Memories of BlogHer Food 2009

Before I go any further, I need to confess something. I was really bad last weekend.

I schlepped my camera all the way across the continent to the BlogHer Food Conference. Then I didn’t take a single picture. Nada.

There’s just something about actually having time for stimulating conversation with fascinating people that makes me forget I have a camera with me for a purpose, not just a weight to lug around. I kicked myself all the way home. If a blogging goddess exists, she would probably revoke my blogger credentials.

Fortunately at least one person has photographic evidence that I actually attended and had a grand time. Ree made me giggle when she put the camera up to my face then I couldn’t stop! Plus it was 2:00 A.M. East Coast time, I was tired and had no idea which way was up. Good thing I only sipped 1.5 glasses of wine at the Mushroom Channel party earlier.

My favorite memories from the weekend: Read more

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Houzz.com Interview

I promise I did not plan this. CafeMom approached me about an interview early in August and then right about the time that article was supposed to be released, my friend Jill Asher asked me about doing an interview for Houzz.com to kick off a series they are doing on food bloggers’ kitchens.

I must say after my first visit to the site I was sucked in. It’s a home design site where you can save photos of rooms, landscapes, and home design ideas. Anyone can use it and you can upload your own photos, plus the site has almost 4,000 professional designers and architects who upload photos of their work for you to browse. Photos are grouped by design style, living space, and metro region, and you can add design element keywords. You can even tag individual items in photos and add a URL, brand name, or other descriptive information. You can create ideabooks, which allow you to group ideas for a room, backyard, color schemes, anything you can think of. If you used to keep a scrapbook with pictures of designs you liked, now you can do it online and share your ideabooks.

This interview focused on the design of the house, so there’s photos of the dining room and living room as well as the kitchen. I hope you enjoy it! Also, Houzz.com is offering a giveaway with the interview, three copies of the Weight Watchers Momentum Cookbook, so enter for a chance to win.

Houzz.com – Interview with Food Blogger Andrea Meyers

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Welcome to Our Kitchen

CafeMom posted an article today about me and our kitchen, complete with photos of course. I can’t believe how much work it took to get the kitchen ready for this piece! It’s summer and the boys are home (but school starts next week!) and the house has that “really lived in” look most days. Welcome to our kitchen and I hope you enjoy it!

CafeMom: In the Kitchen With Andrea Meyers

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Taking Chances

Being a Type A planner, I tend to map out what I want to do and how I want to get there, taking fairly predictable steps along the way to my goal. When I decided to leave my K-12 teaching career and transition to instructional design and information technology, I set a plan for myself and followed the plan.

Food blogging and food photography have been the total opposite for me. I started this site on a lark three and a half years ago and had no idea what I was doing when I picked up our little point and shoot camera and snapped my first food photo. I didn’t sit down with a photography book in an attempt to cram all the knowledge I could into my brain, I just experimented with mixed success. It was a hobby, after all, just something fun I did for a creative outlet without any professional aspirations. Never in my wildest dreams did I think someday I would have food photos published in a cookbook, so I now find myself at a loss for words to express my delight that some of my food photos were chosen to grace the pages of the newly released The Gilded Fork Entertaining At Home: A Year of Dinner Parties by Jennifer Iannolo and Chef Mark Tafoya.

When Chef Mark tweeted about looking for recipe testers for the book, I threw my name in the hat. Over the course of a month I tested four recipes and sent in my feedback as well as photos of the food, all the while thinking how much fun I had doing the testing (and tasting) and wondering if any of my photos were good enough for the book. You can imagine my surprise when Jennifer and Mark said they wanted to use three of my photos! When I received the published book in the mail yesterday and saw the kind notes Jennifer and Mark had written inside the cover and my three photos in the book as well as one on the back cover, I got a little lump in my throat.

None of this was planned, I just jumped in for the fun of working on a cookbook, and for taking a chance I got a lot of personal satisfaction and a little recognition. The project boosted my confidence and motivated me to continue improving my photography and writing. To Chef Mark and Jennifer, hugs and thanks for opening this project up to bloggers and for giving this amateur a chance.

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Grow Your Own #31

Our summer garden is off and running with zucchini blossoming, beans growing, tomatoes hanging on the vines, peppers sprouting, little eggplants budding, herbs getting taller, as well as bunnies, squirrels, and chipmunks trying trying to eat it all before we do. While we only have herbs to cook with so far, the rest of it is doing well and we’re getting excited about the coming harvest.

It’s time for the next round of Grow Your Own, the blogging event that celebrates the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products. Many thanks to Graziana of Erbe in Cucina for hosting our last round, Grow Your Own #30. Read more

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Windows Live Writer

About this time last year I was frustrated as heck with writing blog posts. No matter which platform I used—WordPress, Blogger, or Typepad—writing posts online proved tiresome waiting for pages to load after saving, sometimes losing my work. I created posts offline and copied into posts online, but formatting always screwed up and I spent too much time reformatting. I found a blogging plugin for Open Office that allowed users to upload posts from Open Office Writer, but I had difficulty getting posts formatted properly with the original version and was frustrated that I had paid for it but couldn’t get it to work like I wanted (it used to cost US$10, now free). After hearing about Live Writer from Beth at Techmamas I decided to give it a whirl, and it has truly made my blogging life easier. I use it every day for every single post and page I write, including this one. It’s fast, easy to use, and free.

All of the blogs for which I write are now in Live Writer with the style sheets downloaded, so when I start a new post I just select the blog it’s going to and the Edit and Preview screens automatically update to look like that blog. I switch back and forth between the Edit and Source screens, touching HTML code to add CSS tags where needed. Adding photos is a snap, whether you want to upload from Live Writer or link to one. Live Writer also has support for tables if you need it. Read more

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