I will dream of Miami ...

Words hardly do justice to the incredible, awesome time I had this weekend.

Well, one word does come to mind: Overstimulating.

My first trip to the Food Network's South Beach Food and Wine Festival far exceeded my expectations. Turns out, all of the things I worried would cut into the fun - crowds, lines, getting shut out of demos - were not an issue.

In their place were all these wonderful things I never anticipated. A well-stocked goodie bag. A waterford wine glass. A lanyard with a clip attached so you could wear the wine glass around your neck. A rum tent.

Someone really put a lot of thought into this.

We started as soon as the festival opened at 11 a.m., walking past Peter and Paul to cross under the golden gates into our own personal heaven - at least for the next seven hours.

We passed tent after tent, all with signs beckoning us in with promises of meeting some of the country's greatest food personalities - not just those on the Food Network.

To be honest, a lot of the details of the day are a little bit of a fog. That's where this whole overstimulation comes in. And I was feeling that way well before we hit the rum tent.

What kind of Food Network groupie wouldn't feel that way? We saw Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray, Emeril, Michael Symon, Paula Deen, Guy Fieri. There were stars everywhere, many of them happily working the crowd and chatting it up with their friends. We got our picture with Robert Irvine.

All this sandwiched between the beautiful greenish blue waters of the Gulfstream in the Atlantic and Ocean Drive.

I LOVE MIAMI!!!!

Forget the all you could eat food and wine. Just being there was euphoric.

Of course there was a highlight of the day: The Rachael Ray signing.

She was the last in my tri-fecta of first wave Food Network favorites. She was really my first, the one I watched in college who made me really think I could be successful in the kitchen. I packed my little Yum-O shirt just for the fest and started staking out her demo tent for seats practically as soon as we got there. Forget that Bobby Flay was on stage. He was the farthest thing from my mind this time around. I wanted to see Rachael.

The wait wasn't long before she came on stage for her demo, much the same as on t.v. Maybe a little bit more reserved. Maybe a little distracted by the live audience. Maybe a little tired. This was already day four of the festival. But she was every bit as warm and welcoming as you would imagine.

After the demo I bolted over pretty quickly to the tent where she would do the book signing. The book people were pretty strict, saying she might only sign one book and only one bought at the festival.

But I had something else I wanted to try and sneak under the radar. I had the very first copy of her magazine, Everyday with Rachael Ray, and I wanted her to sign it.

As I walked up to the table and put my two items down I heard the woman in front of my gushing.

"Ohhhhhh, you have the first copy of the magazine," she said.

I looked up and realized it was the editor. That might not seem that awesome to anyone else, but I'm a journalist. I can appreciate it.

I asked her if she would sign it too. At first she insisted that I didn't really want her to.

"No I really do," I told her. "I really want you to sign it."

She got a big smile on her face and started flipping through the pages.

"Where should I sign it?" she asked.

"Anywhere you want," I told her.

"I'll sign my column," she said.

She held it up and showed Rachael, who slapped her signature on the cover.

And that was it. It didn't occur to me until I walked away that I could have told her I'm a reporter. Oh well. It was still a great moment.

Then I followed the sound of the steel drum band down the yellow sand road. The rum was waiting ...

A little postscript: The rest of the festival was a blast. After a few trips to the rum tent, Paula Deen even started to grow on me. At the very least she's a great entertainer. Guy Fieri was a great way to end the festivities. And then of course we had the perfect end to a perfect weekend. We capped off the trip with brunch at Emeril's : )