South Jersey food bloggers at BlogHer Food 2011 in Atlanta

South Jersey Girls: Allie Coremin from All I Eat Food!, Lisa Grant from Jersey Girl Cooks, and me at the RockHer party before BlogHer Food 2011.

I just returned from four fabulous days in Atlanta, Georgia at the BlogHer Food 2011 conference. 500 food bloggers, mostly women, descended upon Atlanta to learn more about our craft. I learned more blogging information than my head can contain at the five professional sessions and three panels I attended, but that’s not what left the biggest impression on me. I was most impressed by the fact that this group of food bloggers are just about the friendliest, most helpful, kindest, smartest, most generous group of women I’ve ever been around.

I’ll be sharing bits and pieces of the conference with you over the next couple of days and leading you to the food blogs of some of the bloggers I met. I’m going to start out today with the girls from South Jersey.

Lisa Grant on the dance floor at the BlogHer Food closing party.

Many of you are probably already familiar with Lisa Grant of Jersey Girl Cooks. I’ve been following Lisa’s blog for a while now, but I had never met her in person until about two months ago. When we discovered we were both attending BlogHer Food, it made sense to share some of the expenses and room together, so we met for lunch and got to know each other.

Here’s what I learned about Lisa over the past few days. She remembers everyone’s name. It’s a talent I wish I had. Not only did she remember names, she remembered what everyone’s blog names were and where people were from. She’s great at introducing people, and she always puts everyone at ease.

What else did I discover about Lisa? She loves to enter food contests, and she’s been quite successful at them. She’s incredibly proud of her children. And, she’s one of the first people up on the dance floor when the music starts to rock.

You can follow Lisa on her blog, and you can also follow her on Jersey Girl Cooks on Facebook and Twitter.

Allie Coremin from All I Eat Food!

One of the people that Lisa introduced me to Thursday night at the RockHer* party at the Hard Rock Cafe was Allie Coremin. Allie blogs over at All I Eat Food!. What can I tell you about Allie? She loves food and she’s trying to figure out how to take that passion and turn it into her career. With her sparkling personality and incredibly positive attitude, I have no doubt she’ll have it figured out soon. She’s a diligent blogger who had two posts up about BlogHer Food before she even left Atlanta – complete with dozens of fabulous photos.

Allie doesn’t like Bison burgers – we shared a plate of Bison sliders with Danica from Danica’s Daily (more about her in another post) and her super nice hubby Jay at Ted’s Montana Grill one night. What else? She’s a big fan of Mario Batali and was thrilled to meet him one day when she walked into Eataly (hey, I’ve been there three times and have yet to see him!). You’ll need to head over to All I Eat Food! to learn more about Allie (okay, and as I typed her name just now I got her blog title – All I Eat Food = ALLIE – clever!)

You can follow Allie’s blog, and you can also follow her on Twitter.

South Jersey was well represented at BlogHer Food, wasn’t it?

* The RockHer party was a pre-party hosted by Susan of She’s Becoming DoughMessTic, Brandi of BranAppetit and Leslie of The Hungry Housewife at The Hard Rock Cafe in Atlanta. They did an amazing job organizing the party, getting sponsors to donate prizes and gifts for the swag bags (I won a Kitchen Aid pan!), and generally unofficially starting off BlogHer Food 2011 in the best way possible.