We Go Wednesday - My Lucky Leaf Adventures Pt. 1

This spring, I had the distinct pleasure becoming a part of a group of bloggers invited to learn about and explore Knouse Foods, the company that creates Lucky Leaf and Musselman’s products, in Peach Glen, Pennsylvania. Oh yes, your girl is movin' on up in the world...they flew me out and put me up at the Hotel Gettysburg, even picked me up from the airport in a limo.  Yes, that Gettysburg.

We did a lot in 3 days, and there are a bazillion photos...so I'll have to spread my adventures out over 2 posts.  And no, I won't share all of the bazillion photos...I so dislike those people who go on vacay then share all 2,345 photos they took, and at the end of the torture, give you a crappy souvenir.

150 growers are part of the Knouse Foods co-op which has a 50-year history of providing the best fruit products. For you city slickers, this means the company is owned by these growers.  We were at the corporate headquarters, where one of the 6 Knouse Foods plants are. It is surrounded by farms so their harvest goes straight to processing.

I began my adventure the first evening with a meet and greet at our hotel that included this lovely place setting of goodies like an apron and these adorable cherry cookies.  We lucked out that the spring weather was so good  cherries came in early, which became the running theme of our trip.

I didn't know that food styling was so intense.  We had the pleasure of having Cherise Harper show us her magic.  She styled many of the recipe photos from Lucky Leaf and was working on their new pumpkin pie filling photos the next day.  Her toolbox of tools included a dentist's pick....yes, a real one.

She showed us how she would style various baked goods for photo shoots, from how to cut them to making them picture ready.  For example, how do you make pie slices stand up so pretty? She propped it up with a piece of the pie tin!

See the almond slices and cherries? They didn't just land that way, she whipped out a pair of long tweezers and carefully placed everything.  I know...

There were  lots of pie fillings, whipped cream and toppings and fun tools so we could show what we learned about food styling.  Jeez, who knew we would have classwork? Charley from Cooke's Frontier and Randi from A Lucky Ladybug show off their mad piping skills.

Here I am, showing off my creation and clearly showing the 'wrong' side...

Everyone whipping out their cameras...

I'm going to end this post here...after leaving Seattle booty-early and flying across the country non-stop that day, I was pretty much done that night too! Stayed tuned tomorrow for Part 2!