When it takes 3 whole days to recover from two days of conferencing, laughing, meeting new people and solidifying behind-the-computer-screens blogging friendships into real life “they’re totally my real friends” friendships, eating your way through the city and feeling muscles in your face you never have before from the inordinate amount of smiling you did in that weekend – you know you did it right.

Well done, BlogHer Food. Well done.

This weekend I was fortunate enough to play tourist in my own town and participate in the BlogHer Food conference with hundreds of bloggers from around the country and even around the world. It was amazeballs. And yes, it deserves that cliched phrase.

There was food. Lots of food. As any self respecting food bloggers conference would have with drinks to be drunk and gourmet desserts to devour at local hot spot, Canlis, thanks to Chobani.

There were trips to the market – where this girl got to catch a flying fish!!

Exhibit A. —> Country Cleaver Hanging with the Fish Mongers It’s only 25 seconds, but totally worth a watch.

All those 10 years of fast pitch totally paid off. What. Up?!

And there were moments of fabulousness with some of the most inspiring, hilarious and rowdy women known to man. Of course y’all know Ms. Ree. Jessica and Tina made my weekend and made me feel muscles in my face I had never felt and will keep me swimming in pretzels from here ’til the rapture. And Keren, Alice and Erina inspired me, made me laugh and made me think we were a big Italian family yelling across the table and picking from one another’s plates and sipping drinks just to experience something new and bubbly. And with half of the group at Canlis that night being locals (Alice and I are practically freakin’ neighbors!) it was great to meet so many fantastic people who I know will be new friends.

It was a fully inspiring weekend, just what this blogger needed.

I can’t wait until next year…Howdy, Austin – I look forward to meeting you!!

_______________________________GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED ______________________________

The winner of the SWAG Bag from BlogHer Food is…..

Julie – From Bananas for Bourbon!

Thanks to everyone who entered! And if you didn’t win – next week there will be another giveaway of something truly spectacular. No, really. I mean it.

I’ll give you a clue – it’s from Kitchen Aid.

___________________________

*GIVEAWAY!*

To cap off the weekend I wanted to share something with you all – a big ginormous SWAG bag full of so much stuff I can’t possibly hang on to it all!

The bag will contain a variety of goodies including but not limited to —> agave and stevia from Wholesome Sweetners, metal frying tongs, oven gloves, BBQ Cookbook, olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Star Fine Foods, a variety of Pretzel Crisps, a menagerie of  silicone cooking tools, an insulated tote bag, a bottle of OptiFog activator. There’s about 10 other things in there, but I’m typing and too lazy to go look.

To Enter:

Like or Follow some or all of the other bloggers from this weekend’s festivities! Meet new friends through social media and hopefully come meet us all next year in Texas!

Country Cleaver – ME!

The Novice Chef Blog – Jessica

My Life as a Mrs. – Tina

Savory Sweet Life – Alice

Frantic Foodie – Keren

Lauren’s Latest – Lauren

Bran Appetit – Brandi

Fields of Cake – Carrie

Bakingdom – Darla

How Sweet Eats – Jessica

Heather Cristo – Heather

Bev Cooks – Bev

Pioneer Woman and Tasty Kitchen – Ree and Betsy

Go visit any or all of their sites – follow them on Twitter or Facebook and stay up to date on all their tasty treats and epic noms. I love all these women. They make my pants tight. In a really “omg I’m so full from good food” sort of way… wow that took an awkward turn… kthxbai.

Come back here – leave a comment telling me who you’re stalking on social media and you’re entered to win this box of fabulous! Good luck!

*fine print* I got too much stuff at BlogHer Food and I am spreading the love. My sponsor to this conference was STAR Fine Foods. I was sponsored by Star to attend this conference, and by no others. I’m just giving company credit where it is due and thanking them all for their help in helping us bloggers succeed. The giveaway will end on Monday, June 18th. The winner will be notified by e-mail. Over and out!