i heart foodbuzz. round two.

miss round one? check it out here :)

hey guys! i am currently up in the air! special thanks to momma b for loaning me her baby computer so i could actually have blogging capabilities while away from home.  i didnt want to lug my laptop all over the place.

i am going to jump right in to my saturday recap of the foodbuzz blogger festival!

we woke up bright and early at 7 AM.. yes that is bright and early for me. allison, jasmine, danica, jay (danica’s hubs), quinn, ashley and i went for a brisk morning walk on the fantastic steep hills of san fran.  some of the hills are so gnarly! it reminds me a lot of downtown seattle.

after the walk we snagged some coffee in the hotel lobby and cleaned up.  i managed to get a couple photos of the swag bag we received upon checking into the festival. make sure you take note of the stellar houndstooth carpet :)

what was even more exciting was the incredible gift bag danica put together for each of us ladies.  her kindness is out of this world. i can’t even put a label on how freaking nice danica and her husband are! and they are SO much fun to be around!!

all of my favorite TJs loot! thank you thank you danica!

we headed over to the morning at the market and were ready to eat our own arms.. super hungry!!  it was a short walk from our hotel to the market at the ferry building.

 

when we arrived we were excited for the breakfast spread we were anticipating. ummmm so, about that “spread”~

yes. it was grapes. and nothing else. oh wait. and coffee.

a little lot disappointed and still hungry.. we decided to take matters into our own hands and find some breakfast. we walked through a fabulous market in the ferry building and tried bits and pieces of this and that while looking for something to eat.

this coffee cake was incredible.  the woman we spoke with from the california coffee cake company said she baked all of the cakes herself!  i tried some pumpkin pecan and also some walnut spice, which you see here.

of course i had to do some ladies proud and try the spicy hummus!!

danica was being her amazingly sweet self again and got some organic pot stickers for us all to share!  maybe she just didn’t want us to eat her arm?

we finally found something for breakfast!  rose pistola & rose’s cafe.

 

 

the line was super long so while waiting to order i had to run over and take some photos of this sweeeeeetie bernese!! her name was luce and she was 2 years old. totally made me miss penelope! even though she was about 5 times the size of penny jane :)

i really wanted the mushroom scramble but it was sold out so i went with the egg sandwich

it was really rad that the had organic NON HFC ketchup!  but i was really disappointed that there was no fontina or mozzarella on the sandwich like the menu said.  this was good, but not $10 good.  still.. good. and it filled me up which is all that mattered at the time!

ashley’s butternut squash brioche french toast with caramelized pears and cinnamon whipped cream really looked epic, no??

after breakfast we didn’t have much time and unfortunately couldn’t hang out at the market (or with luce) because we had an olive oil tasting to attend.  i now officially know way more than i need to know about olive oils. and we all scored a huge bottle of local olive oil!

 

 

you swirl and sniff the olive oil.. just like wine tasting.

not gonna lie, it was a little weird drinking olive oil straight. probably won’t be doing that again. but it was fun!

after the seminar we headed over to the metreon for the tasting pavilion. probably one of my favorite parts of the whole festival!!

holy crap. i don’t even know where to begin. i will just throw it all up.. gloriousness upon gloriousness!

brittany and brandi were bread ambassadors and got to whip up their award winning recipes for us all to try!

this seafood ceviche was a great blend of flavors and it reminded me of a ceviche i tried at the taste of the nation event a few months back. LOVED the squid in there. when i was in 6th grade my dad made me try squid and i haaated it. who knew i would one day love it? not me!

shortbread and pumpkin butter. yum and yum.

this next bite was hands down my favorite thing i tasted!! it was a pastry base filled with rice and caramelized onions, topped with a bleu cheese dijon mustard and pomegranate seeds. the taste and texture combination was an explosion in my mouth.. what a creative bite!

somehow.. kerrygold knows how to make plain old butter taste epic.

another thing kerrygold is good at?? CHEESE! i had a few pieces of the aged cheddar cheese infused with irish whiskey.  it was my favorite variety they had to offer. it was very soft and creamy!

bertolli was passing around some delicious pizzas and bruschettas!

we were able to get a bread cookbook signed and sample a recipe from the book.. can’t wait to crack that open!

and you can never have too much cheese.. apparently this le petit dejeuner wone best cheese in the USA.. wow!  to be honest, i liked the aged cheddar better ;)

hey ladies!!

brandi told us we could not miss the watermelon wheat beer..

i was really into these oregon dukkah dry dips!!  i wish i could find them in the SLC.  such a fun new concept i had never seen. you dip the bread in oil and then the dry dip. yum!

americano is the restaurant located inside hotel vitale. they were serving up some meatballs..

so this next thing is caraaazy. it is a cast iron pan that cooks these little lovely balls (TWSS)

 

you can fill the inside of the balls with anything under the sun.. you can make it sweet or savory.  this pan was cool but the balls seemed like they were very labor intensive and take too much time/effort to make.. he said 9 balls can take about 20-30 minutes.  hmmm.. no thanks.

in between these fantastic tastes we went to a california sparkling wine seminar!

we learned a lot about sparkling wine and how it is made.  it is actually made the same exact way as champagne. 

of the four wines we tasted, i liked the first one the most.  it was a blanc de blanc and actually was the cheapest of all four varieties.  go figure, i am a cheap date ;)

 

 

 

 

we basically had to wheel ourselves out of the metreon!  so much good food was consumed.

i was in lots of luck because the incredible, amazing, fabulous DEB was in san fran for something other than the festival.  how random! i only had a small window between the tasting and our dinner event but she was sweet enough to stop by my hotel to say hi!

she is just as amazing and cute in person as she is on her blog!  she also brought me some sweet homemade goodies.. chocolate almond macaroon kisses and pecan butter!  thanks again deb :)  we only had about 20 minutes to chat.. but i feel like we could have talked for hours.  i totally know why lara met up with her multiple times when deb was recently overseas!

after our brief meetup i raced to my room to get ready for the big dinner event.  i will post that in another post.. but here is a little preview ;)

edited to add: i didn’t have time to post this last night!  or all day today since i was so busy at work. but here it is now. yeeeeah.

p.s. i am back home now and it is so not rad! i want to go back to san fran!

Qs~

1. red or white wine? still or sparkling? still white wine para mi.

2. favorite kind of CHEEEESE? are you kidding? i can’t pick! but currently it is the kerrygold aged cheddar with irish whiskey :)

xo. janetha b.