by David Ball
Staff Writer
Jill Cordes sleeps in a silk sleeping bag.
Not because she’s a well-known travel show host who deserves pampering, but because she wants to keep the bugs out.
That was one of the tips on travel, dining and interviewing the former Food Network and HGTV personality shared with members of the Jacksonville Bar Association at its monthly luncheon on Thursday.
It turns out that Cordes is friends with the sister of Bar Association President Caroline Emery, and Emery said Cordes’ tip recently paid off.
“Today, my sister is in Carthage, Tunisia,” said Emery. “Because of Jill she got a silk sleeping bag. It keeps the bugs out.”
Cordes said her ties to Northeast Florida, including the fact her mother and aunt grew up in St. Augustine, was one reason she decided to entertain the local legal crowd. But another reason was her passion for food.
“I kinda came for O’Steen’s (Restaurant) shrimp in St. Augustine,” she said.
Food, it turns out, has been a central theme of her career. It started when she burned her script on a hot stove while hosting a cooking segment on a local TV station in the Midwest. She kept the charred script.
It continued when she landed a job co-hosting Food Network’s “The Best Of” show that toured the best eateries in different locales. Six months into the job, she choked on a fish bone while on camera. She kept the fish bone, she said, because “it shows the challenges of a food show.”
Later she began hosting HGTV’s “My First Place,” and continued her career of traveling. She said it wasn’t always easy to exercise and stay in shape going from hotel to hotel, but she offered some advice to some of the attorneys who might also travel.
“I like to run when I get somewhere new,” she said. “I always find that’s a great way to see a city.”
Though it might be a little easier for Cordes, who recently ran the New York City Marathon and finished well enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon.
But something everybody is interested in is saving money, and Cordes shared some of her favorite “secret” Web sites that offer the best deals on flights and hotels.
She also talked about another current topic — green living. In fact, Cordes is now working on short TV segments called “Better Living with Jill Cordes” that will be played during local newscasts and other programs. She said Jacksonville isn’t on the early list, but the show will soon expand to 75 markets in the U.S.
“It’s really important to me,” said Cordes, who carries a reusable aluminum water bottle and her own bags for grocery shopping. “I still leave a fairly large carbon footprint with all the flying I do. But I try to balance that with other things in my life.”
Other topics discussed at the Bar Luncheon include:
• The 2008 Lawyer Variety Show titled “There Oughta Be A Law” coming up on June 27 and presented by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid (JALA) and the Jacksonville Bar Association’s Foundation Fund. Auditions started last weekend and will continue on Thursday from 6-8 p.m. at the Unity Church, 634 Lomax St. in Riverside. Performers and visual artists of all kinds are encouraged to audition. For more information, call Rose Marie Preddy at 651-1919.
• JALA is in need of volunteer lawyers to help defend homeowners caught in foreclosure cases. JALA claims they are being overwhelmed by the volume of cases, and there are expected to be 10,000 foreclosures in 2008.
• Emery announced that the Bar Association recently gained 100 percent membership from judges in the Fourth Judicial Circuit.