Foodbuzz Festival Day 1.5 ~ Little Bites!

I woke up bright and early to head out with “The Girls” for a walk and I saw this!!! The Husband said while in San Francisco for the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival he wanted to see if they would let him audition to become a Hibachi Chef (you know where they cook the food in front of you at a Japanese restaurant!)  Luckily I convinced him NOT to wear his “new hat” on our morning walk.

We headed out the door and down our super cool looking stair case.  I LOVE the colors of the carpet and the stair rails.

We warmed by the fireplace while we waited to meet up ~ did you know this is ACTUALLY HOT and the fire moves

We stared at the Golden Gate Bridge too

Then, we were off walking up and down the hills by our hotel.  We counted blocks at first, then, we just forgot as we chatted away for an hour long walk.  I think I’d be totally skinny if I had to walk these hills every day and lug groceries, my work laptop etc.

 

After our walk, we got ready and headed over to the Ferry Building for the Foodbuzz Breakfast.

But, there was NOTHING but grapes and coffee   Since there was no food, we opted for a photo op instead (Total Random Food Guy we didn’t know stood in our pic and smiled – cheese!)

We sampled our way through the Ferry Building as we headed out to the HUGE San Francisco Farmer’s Market that goes on year round EVERY Saturday from 8-2pm (sigh ~ I WISH it was closer because I’d be there EVERY week)

We bought an order of Organic Potstickers and each had one ~ yeah for having 6 in a serving and there were 6 of us.

I think I fell in LOVE with the California Coffee Cake Company.  They were giving out samples of buttery Walnut Cinnamon Coffee Cake and PUMPKIN Pecan Spice Cake.

They were both ABSOLUTELY amazing!  I “almost” bought one other than I knew I’d someone managed to eat the entire thing in one day and wonder where it went.  I refrained

MUSHROOMS!!!!

The HUGEST chunk of chocolate nutty fudge I’ve ever seen.

As we headed out to grab breakfast, we came across a few street performers.  I think this is one of my favorite things about San Francisco.  You can seriously spend hours walking up and down the streets and see a bunch of people doing crazy fun things. 

These were the Cirque Du Soleil characters advertising their act at the AT&T ball park.

 

The two, er, three person band.

 

After all that fun and excitement we were STARVING.  We headed over to “Rose Goes To Market” for breakfast.

Ashley and I split two dishes.  She ordered the FANTASTIC Pear French Toast with Cinnamon Whipped Cream!

I had two bites of my half before deciding it was too early for sweet stuff.  It sounded better than it was.

I picked an eggy-sandwich that was eh ok, but, totally not worth $10!  I had half.

But these potatoes made up for it – SO GOOD, I think I could’ve eaten a plate of them alone.

I was SO SAD we didn’t have time to actually explore the market.  I was totally looking forward to ooohing and ahhhing and BUYING all the fresh organic veggies, but, bummed we didn’t have time to before our morning sessions started. I convinced The Husband to come back another day to stock up – yeah!!!

The breakout session I signed up for was the Farm to Table.  It was all about BEEF and how to bring the cow to table, not veggies/fruit, no recipes, no chef talk   I wonder what the vegetarians thought   Ooops ~ It was great to listen to all that goes into raising the grass fed beef, but, I had hoped to learn more about seasoning cooking. 

 

After our breakout sessions we ran into all of our favorite bloggers and headed over to the afternoon tasting session.  Kath surprised me with a little gift of SEEDY DAKOTA BREAD that Matt prepared.  Yeah ~ I can’t wait to try it since she always raves about how AMAZING it is

Brandi from Branappetit got the chance to host her own cooking show and presented her Pumpkin Stuffed French Toast ~ it was delish!

And Sabrina from Rhodey Girl Tests also hosted her own show for her Mini Frittatas too!

After the demonstrations, I made the rounds tasting a bite of two of just about everything you see.  I started off with Frog Hollow Granola.

Then, grabbed a Sea Food Ceviche.  I was too scared to try must past the shrimp (the octopus tentacles freaked me out!), but, the flavor was awesome!

 

Bertoli’s Sun Dried Tomato Gorgonzola Bruschetta with Pine nuts.  Can you believe I ate stinky cheese and liked it?!  It wasn’t strong and I sorta heard the gorgonzola part as I bit into it ~ oops

I LOVE the concept of these Vibrant Flavors pretzels, they are baked with no oils and everything is 100% natural.  Oh and they are ALL flavored.  I tried the Maple Bacon – it was salty, sweet, maple like with a hint of bacon and totally crunchy – YUM!

 

The same company is spinning of a version of something I’ve never heard of ~ Dry Dip!  You dip your bread in the oil then roll it in this spicy hazelnut sunflower seed blend.  It is surprisingly good and HEALTHY! It might be the only healthy thing I came across all weekend

I skipped all the flavored Olive Oils when I saw that they had flavored Marshmallows!

Cranberry, Pumpkin Spice and Tahitian Vanilla Marshmallows – super soft and loaded with flavor.   The concept is kinda cool and perfect for the season.

I think my FAVORITE candy place was the BonBonBar.

I sampled the Pumpkin Spice Caramel with Vanilla Marshmallow in the middle – OMG!!! I so wanted to buy this on the spot.  Their caramel is so buttery, sweet, creamy with a hint of saltiness and it finishes with pumpkin spice and vanilla = LOVE!!!!

Peanut Butter Filled chocolates that I skipped (what’s wrong with me?!)

LOCAL & ORGANIC ~ totally my type of company.  I am pretty much going to Berkeley to their store.

The next chocolate I tried was from Neo Cocoa.

Creamy Apple Wood Smoke Sea Salt with ALMOND BUTTER!!! Need I say more?!  These were so soft like fudge but super smooth/creamy like a good chocolate should be. She said her secret was that she didn’t start with a hard chocolate shelled chocolate…Hmmm.

i was SO EXCITED when I saw my ABSOLUTE MOST FAVORITE BAKER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD was there ~ Annie The Baker!!!! I have been going through COOKIE  withdrawals now that the Farmer’s Market isn’t going on and I can’t get my weekly fix. 

She totally hooked me up with Toffee Chocolate Chip cookies and for the first time ever I actually managed to save one for The Husband – it was so hard to

More fancy chocolates that I skipped because I saw….

THESE! Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Plus Pumpkin Butter…..

So GOOD!  I was trying to think of a way to smuggle the dish and jar home

After all that sweet, I decided I needed something salty.  I picked their spicy curry pumpkin calzone thing.  So GOOD!  I need to try curry pumpkin.

BRIE CHEESES!!!  The first I tried was a RAW Brie Cheese.  It was interesting because it was firm and had a sort of stinky cheese taste at first.  It was good, but……

 

I LOVED the TRIPLE CREAM BRIE best!

With my cheese, I had wine and wine and more wine!

I totally took a grape flavored chap stick too – fun!

 

I came across one of my FAVORITE vendors there ~ Made In Napa Valley.  You can buy their products online or at their store located in Napa.  I am sure you all will remember the delicious eats we had when we went to their restaurant Centre Cafe.   This is the place that I buy all my flavored Balsamic Vinegars and Spicy Mustards from.  I think their pasta sauces, marinades and BBQ sauces rock too.  I LOVE their products because they are CLEAN and 100% natural.

I have some super cool things that I will be sharing with you all about Made In Napa Valley in the future and I cannot wait to share!  I will be doing some recipe development and a few other things ~ yeah!!!  They made sure to hook me up with some a couple of things to take home with me.  TASTY Blue Cheese Dijon Mustard (no, you don’t taste the stinky cheese it adds flavor!) and a Smoked Chile Brown Sugar Rub.  Julia shared a spicy peanut recipe using this rub that I HAVE to try!

Thanks you two ~ I LOVED chatting and cannot wait to try out my new products!

 

Next stop was Irish Butter!  I have always wanted to try Irish Butter because I’ve heard it’s sweeter than regular butter.  I actually LOVED the unsalted version and it’s super creamy in comparison to regular butter.

CHEESE!

I had to stop by the Bertolli Stand again when I heard him say he had Slow Roasted Beef over Polenta ~ YUM!

Mushroom, stuffed, mushroom plus cheese and cheese and spicy Italian Sausage.

You knew it would happen!  I started with and ended with MISSION MINI’S!!!  I LOVE these cupcakes and am seriously thinking of ALL the reasons I can order them.  I had TWO Classic Mini’s.

 

Plus a two of their new flavor for the day ~ Banana Nut with a Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting.  I totally agree that this can be a Breakfast Cupcake

Phew!! Can you believe that only takes you through lunch at the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival?!  It was totally fun to sample my way through dinner last night and lunch today, but, I have to admit, I was definitely looking forward to sitting down to dinner.

Tomorrow I will post the Grande Finale ~ dinner, breakfast and SWAG!!!

Off to catch some zzzzzzz’s!