It's Good to Be a Food Blogger

Last day until the weekend...not that I've been looking forward to it all week or anything...

This week marked a momentus occasion for me as a food blogger...my first product to try out! Chobani generously offered to send me a sampler pack of Chobani to taste and experiment with (forgot to snap my own picture of it this morning).

Not that I haven't tried Chobani before (it's usually the staple in my yogurt bowls and I literally live for the pineapple flavor) but I was excited to get the sampler box to try out all of the flavors.

This past Saturday night was another milestone for me as a blogger...my first blogger meetup! I met Melissa, Di, Rhea, and Emily at the Whole Foods in Dedham for some yummy food and good conversation. It was so nice to finally meet these ladies in person. In the blog world, you read about people's daily lives so much that you feel like you know them already, which was exactly how I felt Saturday night. We talked and laughed like we had been friends for years!

One of the greatest things about having dinner with other bloggers is that they don't get uncomfortable when you start taking 100 photos of your food. Here is Di posing with her camera with me right next to her trying to get a good shot of my plate. I was probably on photo # 4 at this point.

For dinner I rolled with a simple salad with romaine, red and yellow peppers, cucumbers, and cranberries with a berry vinegrette. I also had a few bites of the Mac N' Cheese (it looked way too good to resist) and a chicken samosa. The salad and the Mac N' Cheese were delicious, but the chicken samosa not so much. I believe what I said at the time was that it tasted like ground up cat food. Not that I know what that tastes like.

After dinner we decided to head over to Met Bar, which was of course PACKED. If you have never been to Legacy Place in Dedham, let me assure you that the entire plaza is always crazy no matter what time of day or night and there is always a wait at every restaurant there. Prior to getting to Met Bar, we had some photo fun!

Of course we found no seating or even standing room at Met, so we tried Legal C instead. No luck there either. Finally we ended up at my very favorite place, Yardhouse. You guys know I talk about this place incessantly and practically live here, so I was excited. I ordered my usual Anderson Ale seasonal (AKA Christmas in a glass) and we had a great time just enjoying each other's company in the 100 degree bar (I really have no idea WHY it was so hot in there, but I literally sweated through my shirt being in there. Yeah, I'm a sweaty beast).

I know everyone else says it too, but it really is true, that the best part of this little hobby of ours is the community that comes along with it. I had such a great time with these lovely ladies and I hope we get to do it again soon!

Have you met any of your favorite bloggers in real life?

Have you tried Whole Foods hot bar and salad bar? Do you like it?