One of the most profound of the many pleasures of bringing you Consider The Sauce has been our friendship with Lauren of Footscray Food Blog.

She’d already had her site up and running for about a year by the time we came along but she was sincerely welcoming right from the outset.

Since then, we’ve enjoyed countless laughs, more than a few meals and been a constant source of advice and support for each other. All the while discovering there can be a lot more to what we are doing than merely running a website full of reviews.

Many of you will be aware Lauren has been running food tours of various kinds in and around Footscray.

At first, these were under the auspices of the CAE, but today’s snack/street food tour of Footscray was part of the council’s Discover Footscray Tours program.

The plan is for Lauren to see out the year in terms of her already scheduled commitments before going out on her own.

And the sharing spirit continues … in some ways we are blogger competitors, yet it never seems that way.

So the idea, as it stands, is for me to inherit her CAE gig come the new year.

She’s done such a grand job for them, they were eager to have a ready-made replacement. And Lauren, bless her, had no hesitation it putting my name forward.

So there you go – early 2014 will likely see us both leading groups of happy food hounds around yummy westie neighbourhoods.

Still, it’s going to be a steep learning curve for me, so I am eager to glom as much information and advice from Lauren as I can.

So as future tour guide, hungry foodie and fervent westie, it was a pleasure to join Lauren’s other punters today.

They included our mutual pal Nat Stockly as well as regular readers of both our blogs, such as Cynthia, Sian and Michael.

Lauren was a lovely and very informative guide, and everyone had a fine old time.

I don’t want to give too much away about the actual stops made and food consumed – except to say that even an old hand such as myself was surprised to find the most glorious burek in the most unlikely of places!

Lauren’s tours are recommended – even to those of you who reckon you’ve got a good handle on our westie food.

New Year post-script: After much contemplation, I have decided against being a tour guide for the CAE. Instead, I will be focus on more and better CTS Feasts, the Westies (of course!) and hopefully other exciting projects! But please do check out Lauren’s tours.