It’s been a couple of weeks since the 2013 International Food Bloggers Conference in Seattle and I finally have downloaded (or unfortunately, erased) all of my pictures. Reflecting back on the conference, here were my Top-5 favorites of the conference, in no particular order.

Dorie Greenspan’s Keynote Speech.  Dorie Greenspan is a fantastic and interesting speaker and it was great learning about the marks she has made in the food world. It was a great way to kickoff the conference and I will definitely be buying some of her cookbooks. (Please note that this great photograph of Dorie is from her website.)

Food Photography and Cooking Demo. This session was filled with laughter from the audience as Chef John Mitzewich of Food Wishes

and New York Times food stylist and photographer Andrew Scrivani joked around while preparing some tasty food and then plating it for the camera (photos are from their websites.)

I attended their session at last year’s IFBC in Portland and was looking forward to this one., and I was not disappointed! If they are at IFBC 2104, I highly recommend attending this session — you will pick up some great coming and photography tips.

Sous Vide Cooking Demystified with Seattle Food Geek. I have to admit that I knew next to nothing about sous vide cooking before I attended this session. Scott Heimendinger, director of Applied Research for Modernist Cuisine and creator of the Sansaire $199 sous vide machine was quite informative and I learned a lot. Guess what’s on my Christmas gift list this year?!

Urbanspoon Dine-Around Dinner. This was awesome and I’ve already dedicated an entire post about it (click on Surprise Saturday Supper at Michael Mina’s RN 74, Seattle). Urbanspoon did a great job arranging these dinners for more than 300 bloggers and I lucked out to get to go to a Michael Mina restaurant! The best part was enjoying some delicious food and drink with fellow food bloggers.

Connecting With Other Food Bloggers. One of the best things about IFBC is the other bloggers you meet. I met some great people at this conference and have connected with many of them on Twitter, Facebook or through their blogs. Two of my favorite new blogs I am following include:

http://hudsonvalleyhandymom.com/    and

http://easyrecipesandstuff.com/

Check out both of these blogs for some great recipes!

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend IFBC next year due to other commitments. It will be in Seattle again (9/19-9/21) and I recommend anyone who has a food or wine blog to attend! Seattle is such a great city with excellent restaurants. And September is a great time to visit, as it’s one of the least rainy months.

Eat, drink and be merry!  

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