I’ve just returned from my first-ever blogging conference — BlogHer Food ’12 — held at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle.

Naturally, the food at a food blogging conference is amazing…

And we got to try many samples from conference sponsors like Bob’s Red Mill, Chobani Yogurt, the Historic Division of Mars Chocolate, Lundberg, Mann’s Veggies and Wholesome Sweeteners.

This demonstration at the conference of how chocolate was made in the United States in the 17th Century…

…looks surprisingly similar to this chocolate demonstration at the Bribri Chocolate House my husband and I visited in Costa Rica in 2009. I love old-fashioned chocolate.

For a Saturday lunch excursion, I headed over to Pike Place Market, where I took an abbreviated Savor Seattle tour designed especially for BlogHer participants.

Here are a few pictures from the market…

Yuri from the “flying fish” market was so adamant that everyone try a sample of their smoked salmon with black pepper. It was incredible.

Of course, the real meat of the conference was the workshops, from which there were a number of topics to choose from. I attended several on photography and several related to publishing cookbooks. Along with the keynote presentations, these sessions were inspiring and practical, and I’m hopeful that what I take home from the conference will help me to become a better blogger.

And to start with, I’ve just purchased my own website domain: beckyajohnson.net. You can still find me through my old WordPress site, and things shouldn’t change a bit for my subscribers.

I’m also now on Twitter as BeckyAJohnson31 and Pinterest as beckyajohnson, so feel free to connect with me if you’re on either one.