The life of a blogger can sometimes be lonely, frustrating and mysterious {i.e. “what is an SEO??”}, but it can also be exciting, satisfying and ever~compelling. Last weekend I was in a pleasantly unusual situation, I was surrounded by hundreds of food bloggers. It was liberating to be amongst so many others who thought taking hundreds of pictures of their food, before they ate it, was normal. I also met up with renowned experts talking about all of the things I’m interested in….writing, photography, technology, food and wine, this was deliciously inspiring and informative {the SEO mystery is solved!}. Along the way, I got to taste an amazing array of delicious food and drinks. I’m going to be sharing some of the highlights with you, but if you want every little detail, right now, click on agenda and click on sign me up if you want to join me at the International Food Bloggers Conference next September in Seattle.

Let’s start with the food, and that Scallop~bacon slider, shall we? The variety, quality and quantity of foods that were offered, both prepared and packaged went far beyond my wildest expectations. To stay focused as I feasted, I challenged myself to identify my favorite item from each category and award it the newly created “So Very Splendid” award. The first award, in the category of prepared foods, goes to this tasty Scallop~bacon Slider from the people at Alaska Seafood.

This is a brilliant interpretation of the popular mini~burger genre, mostly because scallops are naturally the perfect size for the mini~buns and they cook so quickly. When you wrap these delicious morsels in bacon, and add pimento mayonnaise and sautéed onions with balsamic vinegar to the stack, you end up with something that is truly, So Very Splendid. Click on the caption beneath the image above to find this recipe and many more great seafood recipes from Alaska Seafoods. You can also find the recipe at the bottom of this post.

These satiating sliders be made on the grill or in the kitchen, and would be perfect plattered up for the big game this fall!

There were many other tempting and tantalizing contenders laid out for us to try by top locals chefs and restaurants, like this Loaded Baked Potato Rolls {below, left} made with potato salad, bacon bits, chives, sour cream bonito flakes, caviar and cheddar cheese and this Caprese Salad Roll {below, right} made with heirloom tomatoes, tofu, mint, basil pesto, red onion all wrapped up in ribbons of cucumber. All of this beautiful sushi was from Blue “C” Sushi, a local chain that will soon be opening in California. Truly goodness in motion. 

The caviar they used was from American Hackleback Sturgeon, which is much more affordable than the black pearls from Russia, but still offers plenty “pop” and and that seductive briny flavor, you can find a broad selection of these caviar’s at Amazon Grocery.

Taylor Shellfish introduced me to a marvelous new strain of oysters, the name Shingoku translates to “ultimate” in Japanese. It would be hard to top their very accurate description of this bivalve, so I’ll just quote them “A small, dense, cornucopia of an oyster {with} a light, clean taste of cucumber and salt, {and} a finish of water chestnut and Jerusalem artichoke”. 

I know what I’ll be serving on Christmas Eve.

Speaking of the holidays, it’s never to early to start drumming up ideas for holiday entertaining, these Smoked Scallops with a grain mustard aoli fit firmly in the “easy to make and incredible to devour” category. You can order the smoked scallops from Amazon Grocery as well.