Taste of Chicago Ticket Giveaway

This Friday through July 3, Chicago will be taken over by the nation’s largest food festival, Taste of Chicago. I can't wait to check out the festivities and sample food from nearly 60 different Chicago restaurants.

It's easy to go nuts at festivals like this one and gorge yourself on all the different offerings, but this year, Humana is one of the festival sponsors and they're promoting healthy and tasty alternatives at the Taste of Chicago to keep you on the right track while taking part in the fun. They've put together the Humana Healthier Choices guide that showcases 20 healthier appetizers, entrees and desserts from 17 participating Chicago restaurants. All of the Humana Healthier Choices, evaluated and selected by a panel of local medical experts, are low in calories, sodium and saturated fat, but high on taste – and will be marked with the “green apple” symbol on the menu boards at the festival.

Bloggers like Food Diva will be doing demos at the Taste of Chicago.

Humana has offered my family two sets of complimentary tickets (24 tickets) to Taste of Chicago and has also provided me with two additional sets for you to giveaway to one of my readers. Perhaps we could even arrange to experience the Taste of Chicago together!and encourage your winning reader to do the same.

HOW TO ENTER:
To enter to win, please leave me a comment about whether you've ever attended the Taste of Chicago. I'll select the winner at random on Friday, June 24. If you win, you'll pick up your tickets at the Humana booth at the Taste of Chicago.

And there's many ways to earn additional chances to win, just make sure to return here to leave comments for each additional entry. You can:

• Follow @Frenchfoodiemom on Twitter
• Tweet about this contest.
• Like the Chefdruck Musings Fan Page
• Post about this contest on your Facebook page.
• Post about this contest on your blog.
• Subscribe to Chefdruck Musings.
• Tweet about this contest on multiple days, and you'll get multiple entries. Just don't forget to leave me a comment each time you perform an entry action so that you get credit.

Congrats to Commenter #13 - Just Another Mom - she won the tickets to Taste of Chicago!

Finding Your Visual Voice - BlogherFood '11

This is Day 2 of BlogHerFood. I'm in a photography session about Finding your Visual Voice. Three professional food photographers are speaking: Aran Goyoaga, Stephanie Shih, and Tami Hardeman.

Each did a presentation on their philosophy.

Aran Goyoaga - Food Stylist:

•  accidentally deleted all that I captured from this part of the session. :(
• Key points: Make garnishes look like they just fell there.
• I use daylight for my food shots. Love early morning for travel, farm, or kid shots.
• Use my macro lens primarily.
• I often use the same surfaces on my blog. I get criticized for that. But as a blogger, I think it's so lovely to show the surfaces you live with. Makes food more personal. Makes blog more personal.
• Bruised, natural fruit can be beautiful.
• If shooting natural light, the second floor of my home gets the best effects.
• Think of the season and the different moods you want to impart in the picture on the season.
• Build height with garnishes. Add texture with props.
• Copy other's pictures to grow with your work.
• Learn the light in your life. Learn the manual settings of your camera.
• Practice, practice, practice.
• When shooting meat, cut into eat, let the juices run, make it natural. 
• When you take a photo and divide it into 3, your eye goes to the second third. Make sure what you want your readers to see is in the second third. Also, your eye naturally drifts to the right. 
• Don't shoot in direct light. Filter it through parchment paper, cheap sheers, or screens.

 Tami Hardeman - Running with Tweezers

• When I shoot something for my blog, it takes me 15 minutes. And i shoot what I eat. Completely different than how I shoot on set.
• I fight my professional instinct to sort through three pounds of strawberries to find the perfect one. 
• I started with a point and shoot.
• Looks like crap, tastes like delicious is something you sometimes have to accept.  
• Don't get caught up in the fact that you don't have expensive dishes.
• Love how Jamie Oliver is shooting his food. So natural.
• Canvas ceramics plates are my new obsession.
• I get obsessed with napkins. I will literally think of foods that go with napkins I love. Play with the props that you do have. 
• Great cheap prop surface: unpainted shelves from Ikea that you can sand and paint any color you want.

Stephanie Shih - (@shihbakes)

• When I first started out doing food photography, I needed some dessert shots for my clients. I thought of it as an exercise. It shows in my pictures. They have no personality.
• AVOID THE TILT!
• Don't strive to be on foodgawker. Strive to be an artist.
• SCENE: mood, feeling, emotion, moment. Strive to pull the reader into the photograph. 
• Character. Food talks to me. I try to put who I am on an image.
• I want every blog post to be a distinct moment. My images make it clear when each scene in the moment transitions to the next, without my readers having to look at the words.
• Find a Mentor. The biggest impacts on developing my visual voice was finding one. Doesn't have to be a food photographer. Just bug them with questions. 
• Learn your lighting. Play with it. Understand shadows.
• Learn Dark. Get yourself a black foam core board.
• When using your manual setting, always use manual focus on your camera.
  

Branding and Design 101 for Food Bloggers

I'm at BlogHer Food in Atlanta for the next two days. Amazing to be amidst so many other food lovers in one place. Meeting bloggers with inspiring names like FieldsofCake and OMG! Yummy. Definitely amidst my people.

The first session I'm attending is Branding and Design 101 for Food Bloggers. As usual, I'll share what I'm learning semi-live.
The speakers are two fun and experienced designers who have worked with major fortune 500 brands as well as many in the blog and non-profit world:
Irving from Eat the Love
Sabrina from the Tomato Tart

Poll of how long people have had their blogs.
Irving: Who here wants to rebrand or is terrified to do so?
Branding is basically who you are, presenting to yourself to the food community and your readership. For our purposes, branding is you. What you look like, what you sound like, your look, and your logo.

Who here wants to hire a designer vs. doing it themselves?

Why are you blogging? This is the first question to answer. Are you blogging to entertain your family and friends or do you want to go beyond that? Also need to ask who you are writing for, who do you want your audience to be.

Where do you see your blog in one year? Where do you see it in three years? In five years?

What is your brand? How would you describe it, distill it in adjectives?
example: Chic, relaxed, healthy, approachable, natural, real, authentic, friendly, genuine. Describes 101 Cookbooks.
example: energetic, charming, vivacious, fun, dynamic, friendly, sassy, colorful, approachable.: the Pioneer Woman.
When doing this, be really realistic and honest.
If you're David Sedaris, don't try to be Molly Wizenberg.
You can be sassy and snarky and write about food. If you're shy, your writing voice should reflect that as well. Your voice and your blog should reflect you.
Find a unique viewpoint, that reflects who you are. Reach for really descriptive,rich, luscious, unusual adjectives. Don't use generic adjectives like yummy, awesome, amazing. You won't stand out and they won't mean anything.


Creating a Logo Mark
A Logo Mark is a symbol, it's more elemental than a full logo. We recommend you hire a designer for that. Don't just buy something off of iStockphoto because hundreds of other people will have that. We see the same cakes and cupcakes all over the place. Instead of doing that, you're much better off creating a word mark. Coca-Cola is a great example of that. There are hundreds of fonts out there and you can create your own more unique word mark.
Examples of Word Marks: David Lebovitz, La Tartine Gourmande, Matt Bites, What Katie Ate, Cafe Fernando, White on Rice Couple.
Using a picture can be unique, but it will not be able to transition to black and white and go across mediums.


Finding a Font. Look on your computer.
Don't use papyrus or comic sans.
If you've seen a font you like. Websites to play with: Identifont or What The Font. Search fonts by similarity or individual letters. What the font lets you upload font images. Other sites: Myfonts.com, typography.com, fontshop.com, veer.com, chank.com. Fonts will cost you money. Free fonts often only give you a to z, not numbers. When you buy a font, you don't need to buy the entire family.
Free font websites: myfonts.com (free tab), theleagueofmoveabletype.com, dafont.com, chank.com.


Make a Mood Board. What's a mood board?
A mood board is a collage of images to help focus you on what you want your project to be about. Artists and designers use it all the time to help understand the themes and concepts of the project. You don't have to be a designer to create a mood board. Even Christina Aguilera uses them for her albums.
If you've ever visually bookmarked an image, you've created a mood board. Use sites like Pinterest.
When creating a mood board, go outside of your specific focus. Go beyond food - to cars, friends, kids. Find images that are both inspirational and aspirational. Have things that inspire you and things that you are heading towards. You can get tons of inspiration from FoodGawker, notcot.org, designspongeonline.com. You can also use your own photo album.

Playing with Color
Kuler.adobe.com is a great website to create a color palette. You can upload photographs from your mood board to create your own color palette.
ColourLovers.com is another great color website. Shows you many different color palettes as well as identifies the palettes certain websites are using.
ColorExplorer.com also lets you upload photos and identify color palettes.

Critiquing a Blog
Put content and social media above the fold.
Fresh content is low on the page and very narrow.
tag clouds skew towards a male audience whereas food blogs tend to have more female audience.
this site has a fixed bio at the top which must be annoying for very loyal users.
People are going to blogs to read the content and it should not be buried.
A newspaper doesn't bury the lede.

Building from Scratch - What sites inspire you.
Go to other blogs and find a commonality of what you like.
Lots of white, negative space. Big juicy photos. Navigation that is really clear. Big, bold exciting type.
Is the social media prominent enough?

What About Themes?
http://themedesigngallery.com (wordpress & tumblr)
and others that flashed too quickly on the screen.

Other Don'ts
Giant headers hide your content.
Don't use a generic template without modifying it. Unless you modify a generic template with your personal watermark.
Hard to read curvy typefaces (too swirly, curly, or small). Too many typefaces leads to type salad.
Unreadable words on top of images. You may think that white type on top of black images, that hurts the eyes of anyone over thirty. You want to avoid eye fatigue. Reverse type is
You need a way for people to get back home. Need usable navigation.
You need an about page. Talk about who you are, why you are doing the blog. Place for people to know you.
No animation. No falling sprinkles. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
If anyone wants to put an ad on your site that has auto sound or other animation. Just say NO!

Question from the audience:
- How do you find a designer? Reach out to blogs you really like and ask them who their designers are. Other suggestion from the audience, go to a local design school and hire a student.
- What should you ask the designer to work on? Ask a designer for a vector eps file, it's a file that you can blow up to any size. Also transparent png and jpeg. If your designer is sophisticated, you should ask for variance for that logo - horizontal, really small, and in various sizes. At minimum, ask for black and white and two color variation.
- iconfinders.net has gazillions of free social media icons.

Skipping Spring and Kicking Summer Off with a Barbecue

Spring has been long in coming here in Chicago. So long in coming that we were still wearing our winter coats and wishing we hadn't lost our gloves last week while walking to school.  There's just nothing good or right about winter coats and red fingers in May, so we decided to send mother nature a message by hosting a cookout. Perhaps the smells of grilling steak will have a positive effect on the gray skies blanketing our city.

I don't care if it's raining, hailing, or even snowing on Sunday. Our grill will be fired up and emitting the powerfully delicious smells of summer. Here's a sneak peak at the menu:

• Rib Eye Steaks with Sassy Salt Rub
• Lime and Cumin Marinated Skirt Steaks
• Grilled Fingerling Potatoes
• Mexican Style Roasted Corn
• Tomato, Cucumber and Sweet Pea Salad
• Grilled Pound Cake and Pineapple with a Dulce de Leche drizzle
• and plenty of refreshing Watermelon Agua Frescas

The Bush's Grillin' Beans team has generously offered us some grilling beans and some barbecue supplies to help us in our quest to kick off summer. I sampled all three of their latest flavors: Steakhouse Recipe, Texas Ranchero, and Southern Pit BBQ and chose the one that would best complement our menu. We'll be serving up some Steakhouse Grillin' Beans to our guests to go with their steaks. Everything will definitely taste like summer, regardless of the weather forecast!

In the next week, after our cookout, I'll be hosting a giveaway here on Chefdruck Musings of the same barbecue kit and Grillin' Beans sampler for one of my readers to win. I won't spill any more details about the barbecue kit items, but I can promise that, if you win, you too will want to host a cookout asap to show off your new props to your friends. Stay tuned for giveaway details and make sure to sign up for my RSS feed in your email inbox to not miss it.

My Bush's Grillin' Beans cookout is one of ten that will be occurring across the country in the next few weeks to kick of summer. I am being compensated by Bush's Grillin' Beans to host my barbecue and write about it on my blog. What a great excuse to have a party!

Rich Dialogue at the Center for Food Integrity Conference, #CFI11

McDonald's Headquarters and Hamburger University are just a few miles from my house, around the corner from our nearest mall. I drive past it frequently, mostly to ferry my daughter to get the latest must-have (according to her) fashions from Justice, but I never thought I'd have a reason to actually enter the campus and walk the halls where chicken nugget dipping sauces are invented. This morning I did just that, to speak on a blogger panel to a large group of agricultural producers and food manufacturers organized by the Center for Food Integrity along with Sara from Self Made Mom, Emily from West of the Loop, and Michelle from Honest and Truly.

We had been given the list of attendees in advance of the event, and were braced for some hostile questions from groups representing pork producers, corn farms, soybean farms, and many other large agricultural players. After all, fast food and big farms often get a bad rap from mom bloggers, especially urban mom bloggers who shop at Whole Foods and farmers' markets. But the discussion was open and incredibly insightful for all involved, and I walked away feeling great from the dialogue.

Some of the most interesting questions included:

• Why do we blog? To have a voice, to educate, to share our passions with like-minded individuals, to be part of a global discussion.
• Where do we get our information about food production and how do we sort through the biases of various publications both online and offline? The New York Times is an important resource for us, as well at the New Yorker, trusted friends and blogs, and websites of different viewpoints. But we don't blindly just accept what we read. We go beyond the first page of Google search results to hear from multiple viewpoints and find our own middle road, our own version of the truth.
• What is our reach as bloggers? We shared some of our stats, explained blog readership, Twitter influence, and Facebook's viral power.
• Are we aware of the alarming growth of the world's population and how to meet it with food production? I spoke about how that, along with the growth in childhood obesity in America, keeps me up at night. We need to find food solutions that work for the entire world, not just people like me who can afford to choose to buy organic and grass-fed.
• What are the top worries when it comes to food production? The environment, population growth, pesticides, GMOs.
• Do we feel enough is being done to safeguard children with food allergies? Emily and Michelle spoke about how much they had to educate themselves to read labels and how all parents of allergy-suffering children must do that. The real gap is in the restaurant industry. Waitstaff simply must get better educated about allegies to better understand the consequences of a wrong answer.
• How do we shop for food in our urban neighborhoods and how that differs from rural food supplies? One farmer explained how he would need to drive 3 hours to get to a farmer's market. So different than our vision of bucolic farm life.
• How do we choose what hot topics to address on our blogs?
• Will blogging be around five years from now? I answered a resounding yes. There will always be a demand and a need for long form writing on the web, regardless of the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, tumblr and whatever new micro sites come along. The discussion as a result of blog posts may move to different platforms, but blogs in some form will remain an important part of social media.
• Outside of forums like these, how often do we really talk about food with our friends? Emily shared some typical discussions about supermarkets, recommended products, and cooking tips that occur daily on playgrounds, at playgroups, and at book groups with our friends.
• What's a good way for members of the agricultural world to engage with social media influencers in a positive way? We spoke about the importance of authenticity and transparency in leaving blog comments. Many attendees had blogs and I can't wait to discover them, as well as participate in #agchat on Twitter. We need to foster this dialogue.

But the question I was most excited about was whether we would be interested in visiting farms to see first hand how our food is produced. I had the opportunity to visit some corn farms and some dairies last year and those trips were the highlight of my blogging experiences. To get to ask farmers sometimes dumb, and other times tough questions about their struggles and their businesses was so fascinating. It only left me wanting to see and learn more first-hand. I would love to travel to see cattle farms, pork farms, and egg farms as well, to better understand the issues we face in food production.

As a result of today's discussion, it looks as though I may have the opportunity to do that in the Chicago area. If you'd like to join me, let me know and I'll be sure to pass you the details of the trips as and if they become available. We can look into chartering buses, or at the very least, carpooling, and if kids are involved, all the better. It's not enough to try to buy local, organic, and stay on top of relevant articles. I believe only good can come out of information sharing and that the more we know and understand about where our food comes from, the better equipped we will be to face the future.

Chocolate Meringue Swirls for the Chicago Food Blogger Bake Sale

This weekend, Share our Strength has organized a massive food blogger bake sale across the country, a national effort to end childhood hunger in America. In Chicago, our Chicago Food Blogger Bake Sale will be on Saturday from 12 to 3 at the Poison Cup Wine and Art Boutique. Last year's national bake sale raised over $1 Million!

If you're in the area, plan to stop by and treat yourself to goodies baked by over 20 Chicago food bloggers including:

• Maris from In Good Taste 
• Emily from West of the Loop 
• Kelly from the Pink Apron 
• Joelen from What's Cookin' Chicago who I have the pleasure of editing on BlogCritics Tastes 
• and, of course, yours truly.

I always have a tough time choosing just one cookie to bake for an occasion. My favorite are these elegant yet deceptively fudgy chocolate meringue swirl cookies. Their delicate shell yields to a moist chocolatey center, and they're surprisingly easy to make, easy to whip up in under an hour.

I have a few other ideas and I may end up making more than one cookie. Stay tuned for tomorrow's dulce de leche sandwich cookies, as I continue my love affair with making batches of dulce de leche on the stove.

Chocolate Meringue Swirl Cookies 
(Makes 50)
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30-35 minutes
Ingredients
4 oz semisweet chocolate (chopped) (about ½ cup)
4 large egg whites
1 cup of sugar

1. Preheat oven to 275°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or silpat; set aside. 
2. In a medium saucepan, bring 1-2 inches water to a simmer. Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Melt, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. In a bowl, combine egg whites and sugar. Place over simmering water and whisk until mixture is hot, 4-5 minutes. Transfer bowl to mixer; beat on high speed until stiff peaks form and mixture is lukewarm, 4-5 minutes.
4. Remove bowl from mixer and drizzle melted chocolate over egg whites, folding in with a rubber spatula until just marbled. Barely mix it! The more you stir, the less interesting these meringues will be.
5. With a soup spoon, drop batter in large mounds spaced 1 ½ - 2 inches apart on prepared sheets. Bake until crunchy outside and still chewy inside, 35-40 minutes. 
6. Transfer pans to wire rack to cool completely before removing cookies from parchment. Store in airtight container.

The Disney Social Media Moms Conference: an Unforgettable Family Vacation

I heard about the Disney Social Media Moms Conference too late last year to attend. The bulk of the conference spots were awarded by invites and the handful of spots opened up to anyone interested were snapped up in seconds. When the conference took place, I read the tweet stream with great interest, noting that the speakers were top notch and that the evening entertainment (Joe Jonas, Demi Lovato) were unbelievable. And I decided to do all that I could to get us to attend in 2011.

Mickey and Minnie posing with the kids after hugs all around.

This year, registration was handled differently, with the majority of the spots available on a first come first serve basis. I logged on right when the window opened, and provided the requested background information to apply. A few hours later, I received confirmation that we had been accepted. For less than $500, our family of 5 would be staying at the Grand Floridian for 3 nights including breakfasts and dinners, and would have a 7 day park hopper pass. We started counting down the days immediately.

There's nothing like a Pluto hug.

We got back late last night from Orlando. It was a vacation filled with once in a lifetime memories for our family, a chance to do Disney as VIPs, to peek behind the scenes and to have character encounters galore. The conference day was amazing for me as well, hearing from Matt Jacobson, head of market development at Facebook and Chris Brogan, but being able to attend a summit at Disney with my family and give them all such unforgettable memories was definitely the highlight of the trip. We'd been to Disney many times before, but never like this.

With Darrell Green at the Disney Magic of Healthy Living Competition that Bella participated in.

Mark your calendars and begin checking Twitter for the #DisneySMMoms hashtag in late November for 2012 sign up details. I hope that next spring, you'll be embarking for a once in a lifetime Disney vacation combined with a quality social media conference with your family.

#Disney Social Media Moms Conference - Music and Inspiration from Susan Egan and Georgia Stitt

Susan Egan is a Tony nominated Broadway star, movie and TV actress. Georgia Stitt is an award winning composer and lyrist. Both are moms who juggle playdates and have made tough compromises between family and career in their lives.

They sang some of their own songs as well as popular Broadway tunes. My favorite was the You Tube sensation the Mom Song. How I wish I could belt out my frustrations like that! I might have more success when yelling at my kids.

#DisneySMMomsConference - Matt Jacobson from Facebook

The second #Disney Social Media Moms conference speaker was Matt Jacobson, Head of Market Development for Facebook.

He marveled at how different this audience was from his usual audiences, because we juggle personal and public personas. In many ways, our problems and questions are similar to what Marc Zuckerberg had to address when Facebook got so big unexpectedly. The conversation was informal and jumped around. The following are my jumble of notes.

• Matt Jacobson: Use the Facebook Notes Functionality to post your blog posts to your Facebook page.
• Matt Jacobson: Promote your blog on FB with this cycle: Write a blog post - post to your page - advertise - publish to fans - interact - write another blog post.
• Matt Jacobson: the age of 13 has been established for privacy issues but it's up to you to determine when your kids are ready. When my daughters turned 13 I tasked them with explaining how they would use it. It took them a year to be able to prove it to me.
• facebook stories - inspiring place to see the power of FB reach.
• Inside Facebook blog. See the latest FB developments. Just announced a groupon like Deals business.
• Are you on Twitter? Matt Jacobson is not.
• Andrea Deckhart - if I import my blog in Notes, you get the impressions instead of me. Are you considering a rev share model if we drive traffic to FB? Matt Jacobson - we don't do revenue sharing - you should look at Facebook as a distribution channel, a way to grow traffic
• Matt Jacobson: Decoupling Facebook.com from Facebook is the future. there are 700 sites that are using Facebook credentials from tehir login including Huff post. People are logging in throughout the web using Facebook. This is a huge new trend to be rolling out in the next few months. New plug ins are coming to bring Facebook functionality to your personal sites.
• Matt Jacobson & conference attendee: Skittles does a great job of using Facebook. Stuff people want to read about. Not all corporate.
• Ashley Forrester - Klout builds your Klout score based on both your personal page and your fan page. Will there be a way soon to split the two?
• Matt Jacobson: Building Facebook application is a pretty good business. Facebook doesn't make revenue directly from it, so I'm not schilling something. It's just a good business that you should get into.
• Someone asked, "Will we ever have the ability to communicate with our fans who are not our friends?" Probably not. We are very concerned about spam. Communicate with your fans using your feed.
• There are so few people who want to do what you guys do, manage multiple pages, have a public and personal persona, you guys are asking for capabilities few people use.
• I asked: Like many here, I was more aggressive on twitter than on Facebook, keeping it open to just my friends and family. I'm now changing that, but frustrated when the conversation happens on Facebook instead of my blog. Will you be rolling out plug ins to link Facebook comments on personal blogs? 
• Matt Jacobson: Facebook decoupling is going to be the big move this year. Credits, using facebook login on other sites. Stay on top of the Developers Wiki. Integration of comments on personal blogs is coming very soon.

Live at the Disney Social Media Moms Conference with Meg Crofton

I'm at the Disney Social Media Moms Conference, spending the day with some powerful speakers while my husband and the kids are at Epcot. Our first speaker was Meg Crofton - President of Walt Disney World Resort.

Her comments really highlighted the power and reach of Disney as a travel company, a dining company, and even a distributor of wine.

Walt Disney World Resorts:

• 62,000 cast members
• 3,000 pounds of linens and towels
• largest single site purveyor of wine in the world
• 472 places to get a meal or snack on property. Could eat 3 times a day until August and not repeat.
• Disney buses log more than 20million miles a year

walt disney parks

• 5 locations worldwide (and another on the way)
• 3 cruise ships
• travel company with trips worldwide
• 1000s of possible vacation experiences

"We are in the guest experience business. Our mission is to help our guests make memories." - Meg Crofton

And making memories is just what my husband and kids are doing while I'm sitting here being inspired by amazing speakers. Breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends at the Grand Floridian.

Crafting Healthier Meals with the Collective Wisdom of the Blogosphere

The true power of the blogosphere lies in bringing people together to inspire each other. I get the greatest ideas for new dishes while chatting on Twitter or reading blog posts. Last Wednesday, the talented women of the Motherhood organized an online cooking class on Healthy Meal Makeovers and asked me, Rachel, and Renee to host. The class lasted an hour, and the inspiration flew fast and furious the entire time.



Here are a few of the tips and ideas shared by the incredible women who participated.

• Many agreed with me that diet was a dirty word. Rachel added that for her, it's about moderation and small changes, not drastic diets.
• Renee shared a great resource for quick meal inspiration called ReadySetEat and pointed out that an entire section of it is dedicated to healthy meals.
• To help kids choose healthier snacks, Ilina suggested edamame or eggplant hummus because kids love things they can dip and spread. She doctors up store-bought hummus with a squeeze of lemon juice, fresh cracked pepper, oregano, and a drizzle of olive oil.Other participants shared links to popcorn trail mix and Tricia's homemade granola bars.
• Head over to the Motherhood to see the long and exciting list of healthy appetizer recipes participants shared. I'm planning on making these baked sweet potato chips and these zucchini nachos.
• I loved Debbie's suggestions to add more vegetables in meals by mixing canned pumpkin in with browned ground turkey for taco night and adding in shredded carrots to tomato sauce on pizza or pasta, and moistening meatloaf with shredded zucchini.
• I'm very tempted to try these healthy entrees: black bean and pineapple enchiladas, sweet turkey and quinoa meatballs, and chicken tortilla soup.
• And finally we dug into healthy desserts, many starring fruit, but also using alternative sugars, or just small quantities plated beautifully. I shared my clementine sorbet topped with meringue, my make ahead chocolate souffle, and simple grilled peaches.
• I can't wait to try this one-ingredient banana ice cream.
  

Although the class is now closed, you can still read the transcript at the Motherhood.

When You Wish Upon a Star... Tears Flow

It never fails. I've seen the full Magic Kingdom fireworks show about five times now, but it makes me teary every time. It's all so perfectly timed, with the music and the childish simplicity of the power of a wish, that it captures the magic of childhood so well, so overwhelmingly, that I tear up, fully conscious that I'm a silly grown woman hopped up on mommy hormones. Tonight I stood on the balcony of the contemporary resort, with the music piped in to enhance the pastel explosions down below, and the tears slid down my face like clockwork.

When I walked back into the room filled with the other Traveling Mom contributors, I spied wet streaks on many of their faces. Earlier that evening, I was inspired by all these bold, amazing, creative women who effortlessly shared their bucket list dreams to learn to pilot a plane, to travel to Antarctica to see penguins, to take a dangerous trip to feel the power of the Middle East unrest.

I'm thrilled to be spending three days at Disney with these powerful dreamers, strong women with bold visions, who are not afraid to let their feelings show, not afraid to wish upon a star.

Join Me for my Healthy Meal Makeovers Online Cooking Connections Class

I hate dieting. I've said it before, and I've said it again. I hate any type of extreme, temporary eating solution. It's not sustainable, not healthy, and most of all, not good food. But that doesn't mean that my jeans don't get tight, just like anyone else, and that I don't have a few strategies I turn to to get them feeling great again.

This Wednesday, along with Rachel from Southern Fairy Tale and Renee from Cutie Booty Cakes, I'll be teaching an online cooking class at the Motherhood about Healthy Meal Makeovers. We're going to share lots of great recipes and great tips on eating healthy but delicious meals.

I'll be tackling desserts, because I know that even when you're trying to lose a little weight, the sugar cravings still strike. I have some great recipes to satisfy your sweet tooth without sacrificing your favorite jeans. I'll even share an intense chocolate dessert which you'll thank me for if you love chocolate as much as I do.

Register to join us live for the class at 1PM, or read the transcript on the Motherhood anytime after. We're going to be joined with 10 amazing co-hosts like Ilina from Dirt and Noise and Katie Goodman from Good Life Eats, and and the discussion is sure to be filled with great info. And if you have some questions and know you're busy at that time, let us know so we can answer them during the chat. 

Dolly Parton Brings Chicago to their Feet

She toddled onto the stage, the long pink fringes of her skin-tight hot pink skirt framing her perfect legs, a living Barbie doll. The crowd was still roiling with resentment at the presence of Governor Quinn, hissing and booing the man who just double Illinois taxes. She dealt with the mood with one girlyish, "Well, hello there!" and brought the crowd to their feet, rushing to the stage.

When Governor Quinn informed the crowd that it was Dolly Parton's birthday and that he was declaring January 19th to be Dolly Parton day in Chicago, the crowd went wild and broke into a spontaneous and strangely moving and respectful version of the Happy Birthday song. Even at 65, Dolly Parton is still an unquestioned sex symbol. She stood swaying and smiling to the tribute, laughing occasionally into the mike like a blushing schoolgirl unused to all the attention.

Parton was in town for the premiere of the stage version of 9 to 5, the 1980 movie she starred in with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin about three secretaries who kidnap their sexist boss and revolutionize their office environment. Parton wrote the shows score and lyrics.

The play had a brief run on Broadway with mixed reviews before shutting down to be retooled for a national tour. One of the revisions included a greater Dolly Parton presence through a video voice over during the opening 9 to 5 song number. The signature song about the hopeless drudgery of the weekday routine is the main theme of the show. Prior to the Chicago premiere, the show stopped in Tennessee, Atlanta and Indianapolis where it was well received.

Before stepping off the stage, Dolly charmed the crowd of critics one last time with a wink and a request, "And if you don't like the show, ya'll just keep your mouth shut!" But the tongue in cheek plea was unnecessary.

9 to 5 is a wonderful way to spend two hours. The music is fun and moving. The three female leads are strong singers who easily get the crowd laughing, including American Idol runner up Diana DeGarmo in the role of Doralee Rhodes, the big-breasted and big-hearted Southern girl who Parton played in the movie. I wouldn't have thought that a stage show about the workplace would resonate during these high unemployment times, but the message actually helps us to appreciate how far we've come to ban sexism and discrimination in the workplace. Think of it as a cheery Mad Men musical.

9 to 5 will be playing in Chicago at the new Bank of America Theater until January 30th. The birthday girl will most likely not appear at future performances, but the show will no doubt send you back out into the Chicago cold with a smile on your face.

Inspiration at the Special K Challenge Weigh In

On any given day, the blogosphere is roiling with scandal. We bloggers are an opinionated bunch and sometimes the best conceived brand campaigns spark off heated debate. This was the case last week with the new Kellogg's Special K Challenge.

The challenge consists of substituting two of your daily meals with Kellogg's Special K cereal and eating up to 2 Kellogg's Special K snacks each day. As you would expect, the decrease in calorie intake will result in a weight loss of up to 6 pounds. This concept alone didn't make too many ripples amongst the blogarati, but the accompanying events did, where people step on a scale and instead of seeing a readout of their weight, they receive an inspiring word that reflects what they'll gain when they lose.

I went to the Chicago Special K Challenge Scale event last week at Union Station. I was paid to interview participants, take pictures and generally report back on the experience. My participation was coordinated by Ketchum and The Motherhood. I was excited to go. Even though I personally wouldn't turn to cereal and snacks to kick start a diet, I know plenty of people who would welcome the structure of the Special K Challenge to see some quick results and get inspired to begin living healthier. I also couldn't wait to see the community support going on in the event. I love the idea of women coming together to support each other to make their dreams come true.

That is exactly the same look I wear when stepping on my scale at home.

Seeing the Special K Challenge in action was even more inspiring than I expected. I stepped on the giant scale as soon as I arrived. And it was much more daunting than I expected. I knew that I wouldn't be seeing the dreaded number on the screen reminding me of every chocolate I shouldn't have eaten over Christmas, but as the numbers spun on the screen, I still felt that pit in my stomach.

Irrational, I know, but I was relieved to see a word instead of a number.

When I finally got my word, "PIZZAZZ," full of energy and fun, I was filled with relief and excitement. I stepped off the scale energized and ready to take on the world.

I lingered, watching and talking to others who had just stepped off the scale. The passing emotions on their faces mirrored mine.

I didn't expect men to have a similar reaction, I somehow claimed weight issues as a female issue, but they too were visibly excited to kickstart their nutrition goals. Everyone shared their words, posed for pictures with them next to their face, written on the side of a Special K box.
SASS
MOXIE
FANTABULOUS
MOMENTUM
JOY

The mood around the scale was happy, supportive, and optimistic. In the middle of a drab train station, on a cold, snowy Chicago day, people were smiling, laughing, clapping each other on the back, wishing each other good luck with their diets.

The Special K Challenge empowers people, with nothing more than a word. It's nothing short of brilliant, and I watched it make a difference in a lot of Chicago lives last week. I bundled up and walked back out into the driving snow, feeling a little better, a little stronger, a little more supported by strangers.

Inspiration and excitement are always beautiful to behold.

Is this a Sandwich Worth $10,000?

Does this sandwich good enough to crave? Would it turn a rainy Saturday around for you, putting a smile on your face?

Imagine two slices of buttery Challah bread topped with thinly-sliced honey ham folded lightly over blue cheese mayonnaise and all topped with caramelized roasted butternut squash. I hope it looks good to you.

Because it's my entry in the Hillshire Farm Most Wanted Sandwich contest.

Twelve bloggers from across the country submitted their recipe for the most craving-inducing deli meat sandwich. The sandwiches had to be cold and had to contain a Hillshire Farm deli meat. Creativity juices flowed and sandwiches with apples, potato chips, sweet potatoes, and even butternut squash were proposed.

Everyone then flew to Chicago and spent an exciting day at the Hillshire Farm headquarters talking about feeding healthy lunches to our children, structuring sandwiches (folded meat on the bread, condiments in the middle!), and spending time with food stylists and photographers getting invaluable tips for our blogs. It was an amazing, inspiring day, but now our work is done.

It's now your turn to vote, take a look at the 12 entries and choose your favorite. Head on over to the Hillshire Farm Facebook page to get more info or straight to the contest website to vote. Your vote will entitle you to some valuable coupons on Hillshire Farm deli meat. Voting will be open until March 20th, and you'll only be able to vote once.

And what's in it for me? The competition is fierce, but the reward is great. The winning sandwich will receive $5,000 to keep and $5,000 to award to a charity of their choice.

I'll use my winnings as a deposit to make a dream come true: a culinary school degree, either at the Cordon Bleu Academy or Kendall College in Chicago. Eighteen months dedicated to becoming a true chef. Bliss.

And I'll donate the other $5,000 to a charity committed to ending childhood hunger: Save the Children. Think of how much they could do with $5,000. They could build latrines for a school, provide water points for a school, and still have enough money left over to give five cows that would feed and nourish a village.

What Are Your Weight Loss Secrets?

Is losing weight part of your 2011 resolutions?

I'll be attending a special event this Tuesday in Chicago to inspire women to focus on what they'll gain by losing weight, instead of focusing on the numbers on the scale. The event is part of the Special K Challenge Campaign which has been promoted nationwide since the new year. I'll be attending as a compensated interviewer and recorder, reporting back on the experience to Kellogg's, their PR firm Ketchum, and my readers.

I hope you'll join me this Tuesday.
Where:
Union Station
251 North Clinton Street
Chicago, IL 60606

When:
Tuesday, January 11, 2010
Time: 3-6 p.m. CST

I'm not a dieter. I don't like gimmicky strategies that are not sustainable in the long run. When my jeans get tight, I cut out desserts and turn to satisfying vegetable soups to get comfortable again. And I do some crunches and plank exercises after running. I believe in making every bite count, eating the best ingredients in moderation, and when I'm trying to lose weight, I moderate more. But everyone has to address their weight loss challenge in the structure that works for them. The Special K Challenge consists of replacing 2 meals a day with Special K Products and having 2 Special K snacks as well for 2 weeks. I know that type of structure will appeal to many women. It's been commended as a viable short term calorie reduction strategy by diet experts.

The reason I'm really excited about Tuesday's event is the positive, inspirational message of the campaign, almost like we'll be building a communal vision board to make our weight loss goals achievable. As women we fall so easily into negative, competitive relationships. I'm thrilled to be taking part in a group gathering to support each other. In addition to all the support, there will be coupon books, cereals, snacks, and t-shirts while supplies last.

So let's talk diets. What works for you when your jeans get too tight for comfort? What weight loss strategies work for you?

Close Encounters of a Cow Kind

 Last week, a dozen bloggers headed to California to tour two dairies.

In our quest to learn everything about cows and milk, we posed for photo opps, petted newborn calves, and even got to give milking a try.

Up close, cows are really big. I was pretty nervous this one was going to eat me.

Have you ever seen anything cuter than this baby cow?

My sister Jessica giving a shy tug. I did it too. You have to seriously yank the teat to get milk.

A more substantial post about what I learned on the trip will be posted here tomorrow. But for now, enjoy these Wordful, Five Minutes Wordless, not so Wordless and Way-back wednesday pics.

Being Brought to the Table on the High Fructose Corn Syrup Debate

When I agreed to go on the Iowa Corn Tour, I knew that I was making a controversial decision. The Corn Grower's Association was in the midst of a major social media campaign targeted to mommy bloggers to address the concerns over high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). They had reached out to bloggers at the Type A Mom Conference as a sponsor. They had hired the social media consulting firm Mom Central to organize a mommy blogger brunch. Our trip through the Iowa Corn Grower's Association was just the last initiative as part of that campaign to improve the image of corn farmers and high fructose corn syrup.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I jumped at the chance to go on the trip. I was eager for the opportunity to learn more about corn production, to see the process, and for access to the right individuals to get my questions answered. The other six women invited on the trip (Allison, Laurie, Lisa, Shanda, Susan, and Tanya) all voiced similar reasons for coming on the trip: concern about what we were reading in the press, and the desire to learn more, to better feed our kids. Both food bloggers and more traditional mom bloggers were represented on the trip, carefully selected by the Center for Food Integrity. In communications preceding the trip, Roxi Beck referred to a few posts from each of our blogs, sometimes going back over a year in our archives, really taking the time to get to know us individually. This was no quick selection using Alexa rankings or ShePosts lists.

I learned a lot on the trip, and I learned even more doing research on high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified corn, and farm subsidies as a result of the trip. I certainly achieved my goal of increasing my awareness and knowledge of these issues, and arming myself to better feed my kids. I'm so glad I went, even though the debate over the relationship between mom bloggers and the Corn Growers' Association continues to rage in the blogosphere.

As soon as mom bloggers began posting that HFCS is the same as sugar, repeating some of the information released at the various events, the blogosphere erupted in protest with posts by Jessica Gottlieb, Liz at Mom 101, and PhD in Parenting to name a few. Blog posts are being written, mud is being slung, and allegations of blogging without integrity are being made. Tempers are running high, and with good cause. Our nutrition is at stake. We're surrounded by crises: the world population keeps increasing, the ice caps are melting, the climate is growing warmer and more extreme, and obesity in America is at an all-time high. We need someone to blame, and the corn industry with its high fructose corn syrup is an attractive culprit. We want some answers, some changes to be made, some hope for the future, for our children. And we'd like them to be a little less drastic than Marc Bittman's "Eat less meat" or Michael Pollans' "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

The media runs articles on the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, and that begins to look like the solution to the obesity issue in America. Parents begin to look for products without HFCS, products filled with cane sugar like the new Hunt's ketchup mentioned in this Slash Food article, or even worse, filled with some new manufactured sweetener with a simple non-threatening name so they can tell themselves, "Oh, this says no HFCS, must be fine for my family!" And then we're right back where we started, with people eating too much sugar-laden junk.

You shouldn't avoid HFCS because it's worse for you than sugar. That debate was concluded in a NY Times article quoting well-respected scientists like Dr. Marion Nestle saying that there is no biochemical difference between corn syrup and sugar. But there are other reasons that you might choose to avoid HFCS:

• Avoid it, as Michael Pollan suggests, because it is a marker of a food that's been highly processed.
• Avoid it because you fear genetically modified ingredients, and close to 90% of all seed corn, from which HFCS is produced, is made with GMO seeds.
• Avoid it because you are fundamentally opposed to finding sugar where you don't expect it: in bread, in crackers, in ketchup.

But instead of avoiding HFCS, why not simply read the nutrition labels on the food you purchase at the supermarket? Familiarize yourself with what's high in sugar, what's high in sodium, what's high in fat, nd explain it to your kids before passing them an apple or a carrot instead. Only by reading the nutrition labels instead of seeking out one or two bad ingredients can we hope to solve the obesity problem in America.

I don't believe the Corn Growers' Association is trying to take advantage of mom bloggers with their social media initiatives. They're trying to fix an image problem, an effort that experts like Dr. Marion Nestle agree is valid. I actually think that by pushing forward their own agenda, by bringing mom bloggers and their readers into the national nutrition debate, they're actually helping educate moms on nutrition, and stimulating discussion of a crucial topic.

When choosing to address the HFCS image problem, the Corn Grower's Association chose to focus on social media, and in so doing they asked moms to the table and brought them into this vital discussion. They could have just as easily chosen print or TV and simply talked at us instead of talking with us. I think that's worth celebrating. We're being asked to participate in a national discussion about nutrition, being invited to share our concerns about what we feed our kids. Thanks to social media, we're being given more power as mothers than we've ever had before. It's up to us to use that power to educate ourselves so we can make the right choices when voting, shopping, and eating.

Breaking Down the Iowa Corn Trip

I've been spending all weekend reflecting about my recent trip with the Iowa Corn Grower's Association. I've stared at the blank blog compose screen, struggling to begin a mega post to share my thoughts on all things corn. I was completely hypnotized by the blinking cursor when I realized that it's all too much to put in one post. Before I tell you where I stand on all the controversy, I need to tell you about what we did, saw, and heard on the trip, essentially taking you behind the scenes of this well-planned and executed press trip.

Although my trip to Iowa lasted less than 48 hours, it was so packed with experiences that it felt closer to a week. We began both days at 7:45AM and didn't have a minute of downtime until we parted at the airport for the return trip home. We met many people, heard many stories, had many conversations to really get a great sense of the lives of farmers today. Many of the activities were fun, some, like the laps around the Iowa speedway, were exhilarating, but all served the same purpose: to educate me and the seven other bloggers on the press trip about how corn is grown and to correct our outdated image of farming. As I've disclosed before, my flight and hotel stay were paid for by the Iowa Corn Growers' Association who also paid for all my activities and meals during my visit.

We began with breakfast at the Iowa Machine Shed restaurant, a country restaurant similar to Cracker Barrel  but without the white rocking chairs. It's a good thing the Iowa Machine Shed is not available on an interstate near me because their giant cinnamon buns with a generous side of fluffy white frosting would become a dangerous addiction.

We ate with a young farming couple, Kevin and Sara Ross and their 10 month old son Hudson. Unlike many of the other farmers we met, Kevin didn't follow in his father's footsteps. His father was a computer programmer and his mother was a teacher. He was exposed to farming by his grandparents' farm. Kevin and Sara own a 650 acre farm in the SouthWest of Iowa where they grown corn and soybeans and raise 80 heads of cattle. They use 550 of their acres for corn and soybean, leaving the other 100 for conservation, cattle, and other crops.

As we all sat around the table, getting to know each other and marveling over the extensive menu, he sat quietly, shifting in his seat, letting his wife and baby do the chatting, no doubt wishing he was in the field bringing in the rest of his harvest. He grew more comfortable when he began describing challenges he faced when he chose to become a farmer, like finding financing to purchase a $300,000 combine to harvest the corn, and purchasing enough land to break even. He described how as a farmer he wears many hats, "Yesterday I was a mechanic all morning, then I spent an hour as a salesman marketing my corn before heading to the fields to bail hay until dark." He supplements his farming income by selling crop insurance on the side. Regardless of how sophisticated and technical farming equipment has become, today's farmers still need to protect their families against the weather as best they can.