Nose To Tail At Home

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, with lots of leftover turkey for sandwiches.  I’ve been fighting with a nasty cold, so it was just luck that I had so many people willing to be guest posters.  I’m back in the saddle, and ready to finish talking about my awesome week out in California.

FRIDAY

After taking Thursday off to rest and recuperate (though I did hit up In-n-Out with a dear friend for a double double, animal style) I was ready for the first event of the First Annual Foodbuzz Blogger Festival at the Hotel Vitale in San Francisco.  I got lucky and found the perfect parking spot across the street from the hotel.  Good thing too, because the car was running on fumes.  San Francisco is  seriously lacking in gas stations.  Anyhow, I paid the parking meter and scrambled across the street to check in.

It turned out my parking spot was even luckier than I had first thought, because right after I picked up my badge they handed me a gift bag that weighed roughly eight pounds.  I’m not even joking, there were books and BBQ sauce and pie tins and all sorts of awesome things in it.  I booked the bag back across the street to my borrowed vehicle for safe keeping, and to save my poor arms.

Finally in the hotel for good I caught an elevator up to the welcoming reception, where many of my fellow bloggers were already enjoying cocktails and finger foods.  I met up with Kristi Willis from Austin Farm to Table and chatted for a little while before finally coming face-to-face with Elise Bauer from the indomitable Simply Recipes.  I had been hoping to meet her on Tuesday along with Hank Shaw, but due to my inability to get dates and times right, I missed my chance.  Not this time.  Elise was just as kind, witty and humorous in person as she is online.  After using so many of her recipes at home and on my website, it was nice to finally tell her exactly how much I appreciated her recipe repository.  We chatted for a while, and she introduced me to Luna Raven of Luna’s Kitchen Magic.  Luna is just an amazing person, and I’ll talk more about her later.

The party was moved across the street to the Ferry Building where Foodbuzz had collected tons of San Francisco’s best street food vendors and various other tasty treat providers such as these fresh chicharrones from 4505 Meats.  I’m kicking myself right now for not taking more pictures of the enormity of it all, but thankfully my fellow bloggers were dutifully snapping pictures and taking notes.  Here’s an excellent recap of the evening over at The Inner Workings Of A College Graduate.  If you ever get a chance, eat a pork sandwich from RoliRoti.  Pretty much everyone I talked to agreed that they were the hit of the evening.

SATURDAY

The next day I caught back up with the Foodbuzz festivities.  Exhausted from the busy week, I slept in and missed the olive oil tasting panel hosted by Chef Tuohy.  He’s the same Chef Tuohy that recently had an Iron Chef competition with our beloved Hank Shaw.  I did show up in time for the Sparkling Wine tasting which was really informative and eye opening.  I learned that the French came up with term “Brut” for dry champagnes and sparkling wine due to British requests for drier and drier tipples.  Finally the French exclaimed, “Fine!  If you want brutal wines, we’ll give you brutal wines!”

The rest of the afternoon was spent at a tasting pavilion at the Metreon, enjoying little tasty bites like these ethereal light, crunchy canapes that were filled with beets and a lemon meringue.  The flavor combination was perplexing, but harmonious and delicious.  They were so good I took two.

There were plenty of wine and beer vendors at the tasting pavilion as well.  When I saw that Rogue Ales had a beer with juniper in it, I just had to give it a shot.  I was expecting something almost gin-like in flavor, but instead my taste buds were met with a smooth, mellow brew with a spicy hint of juniper on the aftertaste.  These are the same folks that were hand picked to make special beers for acclaimed Chef Masaharu Morimoto, one of the original Iron Chefs.

These artisan chocolates were so pretty that I couldn’t help but take a picture of them.  They were also too pretty to eat, so I can’t tell you if they tasted half as good as they looked.

My last stop was at the Prather Ranch Meat Co. table.  We bantered back and forth about cooking from Mr. Henderson’s cookbook, they clarified the difference between leaf lard and caul fat for me, and I ate one of their hot dog samples.  If you live in the San Francisco Bay area and are looking for odd cuts of meat, I’m telling you right now: Call these guys.  They know their stuff hands down, and everything they produce is of top notch quality.

Later that evening, Foodbuzz held a huge dinner and awards ceremony in the Greenleaf Produce Warehouse in the warehouse district of San Francisco.  I had a rough time finding the place, because most GPS navigation systems aren’t programmed with information for random warehouses.  Once inside, I met back up with my friend Luna and got situated for the dinner.  It was my first time inside a food warehouse, and while I did manage to take the above picture of “sas” squashes, the majority of my pictures didn’t come out very well due to the darkness.

When we were finally sat for dinner, Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm walked around the warehouse, explaining which wines we were drinking, and what to look for on our palates as we drank.  The Bonny Doon Winery is known for its nontraditional labels and high end boutique vintages.  My editor at Eat Me Daily is a big fan of their wines and, after tasting a few, I am too.

To give you an idea of what they were serving that night, here’s the best picture I could manage of the braised beef cheeks, ox tails and root vegetables course.  The meat was perfectly cooked, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

This is a picture of Miss Seletta ‘Luna’ Raven with the powerhouse Pim Techamuanvivit of chez pim.  Luna was like a guardian angel, guiding me to all the best panels, the best food, and the most interesting people.  She introduced me to Arnold of inuyaki (whom I deeply respect), the above Randall Grahm, and the very cool Patricia of Brownies for Dinner.  She’s now a friend for life, and I have Foodbuzz to thank for the chance to meet her.

The award ceremony was rather short and sweet, and I was happy when Elise won the award “Best Recipe Blog” for Simply Recipes.  It’s nice to know that other people appreciate her hard work just as much as I do.  Everyone parted ways well fed and probably a little tipsy.  It was a glorious evening.

SUNDAY

Foodbuzz held a farewell brunch at Restaurant Lulu, with a Bloody Mary bar and lots of breakfast type foods.  An excellent end to an excellent festival.

Here we have the webmasters for This Mama Cooks (Anne-Marie Nichols), Lunch In A Box (Deborah Hamilton), and Simply Recipes (Elise Bauer).    Anne-Marie gave me a lot of insightful hints on traveling and how to deal with the jet lag.  Deborah and I found out that we’re both big fans of authentic Chinese cuisine, and that we’ve got no fear when it comes to food, and Elise talked to me about some of the inner-workings of a highly visited website. I think this picture sums up exactly why the Foodbuzz festival was such a success: I’d never have met these awesome people face to face if it weren’t for Foodbuzz.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s event!

And before I skedaddle, I’d like to thank my good friend Sharon Mendelson for putting up with me for a week, and letting me borrow one of her cars.  I’d never have made it without her.  Thank you Sharon!