The BlogHer 2012 Conference was held in New York at the Hilton. The stage was a vision in purples and blues — nicely done!

This is where my journey started, hours earlier. I took the train from Connecticut at a time when normally I would still be in bed. But the early wake up was so worth it!

The last time I was at BlogHer, I skipped the milk mustache photo taking. But this time? Well, how could I resist these adorable milkmen? This booth was for The Breakfast Project.

I snapped this pic after being wowed by the size of this cheese wheel and Instagrammed it right away. Later, when I met friends for drinks, their first question was “What kind of cheese was that?!?” I’m pretty sure it was parmigiano reggiano pecorino romano (cough, it says so on the side of the wheel).

I sang Call Me Maybe out loud at the Hasbro party. There were all sorts of games and activities there and lots of lovely ladies (and gents!). Thanks to Hasbro for inviting me!

Ahh, Saturday morning. I woke up to this view. Nice, right?

Dannon was kind enough to invite me for their Healthy Start Breakfast. It involved a lot of yogurt, which is a great and healthy breakfast food. My kids love the Dannon Danimals line.

At the Dannon Healthy Start Breakfast, Chef Amanda Cook showed us how to make a few of her yogurt recipes — including some amazing muffins.

We also got to try the new Activia Breakfast Blends. Mmm!

Paula Gregorowicz moderated the When It’s Time To Spend Money to Market Your Work Panel, which I spoke on with Lyz Lenz and Alli Worthington. So glad I was asked to speak about this topic!

The kids and I loved The Lorax movie, so I just had to snap a pic with him. Can’t wait to buy the movie so that we can watch it again (and again and again and again).

When I saw the Kikkoman bottle walk by, I had to get a photo. I thought for a minute and then took off after her so I could get my picture taken. So, yes, I stalked the Kikkoman bottle. Fun.

Lisa Stone of BlogHer had the privilege of interviewing Katie Couric at lunch on Saturday. She was amazing, and spoke about motherhood, career, grief and so much more.

The big screens let everyone have a clear view of Katie Couric as she spoke. She truly has a smile that lights up a room. Someday, I would love to interview Katie Couric myself.

I captured this photo while waiting for the How to Price and Value Your Services session to start, and I feel like it really captured the feeling of the conference. There was so much love and generosity going on. This is Ana Lydia Ochoa-Monaco and Monica Barnett with someone who was really excited to see them.

Do you know Jenny from The NY Melrose Family? If not, check her out. She’s a creative teacher mama who isn’t afraid to wield fondant. (Little known fact: she and I went to high school together.) It was really fun seeing her.

I had the privilege of interviewing Liz Vaccariello, editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest and author of The Digest Diet. More on that later this week.

I didn’t really plan to drop by the Hillshire Farm’s booth, but their creations smelled so good I couldn’t resist. Chefs were whipping up made to order stirfry dishes using Hillshire Farm’s sausages. I tried the Chicken and Apple one and it was delicious with tri-colored peppers and onions over wild rice.

This is the chef who whipped up my dish. I failed to ask his name, but he was telling me about his experiences cooking for large groups — including cooking rice for thousands. Loved to hear that Hillshire Farm brought in real chefs for the event.

The last thing I did at BlogHer was board a bonafide school bus to go to the Lands’ End Back to School Event (check out Sarah by the Sea for more on that). This bus brought back such memories.

There was a little cooking demo at the Lands’ End event where a celeb chef whipped up some creative lunchbox dishes (loved the avocado salad he made). But who was this?

Why, it’s Sam Talbot from Top Chef! He was very nice and happily answered any questions thrown his way. MomTrends did a lovely job with this event.

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The first time I set foot on Barnard College’s campus, I fell instantly in love. At the time, I was living near Lincoln Center, amid the hustle-bustle of the city. I loved that area, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. But when I emerged from the subway at 116th Street, it was like walking into a different world — a village within the city. Something just clicked for me.

I was still in the city, still close to everything, but the pace of life in Morningside Heights was a little slower … a little more suburban. And as I learned more about the school itself, I decided it was perfect. Just perfect.

Three months later, I moved into a dorm at Barnard. It was the spring semester, and although I was so excited to be there, I was also nervous and a little shy about everything. Thank goodness for good roommates. I lived with four people — three girls and a guy — and they were all so inviting and nice. Even when I wasn’t sure how to befriend them, they dragged me out and included me.

Two of those roommates are still among my closest friends, more than 10 years later.

Those same wonderful roommates also introduced me to the amazing world of Korean cuisine. If I close my eyes, I can take myself back to that first encounter. I was a little scared (new food! eek!) and a little apprehensive. But I asked my friends what I should try and took their advice.

The only problem with this whole thing? I loved that dish so much that I have never had anything else Korean. That first dish turned out to be an amazing, life-altering flavor experience. It was Bi Bim Bap (or bibimbap), a rice dish, sometimes served in a hot stone pot. Warm veggies, often sauteed and lightly seasoned, top the rice and then there is a fried egg on top of it all. Sometimes it’s served with beef too. Then you add some red chili paste. Oh, it’s divine.

At the restaurant we used to go to near the Barnard and Columbia campus, they would bring out these steaming hot stone pots, and we’d stir them vigorously, adding copious amounts of the red chili paste. It was a thrilling flavor experience. Every bite, from the tender beginnings to the crispy rice at the bottom of the bowl, was fabulous.

Unfortunately, I don’t often get back to that restaurant (or any other Korean restaurant), since I live and work in Connecticut, where there is a definitive lack of Korean cuisine. Yes, there are a few restaurants in New Haven and Hartford, but none are close enough to my house to warrant a trip.

Fortunately, I am all about adapting favorite dishes to be more accessible, and this one was perfect for that.

I’ve traded the hot stone pot (really, folks, that’s awesome at the restaurant, but not so much at home) for a more sensible bowl. The veggies are narrowed to just a few and served mostly raw. The egg is poached, instead of fried, since I find poached eggs easier to make. But the resulting dish? Absolutely divine. In fact, when I served it to Will and Paige (minus the Sriracha), they loved it. And Will begged for me to make some for his lunch the next day for school.

So, how do you make this Bi Bim Bap wanna-be dish ultra simple? It’s all in the prep.

• Make the rice first. I use a rice cooker, and it takes about an hour.
• Once the rice is nearly done, julienne-cut the veggies. This can be done really fast if you use a food processor fitted with a julienne blade or a mandolin fitted with a julienne blade.
• Use frozen chopped spinach. Simply heat 1 tbsp of olive oil and add two crushed cloves of garlic. Stir in the spinach, cover and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring twice.
• Have all the veggies cooked and ready when you slide the eggs into the water for poaching.

Korean-Inspired Rice Bowl
serves 4

4 cups cooked white rice
2-3 carrots, peeled and julienned
1 yellow bell pepper, julienned
1 cup chopped spinach, sauteed with two cloves garlic
4 large eggs, poached
Sriracha, to taste

Divide the rice evenly among four bowls. Top with carrots, yellow pepper, sauteed spinach and one poached egg each. Drizzle with Sriracha (if desired), and stir vigorously to combine.

Serve immediately.

The post Korean-Inspired Rice Bowl (A Bi Bim Bap Wanna-Be Dish) appeared first on Sarah's Cucina Bella.

There was one semester where we had Wrapp Factory for dinner at least twice a week. It was fantastic. The wraps were big and bursting with rice and things like teriyaki or jerk chicken. They made the wrap a meal. Mmmm. And their smoothies were great too, if we were in the mood for that — and had the extra cash.

In the past years, a great Chinese place, Empire Dynasty, closed. Our beloved Ethiopian restaurant Zula was shuttered too. Our local market, the West Side Market, closed and opened again. The student center where we got our mail was razed to make way for an enormous new student center and school building. It’s just amazing how much things can change . . .

Every time I hear about another neighborhood change, it’s like another of the tiny stings that tie the still youthful me to my college days is snipped. In my mind, the neighborhood should never change, because it was good as it was — with scaffolding and redevelopment and imperfectness — and because that was how it was when my class was there.

But I know that things do change, whether we want them to or not. The school will finish its new Nexus perhaps in the next year. A new class will enter the hallowed halls of Barnard in the fall, with a newer neighborhood than the one I lived in. They will laugh with friends as they cross the same College Walk, going to different take-out joints but attending the same classes. They are smelling the same scents of city life, but gazing with a younger, newer, fresher outlook. It’s new and it’s old. It’s the same and it’s different.

I can never get my experience back. No matter how much I would love to return to my college days, I can’t. The imperfect neighborhood and the imperfect me can only move forward and change with the times. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to be — if only for a day or two — that young woman free in the big city with infinite options and possibilities all around again.

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Let’s get something established off the bat: I consider myself a fairly liberal person – few things offend me. Few things make me blush. And I rarely see something and wonder how that ended up in a magazine or on television or wherever. I believe in an open and honest relationship with kids and don’t shy away from difficult topics. But I also don’t invite uber-sexuality into my home either. I don’t subscribe to magazines that are inappropriate for my children to flip through and I don’t frequent late night pay per view (in fact, I never order pay per view anything – waste of money IMHO).

One of the magazines that arrives weekly in my little black mailbox is New York Magazine. My husband and I both read it. I typically check out the restaurant reviews and “In Season” column first, and then flip through the interesting articles. I have clippings of “In Season,” in a file in my office. I’ve learned about so many interesting foods from there that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

So, after several years of subscribing, I have a reasonable expectation that the magazine won’t run anything that my young children shouldn’t see. I expect to be able to read a reasonably interesting food section.

Enter the now infamous Lindsey Lohan cover shoot that was modeled after Marilyn Monroe’s last cover shoot.

The magazine arrived not covered in plastic. Aside from a notation that she was nude, there was no warning that this might not be appropriate for all readers . . . It was just there. I assumed the shoot would be tasteful — nude, but not naked. To me, nude is the Demi Moore Vanity Fair cover – everything exposed, but covered. Naked is what you find in Playboy. And while the Playboy photos are tasteful, they are not appropriate for, say, a two year old.  That’s why I subscribe to New York Magazine and not Playboy.

It would be an understatement to say I was shocked when I saw the Lindsey Lohan photos – her breasts are bared and little else is left to the imagination. And it goes on for pages. This isn’t an instructional on breast self-exams. Nor is it a spread in an adult magazine. These are gratuitous naked shots in an otherwise general interest magazine.

Before I get railed on with cries of this being artistic – that may have worked for Hugh Hefner for decades, but it doesn’t work here. My kids should be able to see me flip through this magazine without hiding pages . . . And before I hear about being comfortable with the female body, I agree that the body is a beautiful thing, not something shameful. But I am hardpressed to find an excuse that makes this anything more than soft porn.

You want artistic license? Artistic license is Sean Combs being about to speak the actual words on television from the play-turned-TV movie, A Raisin in the Sun. Those words include the N-word – you all know the one – but that is part of the play. It is an insight into a time gone. This LL shoot isn’t.

So, while people go ballistic about Jane Fonda actually saying the so-called C-word on the Today Show, which is part of the name of a segment of The Vagina Monologues that she’s appearing in and while the cast of A Raisin in the Sun had to fight tooth and nail to keep one of the N-word instances to remain at a critic point in the play,  people should take a step back and think a little about this.

Artistic integrity and artistic license is something reserved for true art works – the original Marilyn Monroe shoot, plays, proper names – not an imitation of the original.

Bringing this back around, I am not offended by the offensive words on shows and in plays as mentioned above – they are in context and should my kids be watching with me, they are something that can be a conversation starter for what’s appropriate and what’s not. But risque photos from a less-than-admirable starlet are nothing more than an attention-grabbing, mouth gaping editorial risk. New York Magazine pushed the envelope with this one . . . and they pushed it too far.

What do you think about Lindsey, Jane and Sean? What’s offensive and what isn’t?

Photos from NYMag.com

The post Artistic License, Offensive Words and Risque Photos appeared first on Sarah's Cucina Bella.

For starters, just seeing people at this restaurant was a good sign to me. There were people coming and going, and a number of tables filled in the small space. That’s a huge improvement from the restaurants that filled those spots when I was a Plimpton resident five years ago.

Looking at the menu, it was difficult to choose just one sandwich. There are so many varied and unique combinations. The Arzu, for instance, combines smoked ham, goat cheese and pesto. The Andrea on the other hand has sliced Bartlett pears, brie cheese, arugula, toasted pine nuts and honey. I chose to try to the Ronaldo, which features Parma proscuitto, mozzerella di Bufala, tomato and extra virgin olive oil.

It was delightful. The flavors blended and melded together in such a glorious fusion that I couldn’t believe my mouth. It was creamy and savory all at once…Oh I am salivating just remembering it. I wholeheartedly recommend this place.

This originally appeared on Cucina Bella Reviews.

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Ok. So yes. I am a native New Yorker (however living outside of New York, but still close by). And yes, I had never been to The Container Store . . . until today. Oh. My. God. I am such a container junkie (and no, I actually didn’t buy anything due to an unreasonably long line).

Here are some items of interest though that I located and plan to purchase later:

• Salad Blaster Bowl - This AWESOME bowl lets you transport your salad and dressing in the same container without having them mixed (which everyone knows causes wilting). When you are ready, you push in a button on the lid and the dressing falls onto the salad. How cool is that?
• Snack and Dip - Ok. I wasn’t convinced when I saw this, but the more I’ve considered it, the cooler I think it is. Honestly, I do take a lot of dips and dippers to work, and this handy container lets you compactly transport them together. YAY!
• Sandwich Plus Lunch Container - I don’t take many sandwiches to work, but this is such a nifty container with to parts – one for the sandwich and a second with divided portions to store whatever else you bring like (mmmm) pickles, fruit and veggies. Take a look. It’s very cool

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There was Zula, the Ethiopian restaurant that has since closed, where my friends and I would share great vegetarian dishes and eat until we were stuffed. Then, we’d order rum cake to top it off. I was so sad to learn that it had closed. I really want to locate another Ethiopian restaurant since that ranks among my favorite food.

Then there was Mill Korean at 2895 Broadway. Fortunately that is still there, and still serving the streaming Bi Bim Bap in a hot stone crock. I have never tried anything else there because that was just so delicious with the red chili sauce stirred in. If I remember correctly, that was the first restaurant my roommates and I went to when I started school at Barnard in the Spring 1999 semester.

I would be remiss to forget Saigon Grill, located at 1700 2nd Avenue on the Eastside and at 620 Amsterdam Avenue on the Westside. Their chicken satay with peanut sauce is to die for. Served over rice noodles, I just cannot get enough of it.

Of course, Che Bella at 1215 Amsterdam Avenue makes a good pizza. And Wrapp Factory at 2857 Broadway makes a mean (and large) wrap. (Update 8/2008: Wrapp Factory has closed.)

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