Week Filled With Conferences, Cookies, Contests and Crowds (lovely crowds!)

Last week was a whirlwind, leaving my brain (and my SD cards) filled with images, ideas and inspiration.

I have much to process, integrate and digest, so I’ve decided I’ll share a quick set of snapshots of what was going on over the last week in the Food and Hospitality scene around here.  (Yes I know this is sucky SEO-wise, should care. Don’t.)

Terroir 2013 – #Terroir7

the 7th annual Hospitality Industry Symposium bringing together Canada’s “innovative and creative influencers of Canada’s hospitality industry including chefs, food writers, wine and food experts and business leaders.” Essentially we all get together to talk about what’s happening in the industry at home and abroad, connect and learn from each other, and have some amazing food and drink. Because we all know we bond and inspire better when well lubricated with food and drink.

In the collage above, you’ll see Toronto represented along with Vlottenberg, Copenhagen, Galway, Järpen, New York, Malmo, London and Montreal.

and as promised, the cookies:

Next up

Discovered Culinary Competition – #DiscoveredChef

This was a surprise event, for me at least, since I was just dropping by Nella Cucina to take a couple of photos of Chef John Placko for the next Chefs #LoveCDNBeef post.

(Yes, the cat is out of the bag, John is our April Chef. No, this is not the photo I’ll be using in his profile.)

I found myself in the midst of a Chopped-style cooking competition between 4 emerging chefs, and surrounded by their supporters, and chatting with the judges John, Nick Liu and Maurizio Verga.  I stayed and enjoyed the show.

Toronto Taste – #TorontoTaste #GetTasteReady

Sure it hasn’t happened yet, Toronto Taste is on June 9th this year, but as an organiser it was a huge part of my week for which I should get cookies. So I’m including it.

Tickets are available now and we’re in the midst of designing a couple of contests too.  More on that when they launch!

Food Bloggers of Canada Conference – #FBC2013

To close out the week, I attended the first ever Food Bloggers of Canada Conference and it was outstanding.  Oh sure, I arrived to a power outage due to an ice storm and most of the resort had no power for about 4 hours.

The surprise storm also meant some of the other attendees had to fly in a day later than they expected. Canada Customs even got involved as one of the speakers, who was born in Vancouver, got held up by Immigration.  But the power came on mere minutes into registration, everyone made it to the resort in time,  and the conference went smoothly.

I got to share the stage with Jason Bangerter and Alison Fryer, two people who I respect highly and really enjoyed the conversation we had (blog post coming about that too.)

I was very impressed that Mardi, Melissa and Ethan were able to pull off an event with big name speakers from Canada (Dana McCauley, Emily Richards, Lucy Waverman) and the US (David Leite, Dianne Jacob) who were smart, on point and inspiring, while still creating an intimate conference where everyone could meet, interact, and engage.   That’s a hard balance to achieve and they did it wonderfully their first time out of the gate. Impressive!

Travel Bunny came out just to keep things casual and silly.

There were cookies:

and more cookies (or is that kookies?)

It was an inspiring and tiring week, filled with fun, friends and of course food.

Now it’s time to turn that inspiration into action!