#BlogHerFood Recap

Me and Charlie

I just got back from BlogHer Food in Atlanta and wanted to give you a quick recap.  I was only able to attend the first day of the conference since Hubby’s family had a weekend of events planned celebrating a family graduation.  But it was a great first day. The conference kicked off with a Welcome from Elisa and Jory and a roomful of 500 food bloggers.  I have to admit that I was definitely out of my element! This not being a general lifestyle or mom blogging conference meant that there was a whole new crowd of folks that I didn’t know — which was great for making new connections, but it was also a different experience for me as I usually know tons of bloggers at the events I attend.  So I was completely flying solo in a new part of the bloggy skies, but it was all good.

I began the day by meeting and interviewing Kelly Senyei of Gourmet Live and Just A Taste.  She was a delight to talk to; down to earth, bubbly and fun.  {She is also brilliantly sharp – I witnessed this first-hand during the mobile session she presented on later that day.}  More on my chat with Kelly coming soon…

Then it was off to the first set of sessions – there were 4 tracks to choose from: Voice, Visuals, Vittles and Vocation.  I had the pleasure of being the moderator on the Fast, Healthy, Family-Friendly: Not the Oxymoron You Might Think! session with Laurie David of The Family Dinner Book and Melissa Lanz of The Fresh 20.  These ladies are on their game! They are passionate about the importance of families eating together, and even more passionate about making sure that families are eating healthy foods. We had a great discussion with the session attendees, covering everything from tips for having your kids take part in meal prep to finding ways to manage fitting in dinner even amidst an on-slaught of after-school activities.  I will recap the highlights of our session in another post.

I was so excited to see that 2 friends had dropped in to sit in on my session! Lauren (HelloLT) and Latoicha (LuxeTips) – it was great to see their (beautiful) familiar faces.  Latoicha had made a special trip to say hi to me and we spent the Sponsor Demo and Sampling break that followed catching up on life and waiting in a crazily long line for Scharffen Berger chocolate (totally worth it).  Next up was lunch and an author interview of Molly Birnbaum of My Madeleine.  Her story was fascinating – she was a budding chef and food blogger who lost her sense of smell in a freak accident.  In her book, Season to Taste: How I Lost My Sense of Smell and Found My Way, she chronicles her journey to recovery and her quest to understand the relationship between smell, taste and memory.

Also during lunch (where I met new bloggy buddies DMRFine Foods, EatRelateLove, This Wife Bakes, and Beef and Chocolate) and  I had the honor of being interviewed by Amanda of Food on the Table.  She contacted me a week or so ago to ask if I’d be willing to talk to her about my food life.  I checked out her site – a meal planning service for mom – and was basically like: “where have you been all of my life?”  She was a doll and we had a good time. Stay tuned for my interview on her blog.

I then headed to Vlogging for Beginners: Bring Your Cooking Videos to Life, presented by Carolyn O’Neil, Liz Weiss and Mria Dangerfield.  What a fabulous session! These ladies are industry pros (all former CNN producers) and got right down to business with practical advice.  The session led up to 2 bloggers from the audience volunteering to shoot a 2-minute cooking video that incorporated all of the information that the presenters had shared during the session.  The videos were edited and played on the spot. Loved it!

For my last session of the day, I attended the Taking Your Blog Content to Mobile (Learning What the Big Media Companies Are Doing), presented by Irvin Lin, Kelly Senyei, Lark Levine and Tanya Steel.  I have zero intentions of taking anything of mine to mobile (lol) but I couldn’t miss out on this powerhouse of a panel.  Epicurious, Gourmet, Cooking Channel were all represented and the session was moderated by Eat the Love.  They shared some interesting case studies and offered several valuable takeaways.

After that session, it was time for me to meet up with Hubby and the kids to head to his aunt’s house, so I skipped out on the remainder of the activities.  Lucky for me (and you!) the brilliant BlogHer ladies made the sessions available online via their VirtualCon feature, so I will be catching up on the ones I missed!