My Post-Symposium Post

Sorry for the prolonged absence. I've been out of town the past week at the Symposium for Professional Food Writers at the Greenbrier in West Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

It was an incredible honor to be there. The whole thing was hugely inspirational and validating, both as a writer, but also just as someone who's as interested in food as I am. Spending a week with similar-minded people was great fun and really re-charged my batteries on both an intellectual and spiritual level.

Now, the challenge is to harness that energy. Many of the successful presenters at the Symposium shared their methods and models with the attendees, and I find myself going in twenty directions at once, trying to write for this or for that potential project, so I've taken a few days off from posting here, out of sheer inability to organize my thoughts and head in one specific direction.

I road-tripped it down there, so I took advantage by visiting a few food-related spots. I spent an evening in the hip Highlands area of Louisville, visited a farm where they make country ham the old fashioned way, ate lunch at a cool art deco diner in Charleston, West Virginia, and toured a bourbon distillery that's been in continuous operation since 1787. I'll be blogging about all that stuff under the new header "Road Trip" which will feature stuff that's outside the scope of Chicagoland.

I've also started a second blog, where I'll be documenting the process of opening and running my restaurant; it's going to be a good quality burger joint here in Chicago and I'll be blogging the story more or less in real time. As a business owner, I'll be hoping for things to run smoothly, but the writer part of me wants to see plenty of challenges and drama, which always make for better storytelling. As a restaurant industry vet, I know I can safely count on the latter.

The burger blog is in development now, but it'll be fully up and running soon.

Thanks for reading.