BlogHer Food Recap in Pictures #BlogHerFood16

I can now check BlogHer Food off my bucket list. Not only did I attend the conference, I was also a speaker! I ate more than my share of delicious food and met some badass bloggers. I’d say the conference was a success.

I have lots to say about the conference, but going away for for 4 days means a lot of work to catch up on. So I’ll share my recap in pictures. Let’s start with this beautiful sunrise in downtown Austin. This is my view from our conference hotel, the Hilton Austin.

My fellow panelists Rashda Khan and Toni Tipton-Martin spoke about Food in the Center of Cultural Conversations.  Our audience had good questions on how to write about food that’s not from their culture or background. I appreciate how open everyone was. Thank you to everyone who came up to talk to me about the session afterwards. You can see the recap of our session at BlogHer.

I can’t NOT talk about the food I ate during a food conference. Conference sponsor American Egg Board hosted a taco happy hour. The taco above was grouper with jicama slaw. So good! And a mescal drink topped with egg white. It was my first time drinking mescal and I liked it.

Since my birthday fell during the conference, I ate a lot of dessert. Fortunately (or unfortunately for you) I didn’t take photos of all the desserts I consumed over the weekend. Let’s just say I tried one of everything.

Another highlight for me was meeting Aarti Sequeira. you might recognize her as a winner of The Next Food Network Star. I love her personality on tv: bright, sassy, and fun. During her Grad School For Bloggers session, I found Aarti to be down to earth and transparent about her journey to television. I also loved that she said she’s more than Indian food. She didn’t want to be pigeonholed in just cooking Indian food. That’s true for most of us–we’re multifaceted.

I also went on a photowalk through downtown Austin and hit a few places recommended by the lovely Kristin Shaw of Two Cannoli. I hit Voodoo Doughnuts just to check out its quirky decor and fun donut combinations. No, I didn’t eat any.  Do you know how hard it is to take photos of a rotating donut display?

I promise to share more photos from my photowalk in a separate post.