I live to eat and love to cook. Welcome to my life!

July 24, 2009

Getting ready for gluttony

Food, food and more food....add a few adult beverages and you get the gist of where I am off to. Half vacation, half work related, I am off to the annual NACE (National Association of Catering Executives) Annual conference in Charlotte North Carolina. The venue changes yearly, but the gist of the conference does not....generally a great keynote speaker (this year we get Rocco di Spirito) followed by 3 days worth of educational seminars ranging from food & wine knowledge, selling strategies, decor, trends, e-marketing....you get it. Then take that and intersperse a meal period every 2 hours.

No joke.

Breakfast. Design Session. Refreshment Break. Educational seminar. Lunch. Another educational seminar. Break. Where we generally go get cocktails before.....Reception & Dinner.

Repeat that.

Twice.

And very little time to excercise or even get up out of that hideously uncomfortable banquet or chiavari chair and walk around.

My ass feels bigger just thinking about it. Added to that, we are going to the south where fried is a bonafide food group.

Don't get me wrong, I freaking love to eat and I love all the best things in the world that are horrible for my blood pressure, blood sugar, weight & cholesterol. So along with me to the conference go my old pals in pharmaseutical form...fat blockers, diet pills & acid reflux blockers...whatever it takes to keep up!

But there is really no conference like a catering conference where they bend over backward and do naked cartwheels to get you the best, funnest, most interesting food and beverage that they can. I will get to sample mini every things, ethnic foods, sample fizzy drinks in test tubes, enjoy refreshment breaks wrapped around baseball teams, colors, scents & countries and go to events that are so sensory oriented from the decor to the food that it makes your head swim. All you people that go to computer conferences, realtor conferences (yes, you mom), lawyer retreats and even incentive based meetings...I guarantee that you do not eat as well as we do. Because that is what we do. :)

Unfortunately no recipe for this week, but I will update you on all of the fun deliciousness that I get to sample and when I get back it is back on the old diet I go....Ugh!

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