Highlight from BlogHer Food 2014 with CommonGround Iowa Volunteers

A couple weeks ago, Kellie Blair, Julie Kenney and I flew to Miami to attend the BlogHer Food Conference (BlogHer Food is a conference that brings food bloggers together to learn, share, inspire, and of course EAT delicious food prepared by the bloggers in attendance). Kellie and Julie are CommonGround volunteers who were interested in meeting up with other foodies! Why wouldn’t they be, they both grow corn and soybeans on their farms to feed the world!

Be sure to follow each of them on their blog!

• Julie Kenney, Farm Eats, City Streets
• Kellie Blair, Home Again Finnegan

Our reasons for attending the BlogHer Food conference related to the Iowa Corn Quest tour. Every fall, Iowa Corn organizes a CornQuest tour for eight to ten bloggers from around the country to learn about agriculture, corn and ethanol. Most of the bloggers think all the corn they see is sweet corn, but we quickly share the importance of ‘field corn’ for our food supply, ethanol production and animal feed. Check out past CornQuest adventures on Instagram or Twitter by using #IACornQuest.

Julie, Kellie and I went to Miami to meet up with the past bloggers and to meet up with potential candidates for this year’s tour!  Before heading to Miami, Iowa Corn shipped each of the past CornQuest bloggers two awesome yellow bracelets with corn. One bracelet was for them to keep and the other was for a fellow blogger they thought would make a great CornQuester on this year’s tour. Each bracelet ordered benefited The Human Needs Food Pantry in Montclair, NJ.
 

Yellow corn bracelets sent to the bloggers.

When we left Iowa on Thursday, May 15th, the weather wasn’t all that warm – actually it felt more like winter. It was only about 37 degrees, so all of us were ready for 80 degree weather. When we arrived in Miami we were greeted with storms and rain but it was warm!

A view of the Miami skyline.

On Friday, the conference started and we were all eager to meet up with past bloggers and meet new ones too! We sat down at breakfast and were joined by a few other bloggers. After getting to know them, we realized they were agricultural bloggers too! We couldn’t believe that we came all the way to Miami to meet ag bloggers. The ag bloggers we met were:
 

• Janice Person, A Colorful Adventure
• Jennifer Kiko, Farmgirl Follies 
• Val Wagner, Wag‘n Tales

Julie Kenney (Farm Eats, City Streets), Kellie Blair (Home Again Finnegan), Val Wagner (Wag'n Tales) and Janice Person (A Colorful Adventure)

 On Saturday, we were able to connect with some of our CornQuest bloggers. They were all so happy to see Iowa Corn and each of them said they loved the bracelets and they gave the bracelet to someone they thought would be great for this year’s tour! Meeting up with them and hearing their passion for Iowa Corn and the important things we are doing for agriculture and corn, made this entire trip worth it! We were able to connect with:

• Lauren, Climbing Grier Mountain
• Sheila, Eat 2Gather
• Heidi, Foodie Crush
• Nikki, Seeded at the Table
• Megan, Country Cleaver
• Annalise, Completely Delicious 

Julie Kenney (Farm Eats, City Streets), Nikki (Seeded at the Table), Heidi (Foodie Crush), Kellie Blair (Home Again Finnegan) and Sheila (Eat2Gather)

Annalise (Completely Delicious), Kellie Blair (Home Again Finnegan) and Julie Kenney (Farm Eats, City Streets)

 It was great to see them and reminisce about the great times they had in Iowa last fall. Nearly every one of them mentioned the awesome farm tours and thrilling pace car ride experience!

On Saturday evening, we attended the closing party to say our good-byes to all of the wonderful bloggers we had met at BlogHer Food! As we strolled to admire the food they had prepared, we were greeted by a famous blogger – The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. We waited in line to have our photo taken with her and chat with her. As each of us told her where we were from, she responded with, “Go Ag.” This made all of us very happy and excited about what we are doing to promote agriculture.

Kellie Blair (Home Again Finnegan), Janet Wilwerding (Iowa Corn Stalk), |Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) and Julie Kenney (Farm Eats, City Streets)

We enjoyed the conference, warm weather and meeting our blogger friends, but we were thankful to be back in Iowa!  A few days in the city makes one thankful for what Iowa has to offer.

A view of the Midwest!