Honey Blog - Let's Talk About Honey

The National Honey Board Goes Camping

Posted by Jessica on Wed, May 09, 2012 - 2:21 PM

We have been busy bees (sorry, just couldn’t stop myself) the past few weeks. On Thursday of last week, two members of our National Honey Board (NHB) staff flew to Angelus Oaks, CA, to sponsor a food blogger conference. This was the first year we’ve sponsored this event, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect.

As soon as we arrived, we had to unload the rental car of the eight (yes, eight!!) boxes that we had shipped in for the conference. Not to mention our very large luggage bags (filled with sleeping bags, pillows; the whole nine yards), and take it all into our tiny cabin. Once we were settled in, it was time to get to work. We assembled 110 attendee bags with honey sticks, water bottles, spatulas and all sorts of recipes. These bags were filled to the brim and we were excited to give it all away. We knew that we’d be short on time, getting all these bags together for the attendees, but we were up to the challenge. Knowing we were on a time restraint, we worked quickly and even had time to spare once we were finished.

When the conference kicked-off that evening, the NHB was the first to present. We got on stage and for a half an hour, educated the attendees on how honey is made, the versatility of it and why they should be using it in both cooking and baking. The food bloggers were very receptive to us and had a ton of great questions at the end. They all wanted to learn more about honey and we were more than happy to educate them.

The next morning was especially fun, because the cooks made breakfast that included honey in all the menu items. We feasted on honey custard french toast, honey blueberry syrup, orange almond honey muffins and stewed fruit with honey and cloves. Needless to say, we were stuffed, but it didn’t end there.

A few hours later, the NHB held a honey tasting, where we showcased some of the over 300 honey varietals found here in the United States. We set up our table and had the attendees come over and talk to us about their favorite honey varietals and we tried to introduce them to some new ones. We also wanted to educate them on how different the honeys can taste. Most people don’t realize that the Avocado honey will have a completely different flavor profile than Tupelo honey. The tasting went extremely well and the attendees seemed to get a lot of good information about honey from it.

As they say, “all good things must come to an end” and with that, it was time to head home. We had a wonderful time at Camp BlogAway and were able to meet some wonderful people. We hope that our paths cross again and hopefully we will be seeing the same faces at next year’s camp! Oh and note to self… UPS and FedEx are closed on Sundays, which makes shipping back banners and conference materials a bit on an inconvenience. We ended up having to carry it all on the plane with us and as you can imagine, the logistics of that were quite interesting.

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