Everything I Ate In NYC

This post has been a long time coming. I went to New York City last month for the FIRST TIME EVER. A few years ago, when I was interested in magazine writing, I had this dream of moving out to New York and working for a super cool publication like Bon Appétit or Food Network Magazine. My professional goals have shifted since then, but my fascination with New York City has remained constant.

My friend Emily and I went to NYC for “the best food festival-conference hybrid you’ll ever experience”. Brainfood was put on by Spoon University, an organization I’ve been involved with since my freshman year at Iowa. Spoon University is essentially an online magazine written by college students, for college students. Emily and I are, respectively, the editorial and marketing directors of the University of Iowa chapter. Brainfood was an all-day event consisting of speakers (think: Alton Brown + Hannah Hart), networking with professionals in the food industry, and tons of free samples.

Everything I Ate In Nashville

As some of you may know from my social media posts, I spent this past weekend in Nashville with my dad. There really was no point to the trip, we both just wanted to visit and explore a new place. Neither of us had been to Nashville previously, so we decided this would be the perfect place to satisfy our wanderlust. I was put in charge of choosing the places to eat, and I’m pretty sure I was born for this job. (If you’re reading this and have any connections/way to make traveling and eating a career, let me know.)

When we got off the airplane, we had absolutely no plan. As my dad reiterated a thousand times, this was completely out of his comfort zone. I was totally cool with it, as long as we hit all the places I wanted to eat. It ended up being a super fun trip (even though we never had a definite plan, ever). Every place we visited and ate was amazing, so I decided to share the experience with you all. Here’s the list of places we hit and my thoughts on them.