Back in September, I received a message on my answering machine from Simple and Delicious Magazine, one of the Taste of Home Magazine series. Apparently, I had won second prize in a recipe contest for easy but elegant meals to serve to company. It was the oddest thing, because I barely even remembered entering the contest and I certainly had no recollection of what recipe I had submitted. I had to call them back and ask them to clarify. Turns out, way back in January of 2011, I had submitted my Sesame Roasted Salmon with Wasabi Mayo for their consideration. It’s a recipe that I had posted on this blog, long before I had much of a following, so it’s one that’s not received a lot of attention from readers. And I was so thrilled it made the cut with Simple and Delicious, because this is hands down one of my favourite recipes ever. I don’t always remake recipes from this blog, since part of my job is to come up with new recipes all the time. But this is one we make again and again and again. Any time I see wild-caught salmon on sale, we make this. It is THAT good and it is remarkably simple to make.

I have, out of respect for the magazine, removed the recipe from this blog. Perhaps once the magazine has been out for a while, I will repost it. However, should you happen upon a copy of the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Simple and Delicious, flip it open to page 37. There you will see my lovely salmon dish as 2nd Place in the Company’s Coming Recipe Contest. Yay me! And yes, I did receive a nice little cheque for my efforts, which has speedily been dispatched towards Christmas presents!

I also wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about the Nourished Food Blogger Conference. There are a lot of food blogger conferences out there, with seemingly more springing up every day. But this one is a little different. This conference is specifically geared towards those of us who have and write about special diets. It will primarily address gluten-free and other allergies and food intolerances, but other special dietary needs will be considered.

And I am thrilled to say that yours truly will be speaking as part of a panel called Beyond Gluten Free. We will be addressing how to engage a larger audience. For my part, I will touch on how to market yourself to the low carb world, a dietary preference which is rapidly growing in popularity. Let’s face it, we can all use more readers and if we can tap into another segment of the food-blog reading world, more power to us. Certainly low carb and gluten free diets share some commonality, but there are some large differences as well. I plan to provide attendees with some concrete ideas and advice on how to make their recipes and writing appeal to the low carb community.

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So if you are a gluten free or special diet food blogger, I encourage you to attend Nourished on Friday, April 13th in Chicago. You can check out all about the conference at the Nourished website.