Cooking Classes Starting in January 2012

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Andrea

Starting in January of 2012 I will be conducting a series of cooking classes at Wild Goose Creative, called Embrace Cooking!

Each month we’ll cover a different topic and prepare foods around that topic. This is an interactive class series which means that everyone will be helping to create the dishes that we taste later in the evening.

Classes are two hours long and if you have an apron and a chef’s knife, feel free to bring those along!

You can register and pay for classes via my website. There’s a link at the top called Events. That will take you to the main discription page and then you’ll see links to each class as well.

I hope you’ll join me for fun and fabulous cooking classes!

Camelot Cellars Cranberry Dinner

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Andrea

This past Monday evening I had the pleasure of dining at Camelot Cellars. Camelot paired up with local caterer, Laura’s Catering, to create a dinner around the cranberry.

Cranberries are one of the staples of fall and winter dining. Typically we see the cranberry turned into a sauce and drizzled on top of turkey or perhaps on a dessert.

This dinner featured cranberries at each course and it was an interesting twist to the winter classic.

Each course of the meal was paired with a wine from Camelot. The wines accentuating the tartness and sweetness of the cranberry.

Janine, the owner of Camelot, created the dinners because she wanted to provide another way for patrons to get to know each other and the winery a little bit better.

We started off with a creamy cranberry soup, which I unfortunately do not have a picture of. My camera did not want to focus on the soup properly leaving me with very blurry pictures. It was a lovely deep pink soup that was smooth with hints of cream and garlic in the background.

2011 Hal and Al’s Pumpkin Beer Tasting

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Andrea

The last time we talked about Hal and Al’s I mentioned that we went for their pumpkin beer tasting. Can you imagine how excited I was for that event!

When we were in last, I was informed that they were going to be hosting a pumpkin beer tasting the following week which would include pumpkin beers and ciders.

I may or may not have almost toppled over a parton and bartender as I eagerly inquired more about the event, embarrassing both my friend John and Scott.

Okay, not really, they both know me well enough to not get embarrassed by my antics any more.

I immedately marked the event on our calendar and off we went to the pumpkin beer tasting!

We were serious about this tasting. I busted out the camera and my handy notebook featuring Snoopy with a pumpkin on green paper.

This was an intense tasting as well, there were 9 samples to get through.

Let me repeat, 9 samples!

International Blogger Cookie Exchange 2011

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Andrea

Get excited all because it’s time to talk holidays! And we’re going to be talking about holiday cookies first!

My friend Lori, over at Fake Food Free has asked me to help her put on the International Blogger Cookie Exchange for this year!

Oh yes, it’s time to start planning our holiday cookies and holiday eats for the upcoming season. This is an extremely easy and low key event. You will not be shipping cookies to someone, it’s a recipe exchange!

Here’s how it works:

Either let Lori or myself know by November 10th that you would like to participate, and you will be randomly paired with another blogger.

Each participant will create an original or an adapted holiday cookie recipe and send that recipe to the blogger that we’ve randomly selected for you. You must send that recipe via email by November 20th.

Once you receive a recipe we ask that you post about the recipe by December 11th. This means that you’ve created the cookie recipe and will be posting about the experience.

Common Ground Dinner

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Andrea

Last week I was invited to a women’s event to showcase a new organization in the food world called Common Ground. The goal of Common Ground is to connect people who provide food to those who purchase food. The target audience is women.

From the website:

Consumers aren’t getting the real story about American agriculture. We’re a group of farm women and we plan to change that by doing something extraordinary. Our program is called CommonGround and it’s all about starting a conversation between women who grow food, and the women who buy it. This is our chance to set the record straight and to help get you the facts about farming and your food. We hope you’ll join in the conversation.

The event was the first one for Columbus to introduce the local chapter of Common Ground and kick off discussions between farmers and consumers.

The event also put us in contact with people from The Soybean Council and Corn Growers of America. The idea was to gather together over a meal and talk about the food industry and where our food comes from.

2011 Taste of Hilliard

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Andrea

Last week was the second annual Taste Of Hilliard event. Local restaurants and businesses who are members of the Chamber of Commerce gather together at the Makoy Center for an evening of nibbles and chatting.

The great thing about The Taste of Hilliard is that it doesn’t just focus on food but also showcases local businesses as well so that community members get a chance to see exactly what their town has to offer.

You would be surprised by how many businesses are local to Hilliard and the wide variety of services that are offered.

I didn’t stay too long at the event because it was getting packed and fast. The event started at 4:30 and I got there around that time. My plan was to get there early to be able to take plenty of pictures without being in anyone’s way.

Best laid plans right? I arrived to a very packed parking lot. I was kind of surprised actually that it was so packed so early. People had to park far away and walk to the event, that’s how many people were there at the start.

Ohio Summer Spritzer

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Andrea

Yesterday evening, Camelot Winery unveiled it’s new look with a Grand Re-Opening event. I was lucky enough to get invited not only to the event but to also provide some appetizers as well.

The inside looks completely different and definitely has a more welcome and cozy feel to it now. You can expect a full post on what’s new soon! The event was a huge success and many people arrived ready to check out the new look and to sip on some wine. Luckily I was able to make my way around the place a few times and got a chance to chat with friends and introduce myself to new people.

For the appetizers I made mini cheddar corn fritters using Ohio Sweet corn. I made 240 little fritters with the expectation that most people would take two. I don’t know about everyone else but Scott and I definitely had more than two!

To help celebrate the new ownership and new look of Camelot, I put together a summer inspired drink featuring one of their wines.

2011 Columbus Race For The Cure

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Andrea

One of the things I did during the blog migration was run a 5K. My friend Jess contacted me earlier this year asking if I would be interested in running Columbus’s Race for the Cure in May. She was getting together a group of folks and Team Run, Tweet, Cure was born! There were 10 of us who met up that morning to get our 5K on.

This was the first time that I’ve ever done this race. Having been downtown a few times during race day, I knew it was a big deal. It wasn’t until we walked over there to get ready for the race that I was able to see just what a big deal it was.

Holy crap is basically all I can manage to say. This race is HUGE. There’s a small expo that is open to the public that was located on a street adjacent to the start of the race. We navigated our way through that and managed to find each other again at the start.

Sustainable Food Summit 2011

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Andrea

Last week, on Earth Day, I had the great opportunity to spend the day learning about the future of sustainable food. The, What is Sustainable Food? Summit, was put together by the OSU chapter of Net Impact and Local Matters.

The goal of the summit was to discuss:

What sustainable food is.
The future of sustainable food.
What people are doing to support the effort.
Local businesses who focus on running a greener business.

It was an all day summit starting at 9am and running until 3pm. The event was put on for free and everyone was welcome to attend. This event was also a Zero Waste event meaning that everything used for food was either compostable or recycleable.

Attendees were also encouraged to bring their own water bottles and coffee mugs.

The summit was held in the 4H building at OSU. I didn’t get a chance to chat with anyone about the building so unfortunately I can’t provide any stats on it. I do know that it’s a new building and it’s OSU’s first green building on campus.

Making burgers with Josh Ozersky

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Andrea

If you recall my post from yesterday, I mentioned that Josh Ozersky would be at the Columbus Home and Garden Show on Thursday of this week. I got the chance to attend his burger making demo and had a great time!

Amy Weirick was my contact for the evening and I met up with her as I was making my way towards the demo pavilion. She told me to go right on back through the curtains and introduce myself to Tara, who was working with Amy, and to Josh.

I did just that and I think I surprised everybody! I tend to have that affect on folks.

I introduced myself and my blog and then introduced Scott. He was in charge of picture taking for the evening.

They were in the midst of making burgers when I entered backstage and I got a first hand demonstration from Josh on how to make his favorite burgers. We got to taste two, a cheeseburger and then an onion cheeseburger.