#PlateSwap

For those of you not familiar with Twitter, the title of today's blog is what is affectionately known as a hashtag. It's a Twitter thing that helps Twitter users track a particular conversation or a trend. In this case, #PlateSwap helps me and other food bloggers chat about our Secret Santa project.

It's also why the first photo in this blog post features a nekkid, unplated plate. I wanted to be sure to show off my new #PlateSwap plate.

Thanks to the organizational skills of Cheryl Tan (aka @cheryltan88) and Ellise Pierce (aka @cowgirlchef) a few of us food blogger sorts exchanged plates with one another Secret Santa style. One of the goals was to add variety to the plates we use for our photos that accompany our blog posts.

In case you haven't noticed, in my case, this is a good thing. I'm very attached to my Correlleware plates. They're the gold-patterned dishes you see featured on my blog over and over and over again. These actually are fugitive dishes from my Dranny's set. During my next trip home, my goal is sneak some of my Mom's blue-patterned Correllware out in my luggage. (shh... don't tell her...)

I was the lucky recipient of the lovely plate seen here, which was sent to me by Paula Jones, author of bellalimento.com (aka @bellalimento). Paula deserves double bonus points in this adventure. She sent my #PlateSwap plate to me and it was returned to sender.

Doh!

Apparently, my move to the new apartment messed up the delivery one way or another. I suspect that in the haze of moving, I shared the old address, not the new one. Lucky for me, Paula was kind enough to re-send it via priority mail. Like I said, double bonus points for Paula.

Shipping misadventures aside, it was so exciting to receive this gift and to be a part of the #PlateSwap. It gave me a chance to "meet" some other food bloggers and it was an excellent excuse to rummage through a my favorite, nearby antique store so that I could share a fabulous find with my Secret Santa recipient, Cathy Shambley, aka ShowFoodChef.com and aka @ShowFoodChef.

As seen here, I've already started to put my #PlateSwap plate to work. This would be the results of an enchilada recipe I was experimenting with earlier this week. The recipe didn't quite turn out as I had hoped. Though I haven't quite determined what the "off" factor was for me. I guess that means I'll just have to try again.

You'll also see my #PlateSwap plate featured in the previous blog post. My Bacon Cheddar Scones are plated up on it. Those, I'm happy to say came out quite well. (phew!)

To Ellise and Cheryl, a special thank you for organizing the #PlateSwap. I loved the idea and can't wait to participate in future shenanigans with y'all. To Paula, thank you for the lovely plate.