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!

Free stuff = happy foodies!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.