2012 Food Blogger Summit

This year marked the second annual bloggers summit at the Kenmore Studio in downtown Chicago. 31 food bloggers from all over the country came out to represent their blogs, learn what’s new in trends for food styling, food photography, and keynote speakers on innovation in the world of Kenmore appliances. They drones of bloggers flew in Friday night and had a dinner reception at the Kenmore Craftsman Brand Live Studio hosted by Jeremy Levin who specializes in unground supper clubs around Chicago. The night was seamless and everyone was making new friends and tweeting the night away.

Saturday was a full line up of workshops and competitions to get the crowd involved in learning, teaching, and above all, having a blast. I was lucky to host this blogger’s summit and had one of the most enjoyable days doing it! The guests were grouped into 5 teams and throughout the day, the competitions kept getting more intense and wild. My personal favorite was the brioche competition where guest chef Katy Wyer from Telegraph gave an outstanding cooking demo and showed how passionate she is towards her craft. The teams had to use her brioche dough to create a delicious and inventive twist on cinnamon rolls and the bloggers got fierce with their ideas. Ultimately, Team Hope and their Rosemary Brioche with Turkey Pomegranate Napoleon took first and the team scored a Kenmore mixer as a take-away prize.

Guest chef Ariel Bagadiong was there to delight the crowd later in the afternoon with his Teriyaki Chicken with Tomato Oil and Garlic Puree. So many moving parts to this day, but the response was overwhelming. The entire day was filled with excitement, tons of cool prizes (two bloggers took home a Grab n Go refrigerator from Kenmore), and a lot of new friendships were created.

A special kudos to the team who put so much effort into making this summit a complete success! Looking forward to next years. Happy Eating everyone!