My trip to New York City continued and Marlboro Man

Earlier this week I posted about my exciting time at the Martha Stewart Omnimedia office.  It was so exciting and an honor. It was everything I hoped it to be and more.  But now I want to switch gears and share with you about the rest of my time in New York City.

Once I booked my plane ticket to NYC, I didn’t have to wait very long for the rest of my schedule on the East coast to be packed with appointments, meetings, and connecting with friends – both old and new.  Social media is changing the way people communicate and Twitter is a predominant gateway to building  instant community.  Immediately after announcing via Twitter I was heading to New York City, friends Erika of Ivory Hut and Maggy of Three Many Cooks invited me to be the keynote speaker at an all-day food blogging workshop in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  More on this in a future post.

I flew in Thursday morning on the red-eye flight from Seattle and my wonderful friend, Jennie Perillo of In Jennie’s Kitchen picked me up at JFK at 7:30am.  That’s love.  She dropped me off at our other friend’s apartment, Olga of Sassy Radish, where I stayed throughout the weekend.  Olga is very generous and the type of friend who insists you stay with her even though she herself wouldn’t be there.  She even stocked her freezer with homemade mango sorbet for me to enjoy as a guest in her beautiful home.  That’s love.

I took a 1.5 hr nap and was out the door for a series of working lunch dates and  meetings before finishing the day off at Martha Stewart’s offices.  It felt so surreal to be meeting new colleagues and bosses I will be working with this year for the first time.  There were no breaks and certainly no time for coffee as I went from one office to another flagging down taxis and using Google Maps on my IPhone very well.  Nasty blisters attacked my feet with cuts all over my heels and toes with raw flesh exposed all over including a nickel sized one on the back of my heel.  This is what I get for trying to wear cute high heel shoes instead of my trusty flip flops, sneakers, and flats.  Wearing wedges was a miscalculation on my part and I was suffering the consequences which even a box of band-aids wasn’t going to cure.  Next time I’m bringing my flip flops!

The next day I arrived back in Manhattan for the BlogHer10 conference.  I would love to tell you the sessions were wonderful but instead I played hooky and checked out the expo instead.  During this time I met up with my friend Kamran of the Sophisticated Gourmet.  Kamran just turned 18 years old but is one of the most enthusiastic food bloggers I know.  It was fun roaming around the conference hall with him.  As I went from one booth to another I would end up winning a new Samsung netbook computer from the wonderful folks at Microsoft.  Talk about awesome swag!  I met @BenThePCGuy, collected my computer and was off to check out the rest of the expo. One of my favorite suites I toured during the conference was the one put on by Hershey Chocolate.  They somehow built a room (framing and drywall) within their hotel suite.  When you walked in it looked like a house complete with s’mores.  All attendees were encouraged to stop by and make s’mores but all I wanted to do was bottle up the chocolate scent and bring it home.  I passed on the s’mores but loved the Hershey suite.

After the conference my friends Olga, Andrew (Olga’s boyfriend), and I had the pleasure of dining at Bay Leaf restaurant.  It was the best Indian food I’ve ever had in my life.  If you ever get the opportunity to go to NYC, this restaurant is a must dine at place if you love Indian food.  From there we walked over to an awesome rooftop party hosted by Ree, Elise, and Jaden.  What I loved about this party was being with friends.  Friends I wanted to meet in person and friends I hadn’t seen since last year in San Francisco.  All of this happened on the most perfect NYC summer night.  I should also mention I met a new friend.  He is affectionately known as the “Marlboro Man”.  Ladd was everything I had imagined him to be. If I had to describe him, the first adjective to come to mind is “strong”.  I can’t really articulate what I mean by this and how I know this to be true but I can tell you he is strong: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and of course -physically.  He has a quiet strength about him.  He’s wise, gentle, and extremely gracious.  Marlboro Man is the type of man you know you can trust as a leader, head of household, dedicated father, and devoted husband.  He loves his wife and it shows.  I was really moved by the very fact he knew exactly who I was when we started our conversation and he was very kind to say encouraging about me and this blog.

I can’t wait for Ree’s next book about their love story to come out because after you meet the both of them, you understand what they share is real.  They are firmly grounded in love and faith -it’s beautiful and inspiring.

I have one more special day to share with you but it doesn’t involve New York City and deserves it’s own post.  Until then, have a great weekend!