Food.Blog.Forum.

What’s up guys?  Hope you had an awesome weekend!  I spent mine over in Nashville for the much-anticipated Food Blog Forum!  My brain hurts from the vast amount of information learned in zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..

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Whaaat?  Where am I?!

Ohhhh… My bad.  Suffering from a bit of sleep deprivation over here!!  Anyway….  This weekend I made the voyage to Nashville with Vanessa of Life Undeveloped, Brooke of Baking with Basil, and Jamie of Bibliophiled Away I left Nashville a mere two days later with a few new friends, 17 pages of notes, 33 items on my want-to-do list, and crap ton of free swag!

Look at all this stuff!

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Free stuff = happy foodies!

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Our first night in town we headed over to a Taste of Nashville party at the farmers market where we were given the task of sampling everything from mustard slaw hotdogs to goo-goo clusters to vanilla vodka over blood orange soda.  It was horrible.

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Out of everything I sampled, My FAVORITE nibblet was the Onion Bisque from the folks at Perl.  I am sending hopes and prayers that they someday offer this soup online.DSCF7996

Please!!  I beg you!!!

We also got to see a live cooking demo with Arnold Myint.  Arnold is a Nashville native who owns several restaurants in the city.  He was also a Top Chef Season 7 contestant.  Since I cancelled my cable to support my coffee addiction, I had no clue who this guy was until I read the marketing flyer… Regardless, it was super fun to see a professional chef at work in the kitchen.  I really liked the lentil tacos he cooked up.  I’m going to try to recreate them… one day.  Hmmmm where did I put that want-to-do list anyway?

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Saturday was JAM PACKED with forum sessions on different topics, including:  PRspectives, recipe writing, blogging etiquette, food styling & photography, working with brands, blogging as a business, and social media.

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My favorite of all the sessions was the food styling & photography session with Todd Porter & Diane Cu, the White on Rice Couple.  Beyond being extremely informative, it further cemented my desire to become a better photographer.  It also resulted in about 7 of the want-to-do’s on my list!

Look at us all ready to get our learn on!  And our eat on, obviously.IMG_8527

Caroline, Brooke, Moi, Jamie, Vanessa (thanks to Vanessa for the people photos!)

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For lunch we hit up some local food trucks for a sampling of their tastiest wares.

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The weekend was pretty much scheduled out from start to finish, so there wasn’t much time left for exploring Nashville.  Sunday morning I took a quick stroll in hopes I might stumble upon something interesting near the hotel.

All I found was this piece of art… and I have no idea what the heck it is.

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