my unexpected turn as a food blogger

By now, most of you know that I love to eat but hate to cook. So, it was obviously fate that brought me and Mary Eva Tredway together.

Mary Eva is the publicist for SeaPak Shrimp & Seafood Company.

I love shrimp. Especially when I don’t have to prepare it myself.

At the Mom 2.0 Summit in May, Mary Eva and I seemed like we were stalking each other. Whenever one of us turned around, the other one was there. This happened so frequently, other bloggers started noticing and commenting on it.

Finally, Mary Eva and I decided we should stop just smiling at each other in passing, and we spent some time actually talking. And laughing. We became fast friends, and I’m bummed she lives on the other side of the country.

When I got home, Mary Eva sent me an ice-packed cooler of SeaPak products to try. The Popcorn Shrimp and Shrimp Spring Rolls are especially delicious, and I was so inspired by how good they were that I wrote a piece about National Shrimp Day for the Huffington Post.

And Mary Eva was apparently so inspired by my enthusiasm that she had her equally-delightful colleague, Kari Nagel, interview me to be a Guest Blogger on SeaPak’s Coastal Dish. My post is live here today, and will be up all month. I know! My mom, who has been trying to get me to cook since I moved off campus my senior year of college, will be so proud!

On the blog, I talk about how my family always ate together when the kids were growing up – even if it wasn’t at the kitchen table – and how we cherish our sacred Thanksgiving traditions even though they usually take place at a restaurant buffet. I love that I can share my family’s unconventional mealtimes. I hope you’ll stop by, then share your own stories.

It is unlikely that I will ever be a full-time food blogger – well, at least one who writes about food that I prepared myself. But I have learned to be open to all possibilities, to not jump to conclusions or make assumptions. Mary Eva even invited me to be her guest at the Shrimp & Grits Festival on Jekyll Island, Georgia a couple of weeks ago but I was already booked for two other conferences. Next year!

I’ve learned that there’s a whole, big world out there, that you can make unexpected friends in unexpected places, and that when you let the universe do its thing for you, the results can be pretty shrimptacular.