I want to start this post off with a great big thank you to Canadian Beef for sponsoring three lucky Canadians to attend the Eat, Write, Retreat conference in Washington, DC! I can’t even explain how excited I was to have been chosen to take part in this great food conference.
I would also like to Thank Casey, Robyn, all the pros and the volunteers for such a great conference. Everyone did a great job organizing and teaching!
The weekend started off well, my flight left on time and the passenger next to was great and very supportive. He was also heading to the same hotel but for a different conference. The weather was great and we found our way to the hotel easily. I was able to get early check in and explore the city.
I met up with another food blogger, Stephanie from 52 Kitchen Adventures and we took a walking tour all around the museums and then headed back for our conference check in.
I was really excited as this was a smaller conference, only 100 attendees or less. This made it very easy to connect with more people over the weekend then it does when it is a bigger conference. Friday night started off with a sponsor meet & greet reception. We mingled and introduced ourselves to pros and bloggers that we would be seeing over the weekend. A Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Welcome dinner was next on the schedule and included all kinds of great Mexican inspired eats. I tried some foods I have never had and I really loved the fried plantains. I am excited to make some at home and introduce them to my children.
Friday night after the welcome dinner our schedule said entertainment but nothing else about it. Guess what our entertainment was? Square dancing! It was meant to be an icebreaker and it sure did help. I am sure we all thought the same thing at first – Square Dancing!?! But it turned out to be a lot of fun and a great way to feel at ease with our fellow bloggers and the pros. I love that the pros jumped into everything with us at the conference. There really wasn’t that definition between writers/bloggers and pros at this conference.
I realize I am rambling on and I will try to keep the rest of this post short. I really enjoyed all the sessions and do not have a favorite one as they were all very different. I did learn a lot at the Food Styling & Photography session with Lisa Cherkasky and Renee Comet on how to take photographs of food you would want to eat. I will be working on that more with my upcoming food posts.
I could have listened to Monica Bhide speak all day. She is a fantastic speaker and really got me thinking about myself as a writer, and what my one word would be to describe my writing as a blogger. I have found the word in my mind would be “Simplicity”. That is what I am hoping to accomplish with my posts for parent’s to find simple, tasty recipes and reviews.
We did get spoiled with great products from all the sponsors! I am super excited to start using all the OXO products and also my new Calphalon frying pan and Panini grill! (I won the Panini grill through the raffles- watch for posts to come).
I am already thinking about next year’s conference and how I hope to make a family trip out of it as there are tons of things my family could do while I am participating in the conference.
The OXO Kitchen Challenge was a great success and it looked like everyone had a great time making fun and tasty creations with OXO tools, mushrooms, Jarlsberg cheese and watermelons!
I have met tons of great people and will be working on keeping in touch with everyone through emails, twitter and reading their blogs.
Along with all the great products we also got some great new cookbooks that I look forward to trying out very soon.
~*Jennifer
~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Marvelous Mommy Meals, this post is part of a sponsored scholarship with Canadian Beef. I also wanted to share my experience at Eat, Write, Retreat. All opinions are honest and my own.*~
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