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Blog Better Boston Food Summit at Stonewall Kitchen

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on October 22, 2012

Stonewall Kitchen Wild Maine Blueberry Jam

My husband, baby T, and I traveled up to Maine this weekend to visit some family and friends and so that I could attend the Blog Better Boston Food Summit at Stonewall Kitchen.  Stonewall Kitchen’s headquarters in York, ME include a food production plant, their corporate offices, a cooking school, and a huge store with SK products.  I’ve always driven by their headquarters on many other trips to Maine and have always wanted to check it out.  When I found out that the lovely ladies behind Blog Better Boston were organizing a food summit at Stonewall Kitchen, I knew I had to attend!

We started off with a delicious breakfast provided by Au Bon Pain.  Next, we toured the Stonewall Kitchen facilities.  It was very cool to check out the production line.

Stonewall Kitchen Production Facility

I also loved the office spaces and conference  rooms-  what a beautiful space to work in!

Stonewall Kitchen Offices

We had four sessions throughout the day: Restaurant Reviews, Food Photography, Recipe Development, and Photo Editing.  They were all great sessions and I learned so much information.  I was really inspired by the Food Photography session hosted by Stonewall Kitchen’s product photographer, Michael Cabelin.  He provided so many great photography tips that I am hoping to implement soon!  I was blown away by their props collection- check out all the plates and bowls!  They also had an entire tool cabinet of different size spoons and forks.  How funny would it be if I took out all my husband’s tools out of his tool chest and put in blogging props instead?

Stonewall Kitchen Props

For our lunch break, we got to attend Stonewall Kitchen’s Cooking School.  Culinary instructor Patty Roche walked us through the delicious lunch menu.  We started off with a butternut squash soup with ginger.  The entrée consisted of prosciutto-wrapped chicken with ricotta and sage topped with a lemon roasted garlic beurre blanc and side of roasted pumpkin & vegetable medley with creamy polenta.  We topped off the meal with a pear and fig cobbler dessert.  (Check out the 2S2C facebook page for photos of all 3 dishes!)  It was a wonderful fall meal and the class itself was very entertaining.  It was like being on the set of a cooking show!  Patty also shared many great cooking tips throughout the class.

Stonewall Kitchen Cooking School

Before we left, we were treated with a pretty awesome swag bag.  Some of my favorite items included the Stonewall Kitchen Holiday Jam, coasters from Chilewich, and the Lake Champlain organic cherry peruvian dark chocolate bar. My favorite item overall has to be the Kitchen Aid 3-Speed Immersion Blender from Wayfair…I can’t wait to try it out on some recipes later this week.  Be sure to check in to 2S2C later this week- I am planning a giveaway with some of the swag I received! (And speaking of giveaways, have you entered our Kitchen Aid Mixer Giveaway yet?!?)

blog better boston food summit swag

This was actually the third conference of the year that I have attended (see here and here for recaps from the first two.)  I really enjoyed this conference since it solely focused on food blogging.  I definitely hope to attend more food blogging conferences in the future!

So tell me, do you have a particular favorite Stonewall Kitchen product?  Share in the comments…

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Filed Under: M's post Tagged With: blog better boston, blog conference, blogging, blogging conferences, cooking class, food photography, maine, stonewall kitchen

Attending BlogHer ’12

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on August 7, 2012

K and I are both back to our normal routine this week after spending the past weekend attending BlogHer ’12 in New York City.  It was a complete whirlwind, but we enjoyed meeting lots of new people, learning about new ideas for 2S2C, and getting to know more about various brands.  Here are a few of our BlogHer ’12 highlights (seen in the photos above):

  • Having an awesome dinner on Thursday night at Bobo in the West Village.  We had to wait a little bit for a table, but we had drinks and appetizers at the most adorable bar on the 2nd floor.  The food was phenomenal!
  • Going to the California Dreams private party at the Terrace Club.  It was pretty cool to grab a cocktail on a rooftop bar and meet some fellow bloggers.
  • Getting to see Martha Stewart speak at one of the keynote speaker lunches.  K was also pretty excited about the Martha Stewart Home Office journal from the Staples booth.  Katie Couric was also a great keynote speaker.
  • Seeing the Pioneer Woman and the Jimmy Dean sun in person!
  • We laughed until we cried at the Listen To Your Mother Open Mic Salon.  If anyone sees a list of everyone who spoke there, please let me know- there were so many great speakers/bloggers!
  • Getting our photos taken with not one, but two different characters dressed up as bananas (Dole and Jamba Juice.)  Also, stunning photo of the two of us with a Great Northern toilet paper background- check.  K sailing the high seas with the Gorton’s fisherman- got it!
  • Trying out the new Starbucks Verismo system that is being released this fall.  Check out my latte that I made in the photo above!

We also tried to attend as many BlogHer panels as we could.  Between the two of us, we ended up attending

  • iPhoneography
  • Ten Things You Can Do Now to Maximize Your Social Media Expertise
  • Leveraging Facebook and Twitter
  • Leveraging Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram
  • Protecting Your Blogging Rights, Respecting Those of Others
  • Hot to Make an App, and How to Price and Value Your Services

Wooh- I think I need another cup of coffee just typing that. I think our three biggest takeaways from those sessions are:

  1. Sign up for a Google+ account to help increase search traffic.  This seemed to be a reoccurring theme through many of the sessions.
  2. Develop a media kit for 2 Sisters 2 Cities (this tutorial from @cecilyk was mentioned several times over a few sessions.)
  3. We need to decrease the load time on 2S2C so search engines won’t penalize our search results.

While we learned so much and had a great time attending BlogHer ’12, K and I both agreed in the future it would probably be more beneficial to us to attend a more specialized conference, such as BlogHer Food.  Most of the bloggers we met focused on parenting, fitness, celebrities, and other topics that we don’t cover.  Did you attend BlogHer ’12?  What was your experience like?


Filed Under: M's post Tagged With: attending blogher '12, blog conference, blogging conference, blogher '12, new york city

My First Blogging Conference- Blog Better Boston

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on March 25, 2012

Just wanted to post a quick blurb about what an amazing time I had yesterday at the Blog Better Boston conference yesterday.  It was so great to meet so many bloggers in person and to get so many fantastic blogging tips.  I also enjoyed all the sponsors and swag bag-  you definitely don’t get things like that at Finance conferences!  My head is still spinning from all the great information and I hope to write a much longer post summarizing it later today.

It was the longest I had ever been away from Baby T, but it sounds like he had a great day with his DaDa.  It was very cute to come home and see him get as excited about my return as he normally does for my husband’s arrival home.  There is nothing like coming home to a big hug and kiss from the little guy!

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Filed Under: M's post Tagged With: blog better boston, blog conference, blogging

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