Camp Blogaway Inspires 100 Food Bloggers

Chef Patricia

One hundred campers in the Big Bear Mountains – The super moon – Threat of bears & critters – Camp Blogaway this year lived up to my expectations.  This camp designed by Patti Londre of Worth the Whisk is a haven for food bloggers and foodies like me.  This is where we come to learn about what’s new and how to hone our craft.   A photography session and how to navigate through the social media landscape were my choices at the breakaway sessions.  I learned a thing or two.  Hopefully my photos keep improving!  After last year’s Camp, I entered the Facebook era.  I’m still working on Twitter and now there’s Pinterest – a lot for my brain to compute!

Products from numerous sponsors for us to try out. Let’s get cookin!

We all received the most humongous swag bags.  A treasure chest of products every Chef or foodie wants to try out!  The PaperChef Culinary Parchment Paper is going to come in handy at my Knife Skills class where we’ll be making Chicken/Fish/Veggie Packets from all the veggies we will be cutting.

A mango tasting with different flavors tested our taste buds.

Then there were all the food demos.  My favorite was was a lesson in how to cut open a Mango and a tasting of mangos at different stages of ripening with other sweet and savory ingredients. Miss Cooking Teacher (yours truly) cut her finger while cleaning the super sharp knife we were given from Cutco after we sliced some Idaho potatoes for our dinner.  There was a Gourmet Garden herb tasting and a Kerrygold cheese tasting and lots of wine flowing from Wente vineyards.

Kerrygold tasting of Dubliner, Aged Cheddar with Irish Whiskey, Cashel Blue

The pairing of Wente’s EnTwine Merlot or Chardonnay paired so well with Kerrygold’s Dubliner cheeese (I buy this cheeese at Costco by the kilo for my mac and cheese!), I could have made a meal out of that.  If you find Kerrygold’s Aged Cheddar with Irish Whiskey, buy it!   This cheese had so much flavor – LOVE!

Wente’s Entwined Tasting – Clever Name!

We tased an avocado honey and an alfalfa honey.  These dark honeys are more robust in flavor.  The Honey Board taught us more about this natural sweetener.  Did you know that there are over 300 types of honey?  and Did you you know that you can cure a cold or heal a wound with honey?  Nancy from Melissa’s made us a beautiful fruit tray every morning to keep us healthy.

100 Happy Food Bloggers!

Even so, with all the meals and tastings, I managed to gain three new pounds at Camp Blogaway in two days, but it was so worth it.  Look at our picture together with all the nature.  Doesn’t that look like fun?   It was fun and I’ll be back for more next year!