H&H Conference - Delicious Foods and beautiful hotel

One of the main reasons that we went to the H&H Conference this year, June 21-23, in Chicago, was the hotel accommodations were provided, and we were invited to a buffet supper because of the Local Quilt Shop Win. It was paid for by the Contest, and I’m assuming by the sponsors, with the primary one being ByAnnie.com.

Usually I just nod at things like this, knowing that the cost will still far outweigh the win, but this time I was intrigued. We rarely stay in luxury hotels, and more often than not, we’re the ones picking up the bill for others to dine, rather than vice versa.

I thought it would be great fun for you all to see some of the cool foods that they had in Chicago as well as the places to eat.

Often, when traveling, we end up eating at fast food places, to expedite the trip. However, this trip was basically planned for us by the conference itinerary, as we had to work things in and around sessions.

So, let me review. Ken and I flew out of Florida on Tuesday, so we could get in on all of the classes, and displays on Wednesday through Friday, and Steven flew out of Cleveland the same day, so we could all learn together. (Steven is located in Ohio and runs our digital marketing. You’ll often see him mentioned on Facebook. He’s been developing our Facebook Reels and other such things.)

At events like this, they have lots of classes, and edutainment, of sorts. This particular conference had Master Classes, which were $240 and smaller classes, which were $80. I knew that we still hadn’t learned all the free stuff yet, so I signed us up for free classes. Ok, call me cheap, but I’m leary of spending $240 for one session.

Ok, before we delve into the food, let me re-assure you that the food on the plane was nothing special! In fact, the fruit bar was about 1.5 square inches and hard as a rock! My sea salty dark chocolate bar was a bit like eating a dry cracker with salt and dark, bitter chocolate on it. Oh how I longed for some milk chocolate!

When we landed in Chicago on Tuesday, we checked our schedules, and realized that our classes did not begin until Wednesday, so we had only to check in and go and scout out the Donald Stephens Conference Center and surrounding area in Rosemont, IL.

We had been advised to get a “Chicago” style pizza. We, however, were limited in our options, as we opted not to rent a car, as our hotel was literally across the street from the Convention Center, and we knew that we could easily walk there. We also knew that there were plenty of places to eat, so we chose to just walk everywhere.

Since I had originally thought our classes started at noon on Tuesday, I had arranged our plane trips to get us there quite early. Consequently, we were at the hotel by 11 a.m. However, our room wasn’t to be ready until about 1 p.m., so we decided to check out the convention center, communal areas of the hotel and surrounding area.

All 3 of us had gotten our day going around 4:30 a.m., so we were, indeed, HUNGRY, by lunch time, and that was Eastern Time. We were in Central Time, so we had repeated one hour of the day. We let our fingers do the walking through Google’s “restaurants near me,” and opted for our first dining experience to be right in our beautiful hotel restaurant. We ordered a “flat bread” as an appetizer, and lo and behold, we ended up getting a pizza, of sorts. We all tried different things, with each of us enjoying our chosen entree.

But, we had heard rumors about the Chicago style pizza, so we for supper, we ended up walking down to the DiGiorno’s Pizza Restaurant. (Rest assured, there were many hours between lunch and supper.)

Now that was amazing. I wondered why it took 32 minutes in the oven. (We’re used to our 20 minute order and delivery to the table time here)….

And this is what we got.

I had wondered why she asked, “Do you want to take a picture as I cut it? I, of course, being the dutiful tourist, said, “Yes.” The table next to me had said, ‘No.” I could tell this was old hat for them.

We just ordered one medium deep dish Chicago style pizza, and boy are we thankful. Normally, three of us would have zipped through one medium pizza and been looking for more. Instead, we ended up leaving with two thick slices, which Steven finished off later on.

For breakfast daily we had an amazing breakfast buffet served in our stunning hotel. Here are some pictures of the buffet.

The breakfast came complete with a couple of chefs who made “made to order” omelets. We didn’t do that, because we were pleased with the other options. I perfected the art of the waffle maker, finally, on the last day, figuring out how to get chocolate syrup swirled throughout my delicious hand made waffle! And I especially love, love, love fresh melon!

The last night we did go to Bill Murray’s Caddy Shack restaurant. (I had to research who Bill Murray was, so that was fun… looking at all of the movie posters and remembering seeing his face from quite a while ago.)

There we were amazed by all of the guys running the show! Usually it’s a bunch of female serving staff. This place, that night, was all men. They did an outstanding job. We enjoyed our hot sandwiches.

Once Wednesday got here, lunches were inside the Convention Center. One day we tried the taco bar. One day we did the inside restaurant and had burgers, and the last day we opted for the delicious, juicy turkey sandwiches! It was all a nice change of pace for us! A delicious collection of fudge was also available! We enjoyed some of that as well! These items were provided inside the convention hall, so we didn’t even have to walk out of the building. It was a “food court” with very limited options. (The straw picture was to remind me to tell you that paper straws are abundant in Chicago, and not something I’m very familiar with. I found the mouth feel odd.)

The highlight of the week - eating wise - was not really eating, but being at the ByAnnie supper on Wednesday night. We picked our own seats and sat amongst some teachers and podcasters. It was fascinating listening to their stories. The problem was that the room was quite dark, exceedingly loud and the din made it impossible to hear much,

Annie came over and gave me a huge hug! I felt like I didn’t deserve it at all, but it was lovely to get!

Annie eventually found me in the darkness, and she came over and gave me hug. She mentioned that she had wanted to announce us as the winners, but not a soul would have even heard. It was so loud in the restaurant, with the concrete floor, huge high ceilings and packed out tables, that you couldn’t hear your head thumping.

So, we took a picture of us together, instead, and she went back to her table, and we finished our meal learning and laughing with ours. It was a delicious pizza buffet, and provided for by the Craft Industry Alliance!

I tried to get some pictures, even though it was quite dark. We enjoyed it all. (Steven said that he’d had a lot of pizza by that time!)

As quilters, and those who love to just dive in deep, we often wish someone would do all the cooking for us. This was one such trip! It was lovely!

Now, I’m sure many of you just want to look at the pretties - the fabrics, the yarns and the stuff! That’ll be in the next post!

Come back and see when Becky schedules it!

Thank you, Rachael, for letting us share in your food virtually! You all deserve the break and I’m glad you had the chance to experience that amazing food! I’m sure it was appreciated by all!

Thanks everyone, for coming along on this journey! And thank you, dear readers for helping Quilted Twins win the Byannie contest and because of that Rachael was able to share all these fantastic photos with us!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Rachael Woodard1 Comment