IFBC (International Food Bloggers Conference) hosted by Foodista has been a whirlwind of activity, and we still have one day to go!  Between the sessions, networking, food, drink, and goodie bag so packed I have to ship it home, I’m really enjoying my first food bloggers conference.

I landed in Seattle on Friday with enough time to meet Mike and Amanda for lunch, the dynamic teaching duo of the information- packed New Media course I’m taking through Writers.com.  If you’re looking to start a blog, or refine an already existing one, I highly recommend signing up for this 10- week on-line boot camp.  Mardi from eat.live.travel.write encouraged me to look into it, and it’s made my foray into the world of blogging much easier.  Amanda is the writer, Mike the techie, and they’re the Superman and Lois Lane of blog instructors, dealing with frantic queries and empowering students to be masters of our domain (pun intended).

Hotel Monaco is a great place to stay.  Right in the heart of downtown, the rooms are quirky and luxurious, and the staff extremely helpful and courteous.  This will definitely be my go-to accommodation here.

Friday evening had us meeting the event sponsors over unlimited wine, POM cocktails, lamb chops, molecular gastronomy, and luscious cupcakes courtesy of Cupcake Royale, to name but a few (it’s worth ordering a dozen salted caramel cupcakes right now- trust me, I’ll wait here while you go do that.)  An interview with Morgan Spurlock, creator of Academy Award nominee shock-umentary “Supersize Me,” was the evening’s highlight.  Spurlock, who is raising his 3 ½ year old son vegan, stressed the importance of combating the American obesity epidemic through focusing on children’s health, advocating eating dinner together as a family and home cooking with fresh ingredients as two key elements.  He talked about how bloggers can have an impact, asking the million- dollar question:

“How do you reach people who don’t already give a sh*t?… Food bloggers [currently] reach an audience who are already open… [Bloggers] need to form real relationships, take it beyond blogging- host events, get beyond the words, get involved…”

“Take it to the street!” chimed in Warren Etheredge, interviewing Spurlock.

Morgan advocated partnering with another blogger for an event, having a restaurant donate space, calling media, organizing a field trip to a local farm, anything that would help people care about what and how they eat, to literally create a national movement of engaging people with their diet and how what we eat affects us and our families.

Today’s sessions included The Art of Recipe Writing with Amy Sherman, Dianne Jacob and Kristine Kidd; Search Engine Optimization, Building Traffic, and Social Media; Law & Ethics of Food Blogging (which although geared towards the mostly American audience, was interesting to listen to), and a relaxed, inviting keynote address from James Oseland, Editor-in-Chief of Saveur (you might recognize him from Top Chef Masters) who told his story of getting into the food industry, which wove from SouthEast Asia and sleeping on the floors of Buddhist monasteries, to a casual lunch in a Brazilian blogger’s backyard, to the LA movie industry, the New Jersey turnpike, and everything in between.

The sessions have certainly been informative for a new blogger, but the networking has been the most valuable aspect thus far.  It’s inspiring to be in a room of 250 people as passionate about food as I am, and community is the biggest strength this industry has.  I’ll certainly be posting a few wonderful, new (to me) blogs on my blogroll; check out Robin at www.achowlife.com to start.

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