Grilled Cheese Invitational,Videos & Giveaway!

I just flew in from L.A. and boy are my arms tired! ~dun dun dun Chii!~

I don’t even know where to begin with how wonderful my trip to Los Angeles was. I was given the five start treatment all the way, complete with limos showing up at my house and special ordered sunshine filled weather!

The event I traveled to LA for was the 1^st, 7^th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational in downtown Historic Park. Sponsored by Kraft Singles, the Grilled Cheese Invitational (GCI as myself and some other bloggers have been calling it on Twitter) lasted five hours and was filled from start to finish with ooey, gooey, cheesy fun.

The Kraft Singles tent served up over 18,000 grilled cheese sandwiches! When you consider that in addition to that, each competitor was required to serve 80 samples and there were over 250 competitors…there was a whole lotta cheesin’ goin’ on!

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I made a video out of footage I shot with my Flip cam and photos taken by Rachel of A Southern Fairy Tale which gives you an idea of the fun atmosphere we enjoyed all day. The costumes were a hoot and a half but the sandwich creations…oh my GOODNESS!

I cannot even begin to describe the delicacies I got to taste that day so you all need to plan on going next year if at all possible and then we can sit and ooh and ahh together over how much fun you had! I have tons of photos I want to share with you to help you “be there” with me, but before I do that, I want to give out some Cheesy Goodness!!

FREE CHEESE WINNERS

Those who commented on my original post about going to L.A. were automatically entered to win one of several coupons I am giving away for free packages of Kraft Singles! Thanks to Random.org, the following people are going to be in the cheese!

Email your name and mailing address to Janice@southernplate.com and we’ll get those right out to you!

1. Elaina Marshall
2. Amiyrah
3. txcharley
4. TSS
5. Rachel Parton

Now on to the fun stuff! This lady, who happened to be the sweetest woman alive, made her entire outfit just for this event! Her son was competing and she wanted to come cheer him on. Voila! Kraft Singles wear was born!

She is actually a college professor of marketing and also used this outfit to speak at a conference on the importance of branding. I think she did a pretty darn good job, don’t you?

And THIS is the group she was here to cheer on! You can see that team spirit runs in the family!

Cheese! Its healthy! ~grins~

And sometimes holey…. (of course I’m talking about swiss cheese here).

You know I walked around tasting some of these sandwiches…oh yeah, it was a tough job.

~tries to look serious~

All of these people did, too.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a deer head – made entirely out of grilled cheese sandwiches.

~waits a moment for you to digest this~

Yeah, dear head…really.

I thought I was getting creative when I cut my kid’s sandwiches into triangles and made them look like a sail boat but…

And I had my own celebrity spotting, too! This is Average Betty of AverageBetty.com!

I was SO excited about getting to meet her! She is the nicest person alive and ugh…I SO WANT HER HAIR! Betty is going to post her video from the Grilled Cheese Invitational soon and I can’t wait to see it! She is the most rockin’ food blogger I know!

This is myself with the other two bloggers who were at the event courtesy of Kraft Singles!

Marie of Makeandtakes, Rachel of ASouthernFairyTale, and moi!

SPECIAL thanks to Marie and Rachel for the majority of my photos!

This entire trip was simply an unforgettable experience for me. I had such a wonderful time and now I dearly want to go back to California and take my family so they can see what a gorgeous place it is! Below, I’m inserting some of the other videos I took with my flip camera while there. I can’t believe the resolution on that thing! I’ll be doing a lot more video now that it is so convenient!

If you’re an email subscriber, the following videos are already old hat to you! I sent my email subscribers some videos while I was on my trip as well as daily letters with the goings on in the big city!

Santa Monica Beach from Christy SouthernPlate.com on Vimeo.

My Hotel Room at The Standard, Downtown LA from Christy SouthernPlate.com on Vimeo.

THIS Is the video everyone is commenting about on Facebook!

“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.” ~Wayne Dyer

Submitted by Southern Plate Reader, Joan. Click here to submit your quote here!

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I’m about to put my garden in at the new house (Even though we haven’t moved yet!) and I have already signed up for this free workshop! I can’t wait to go! Each Home Depot is offering one and there is absolutely no charge so sign up today!