The ShopRite Blogger Panel And A Day At The Food Network New York City Food And Wine Festival

Recently I was honored to be invited to be a member of theShopRite blogger advisory panel, which consists of twelve bloggers from the six states that ShopRite is located in. For those of you unfamiliar with ShopRite, those states are New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. With ShopRite being my favorite grocery store, I gladly accepted. I’m really looking forward to building a relationship with them, learning more about them and providing them with feed back from the shopper’s point of view.

One of the first things ShopRite did was invite us to attend the 2010 Food Network New York City Food And Wine Festival this past weekend. The entire panel was invited into the city to spend two days at the festival, as well as spend time with ShopRite execs and other folks. What a lot of fun! I took the train into the city Friday morning and met up with the other panel members at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. From there we were all taken to Pier 54 in Hudson River Park. What an amazing place! I have never seen so many foods and wines all in one place! Every five feet or so there was someone offering us something different to try.

I really enjoyed the demonstration on cuts of beef. It was very informative and interesting. I drooled over the gorgeous KitchenAid appliances in the demo kitchen.

I got to listen to ShopRite Executive Chef Faith Alahverdian, who demonstrated a wonderful and simple beef recipe. It was so easy to tell that she had a lot of passion about cooking. At one point she needed an ingredient that she didn’t have handy, she handled the situation with humor and style. I drooled over the beef. I drooled over the KitchenAid.

After that my new friend Anne took me over to Chelsea Market, where I’d never been. What a neat place that was. There were a bunch of different shops in there.  I found some really cool carved jack o lanterns and some amazing desserts so be sure to check back on Wednesday when I feature them in my weekly Wordless Wednesday post.

After Chelsea Market we went to meet back up with the rest of the panel and some ShopRite execs at Abe & Arthur’s for dinner and a book signing with Tyler Florence!

After dinner I made my way home, where I arrived just after 1 am. I fell asleep quickly, tired from the long day but content with thoughts of food and appliances dancing around my head. All in all it was a fun day. I can’t wait to see what else is in store for the ShopRite bloggers.

As a member of the ShopRite blogger panel I received a gift card for travel and other expenses as well as admission to the The Food Network New York City Food And Wine Festival. As always, please note that the opinions reflected in this post are my own and have not been influenced by the sponsor in any way.