Girl Hunter weekend with Georgia Pellegrini

I’m not a hunter, but I did play one in Texas for a weekend back in December!  Maybe you saw my tweets and Instagram pics while I was swinging a Silver Pigeon V 28GA Beretta at Joshua Creek Ranch in in Boerne, Texas with 13 other food bloggers!

How did this all come about, you wonder?  Not your typical “girls weekend” right?  Although I do HIGHLY recommend it!! It was a lot of fun stepping outside of our usual realm and learning something new all while bonding!

You see, our friend Georgia, has led this really exciting life!  She was a classically trained chef in New York City when she decided to leave the city and learn about where our food really comes from.  Georgia traveled with veteran hunters who showed her the ropes and taught her to hunt things like quail, venison, squirrel, turkey, pheasant and elk!

She embarked on this journey to find her main course,  but along the way she learned surprising lessons about food and life and she put it all in a book titled: Girl Hunter Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time.

Photo via Marla Meridith

Georgia had the grand idea that it might be fun to let some of her friends step into her world, even if it was just for a few days.

We climbed out of cars and planes into another dimension. One filled with guns, taxidermy, fishing poles and bunk beads.

We didn’t have to worry about dressing up……

although where else could you wear a sequined camo dress? HA!

Joshua Creek Ranch was the setting

The staff was amazingly patient with all of us.  Teaching us how to shoot clays and fly fishing

We learned to ignore cameras in our face, as the a couple of Food Network camera guys were there with us for the weekend (rough jobs right?  hanging out all weekend with a bunch of women at a hunting ranch! I bet THEY could write a book! HA!)

We did spend a little girly time, leaning how to decorate cookies from Bridget, Shelley and Kristan and a few lessons on cake pops from Angie!

While the staff at Joshua Creek filled our bellies with amazing food from the ranch! We ate like hunters; quail, pheasant and venison!

We had a cooking demo with Georgia, where she shared how easy it can be to prepare a dish like Quail en Papillote (quail baked in parchment with vegetables)

We got to see Georgia in action (with the hunting dogs! – so cool to watch them too)

Group shot of the Girl Hunters:
Left to right: Kristan of Confessions of a Cookbook Queen, Bridget of Bake at 350, Shelly of Cookies and Cups, Wendy of Wenderly, Angie of Bakerella, Amy of She Wears Many Hats, me Cetcu , Erika of Ivory Hut , Dara of Cookin’ Canuk , Georgia of Georgia Pellegrini , Elana of Elana’s Pantry , Marla of Family Fresh Cooking, Carrie of Deliciously Organic and Lori of Recipe Girl. Front and center: Eric of Joshua Creek Ranch, the other kind of Girl Hunter lol

I loved all of our girl bonding over our new experiences.  Sitting around the fire sipping wine, listening to Georgia’s stories about an outing that turned illegal and dangerous, making loon calls and eating s’mores.

I took a lot of video of us shooting our guns and even more pictures, here’s a little more from our weekend in 1:40