Eating. Writing. Retreating.


Yesterday was an informative, fun, and inspiring day at Eat Write Retreat.  Although this conference was a Friday to Sunday deal I was only able to attend Sunday and soak it up I did.  What an awesome panel of instructors and awesome group of writers, photographers and bloggers ready to share their wisdom, knowledge, tips and tricks of this whole world.



The day started with a Food Styling and Photography seminar taught by some of the top, if not the top, and most sought after ladies in the industry here.  They've worked on cookbooks for Williams-Sonoma and do a ton of local and international work.  Enough said, right?

We had to build a sandwich or salad and then they would professionally help us style it and shoot it so we could see what it would be like from the pros.  So amazing.  We might be getting some better lighting equipment up in this house soon.

The next class was on writing taught by another awe inspiring woman who writes for several publications from the New York Times to Food and Wine and more.  I'm pretty sure her resume is endless.  It was great to think about writing myself as I've been enjoying it more and more and it's an area I'd love to focus on more.  I learned a lot and soaked up the experience of describing a sweet potato without describing it's taste.  It was likened to an an October rainbow of colors and the warmth of a fireplace that was bursting with nutrition.  Don't worry, on this here blog I won't make you guess what I'm describing.




After that seminar we all headed over to a seasonal and local lunch provided by McCormick & Schmicks.  The Executive Chef put together an incredible menu for us using local farms.  We started with a local beet salad followed by Alaskan Halibut with bok choy, a medley of mushrooms, and fried spring onion.  Dessert was your not so traditional strawberry shortcake where a rhubarb sauce floated below and soaked nicely into the shortcake with mascarpone whipped cream.  I was full but not stuffed and happy for Anderson to be refining his palette in the womb.


After lunch we headed over to CulinAerie where we had a cooking class taught by Susan Holt.  She was absolutely warm, approachable, and fun to work with sharing stories of her time in culinary school and the comical things her French instructors would say.  "You stupid twice today!" was one of my favorites.  Carla Hall is known to teach a class or two there so I hope to help out for a class taught by the one and only hooty-hoo someday.



Even though we were all stuffed we managed to make and consume some of what we had created.  A grapefruit, avocado and endive salad was light and refreshing followed by chorizo scramble in endive boats.  The final dish was a braised endive with gremolata which isn't traditional here, but apparently extremely common in Europe.



And so the day was finished there.  I met some wonderful ladies both near and far and am looking forward to my virtual world of friends growing.  I sound like such a dork right there.  What I meant to say was...it's nice to meet people who are doing similar things, following similar passions, and living out who they want to be and what they want to do!  Three cheers and one full belly for Eat Write Retreat!

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