a girl who guessed 12 out of 14 ingredients.She too was given a hamper.
We then had some fun and laughter with Mr. Vikas sharing some amazing real life experiences and jokes :p. He is a funny man indeed. We also had a team challenge which was so much fun.All of us were divided into groups based on our seating arrangement. There were 5 tables kept ready for us with 2 oats packs, chopped veggies, fruits, broken macaroons, jalebi pieces, chocolate sauce, a stove, salt, water, sugar and that’s all I can remember.We had to make a dish(with oats) of our choice as a team and the best dish would win.Since there were just 5 tables put up, initially only 5 teams began cooking and the rest had to wait.

I know nada about cooking so it was not really important for me to be there with the team as I badly wanted my selfie with chef Vikas who was meeting and greeting fellow bloggers.Well, that too had a big wait line as many bloggers wanted their pic with him.At many instances, he would begin sharing his own experiences and of course his jokes which are why it would take more time to click a pic with him.Worth the wait I tell you(blush).

After all the epic drama I went back to my teammates who were busy making a dish with chocolates and oats and fruits and so on. I tried to help but it was too late to interfere, so all I did was stare at all that they were doing.This is what we ended up with…the chocolate sauce was a mistake hence the weird look. 😛

Recipe for the above dish:- (This recipe is basically the way I saw it happening 😛 )
Step 1:- Get to know your teammates and smile.
Step 2:- Notice Chef Vikas clicking selfies with other bloggers and slowly try to escape from teammates.
Steps 3:- Once near Mr. Vikas , wait for your turn to click a selfie.
Step 4:- After clicking selfie,get back to your team without being noticed by them.
Step 5:- Pretend to be doing something because there are cameras recording you throughout.
Step 7:- Hear all kinds of suggestions by some teammates and nod your head. Sadly none of the suggestions will be of any use as the ones actually making the dish won’t hear it.
Step 8:- Watch plain cooked oats getting mixed with chocolate sauce(all by hand 😛 ). Next watch pre-cut fruit pieces being dipped in the mixture and being aligned on the plate along with fruits pieces(lucky) not dipped in the mixture.Now notice the mistake with the extra sauce dropped on the plate and wait till someone adds in more with a spoon. Every sauce layering done should be a mistake until you get a crappy look as seen in the pic above.
Step 9:- Finally this is the time you be considerate enough and pass on tissues to your teammates who have their hands dipped in the oats & chocolate mixture.
Step 10:- Look with awe as one of your teammates out of nowhere garnishes the dish with broken macaroons ..ha hah 😛

After all the teams were done with their dishes, came the taste test. Mr.Vikas was the master and his facial expressions were worth watching as he proceeded tasting all the dishes.The winning team was declared as team 10.Our team did not even qualify to the next round so I got back to my seat & began munching on the free chips and soda.It was surprising how Mr. Vikas had so much patience clicking pics with all of us that too with the same smile he entered the venue with.Also amazing was how Mr. Vikas interacted with almost everyone at the venue. While personally interacting with him all I said was “My mom likes your cooking shows”. Damn wish I could say more but the shy me won’t let the extrovert me speak when it’s needed.
Soon it became time for lunch and we wound our event with some great tips by Chef Vikas. And of course he spoke a lot about oats and that led me to rethink my opinion about oats.I was surprised we can make so many tasty things with oats apart the milk combo I always hated.
Lunch was the most awaited part too after the celeb visit.There were delicious brownies made with oats.This was the first time I liked something made from oats.

And that was all for my fruitful day at the #QuakerBowl blogger meet.We left with some amazing goodies & a good experience interacting with my favorite chef.

Some additional pics with my blogging friends 🙂 Until next time have a great day & Stay Healthy…….