Hometown Hall

Atlanta Women's Network (AWN) is inviting the city’s women culinary stars, restaurateurs and food proprietors to show off their best creations and wares at the Savory Networking session at AWN's annual event, WomenUP 2008, at the Egyptian Ballroom at the Fabulous Fox on Thursday, March 6.

"We feel women in the culinary world are often overlooked as professional business women and we plan to highlight their accomplishments," said Jackie White, this year's president of Atlanta Women's Network and CEO of SynRG, Inc. "Savory Networking will provide a way for these chefs to show off their expertise while giving them exposure to other women who often dine out.

With American restaurants bringing in more than a half-trillion dollars in total sales, “eating out” is becoming the new “eating in,” according to the National Restaurant Association. And in the next decade, more than half of the average household food budget will be spent on meals bought outside the home, compared with 25 percent in 1955, the association reports.

Part of that shift, experts say, is being driven by working women, who have found that restaurants often can help them with time management and nutrition. More than 60 percent of mothers, for example, are now in the work force, leading to a huge shift in the “capitalism of the kitchen,” according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Over four hundred of Atlanta's working women are expected to attend the event. AWN is planning to showcase a limited number of female culinary professionals with tastings of their dishes during the event's Savory Networking session from 5 to 6 p.m.; and during the coffee and dessert session which will close the event from 7:30 to 8 p.m. on March 6.

Three of the culinary stars will be selected to create recipes for busy working women and the recipes will be featured in the printed event program distributed to all attendees and available to the public through the AWN web site.

Women chefs, restaurateurs and food proprietors are invited to apply for participation by Feb. 1, 2008, and final selections will be announced the week of Feb. 12. Restaurants and shops featuring edible specialties -- where a woman is one of the establishment's owners -- are eligible to participate.

Participants will be announced on Atlanta Daybook and featured in the printed event program with a headshot, a short bio and overview of their restaurant or food shop. The three recipes created especially for busy working women will also be featured in the event program, on the AWN site after the event, and made available to regional media.

Participants will donate up to 150 servings of one or two of their dishes at either Savory Networking or at the coffee and dessert session. At these sessions, each participant will have her own serving table.

To learn about all the benefits planned for the participants and to apply for participation, please call Karla Sinclair at 770-617-2642 or email karla@atlantadaybook.com

About Atlanta Women's Network
The Atlanta Women’s Network, founded in 1979, began as a forum for women of diverse backgrounds to promote the involvement of women in business. Now in our 29th year, AWN is recognized as a progressive and focused network of women who stand together to mentor, advance and support professional women in Atlanta.Atlanta Women’s Network promotes and enhances success of Atlanta professional women by sharing knowledge and experience, equipping women with tools for professional growth and personal enrichment, and by building relationships and alliances to influence and transform our community and our future. www.atlantawomensnetwork.org

About WomenUP 2008
In early March each year, AWN invites the women of Atlanta to attend our annual conference: WomenUP. March 8th is International Women’s Day and our conference honors that day by bringing successful and gifted professional and entrepreneurial women together to meet each other, to discover how women have prospered in the last year in Atlanta and in Georgia, and to offer tangible, useful tools that can lead to greater success.

Atlanta Women’s Network actively targets women in Government, Entrepreneurial, Corporate and Non-Profit sectors for WomenUP. We expect to garner exposure to thousands of professional women, and to have over 400 in attendance at the conference itself. Learn more and register for the event at http://atlantawomensnetwork.org/index.cfm/category/4/womenup.cfm

WomenUP 2008 is sponsored by: