IFBC Day Three

I woke up early on Sunday to attend day three of IFBC. The final day. I just couldn’t believe that this conference was coming to an end!

The first seminar was on time management, presented by Merry-Jennifer of Merry Gourmet and Marissa of http://marissabrassfield.com/. Both of these women lead very different lives, but seemed to really manage their time wisely. It was refreshing to hear both of their ideas.

(I’m sorry about the overexposed pictures…I really didn’t check my camera’s settings that well after the evening before, when I took pictures of dinner in a dark room.)

One big tip I learned is that you don’t need to immediately respond to emails. Responding to emails, while it seems efficient, can actually take you away from what you were working on and then you have to take time to get back into that task. That is huge for me…I check my email far too often!

The second seminar that I attended was about food science, presented by Scott of Seattle Food Geek. I was excited to hear about sous vide and molecular gastronomy. While I’ve never dabbled into them, it was really neat to hear how it all works.

He also spoke about the history of innovators in the food world, most recently the Modernist Cuisine books. By the way, don’t fall in love with that book unless you have some major moolah to spend on cookbooks, y’all. 🙂

Sadly, after session 2, IFBC was over. It felt really weird knowing that I was walking to my car, no longer returning to Hotel Monteleone to meet with everyone for more sessions, meals or presentations.

I have to say that I walked into IFBC fairly intimidated. I’m normally very shy when it comes to meeting a bunch of new people at once, but this conference wasn’t that at all. AT ALL.

This is me with Merry-Jennifer of Merry Gourmet and Andie of Can You Stay for Dinner? (also one of the fabulous coordinators of IFBC). They were both super nice and eager to talk to me! It was so great to meet and talk to these gals, even if Merry-Jennifer roots for the Gators. 😉 (sorry girl…it’s football season now)

Another example? Dianne Jacob sat down for lunch with me and a few bloggers who quickly became my conference buddies (since we happened to attend the same seminars). She was just so approachable and nice, and even offered a few tips to us to become better bloggers!

Wait, did I say I made friends at IFBC? Yes, I sure did! Shyness…what’s that? 🙂

Oh, and you guys already saw that I spoke with Deb of Smitten Kitchen. Super sweet blogger!

All in all, I’m super glad that I was given the opportunity to attend this conference. I’ve walked away with a plethora of knowledge and inspiration for my blogs, and I also walked away meeting people I definitely consider to be my friends! If you ever have the opportunity to attend an IFBC, I would most definitely encourage it. 🙂