The 2nd Annual Foodbuzz Festival ~ Tasting Pavilion

Day 2 of the Foodbuzz Festival started was seriously all about THE FOOD, literally!  Even though we knew we would be eating ALL day, we put on our “fancy” clothes and took a short walk drive to the infamous Tartine Bakery that Susan and Holly were raving about.

How cool is this bread chandelier….

I think we all pretty much drooled over everything in their bakery case as we waited in line.

 

But, I had my heart set on one of the beautiful Morning “Cinnamon” Buns.

You know they have to be good when you see the guy using THIS MUCH butter in the back 😉

AMAZING!!!  Buttery and flakey like a croissant, yet, chewy, dough and caramelized like a cinnamon roll….this literally melts in your mouth and I left pondering if we should all stand in like to get like a dozen to go 😀

After properly fueling for the day, we headed out for our breakout sessions.  The first session I attended was the Fast, Fresh,  and Delicious.  Chef Todd presented the recipe winner from Edible Perspective.  I WISH they had samples because it looked and smelled amazing! 

The last session I did was about video blogging where Chez Pim, Rhody Girl Tests, and Food Wishes did a fantastic job sharing all their tips and tricks to creating video. 

I have to say this session was AWESOME and I actually learned so many great things to use to implement video on my site.  I’d definitely share my notes with anyone who missed or wants to know.

I stopped by the hotel to grab The Husband before heading over to the tasting pavilion to get our food on!  The tasting pavilion was my 2nd favorite event last year so I couldn’t wait to see what they had in store for us this year.

You started by using your tooth pick to grab one of these amazing sweet Frog Hollow Farms pears…

Then, you grabbed a chunk of this beautiful bell weather farms cheese and ate them together.  WOW, I may never be able to eat my cheese alone…sweet, salty,, creamy, delicious!

I am pretty sure we stopped at every wine vendor along the way.

You know, for our food and “wine” pairing and all 😉

I absolutely LOVED that Foodbuzz went “green” this year and used compostable cups and had 3 types of trash bins (compost, recycle and trash)!

Waterfront Hotel whipped up probably the BEST tasting shrimp cocktail I’ve ever had.

The gazpacho reminded me of a sweet thai chili sauce and it paired perfectly with the succulent shrimp.

The Husband totally had a hard time going from salty to sweet to wine to whatever….but, I never do….especially when it involves ice cream.  Seriously, who says no to Three Twins Organic Ice Cream!

The Kikoman folks gave us a cool caramel corn ball made from Teriyaki Sauce…I saved it for another day, but, I have a feeling I will love the salty sweet creation.

I may or may not have ate my bodyweight in Jarlsberg.  I have a strange obsession with Jarlsberg and I am pretty sure the girl carrying the tray around knew that because she made sure I never ran out.

LOVE!!! I probably could’ve just taken all of this home and not shared with anyone like ever!

This times like 5 million other cubes.

 

Next stop was my favorite friends from Made In Napa Valley.  I LOVE them because they are within walking distance of our work and it gives me a reason to go visit them during lunch.

But, really because they make delicious recipes to share and I enjoy doing recipe development with their products all the time.  I think they know I am addicted to anything Made In Napa Valley too.

Apple Butternut Squash Soup with a Savory Short Bread Cracker

I can honestly say I am not sure I’ve ever had organic beer before but I definitely like the idea and had no problem downing my glass.

Hot, toasty, Ghiradehli S’Mores!!  I am super excited that Ghiradelhi took the high fructose corn syrup out and used REAL ingredients in their new Luxe Chocolate line.

The Lactaid peeps made up 3 different types of protein smoothies.

But, I can’t say I LOVED it…I tried the chocolate peanut butter version and it wasn’t really sweet at all. 

I have never seen flavored sea salts before, but, I definitely NEED to buy these La Mar’s Mendocino Sea Salts after trying them.

Each sea salt had a distinctive flavor and texture that was fantastic.

Sea Salt Caprese Salad!

Sea Smoke was definitely my favorite flavor because it tasted just like BACON!

Pick a Peck Pickles is just fun to say.

I want these too ~ I tried a pickled beet, carrot and spicy green bean.

Raw Crystalized Hawaiian Tropical Honey

I totally wish they were giving out baggies of this toffee Pop Candy.  It was crunchy, yet, melted in your mouth in a smooth caramelly, nutty sort of way.

At this point, we figured we needed something sorta healthy so we stopped by the Fresh Express “salad bar”.

I LOVED their bamboo bowls and fork as much as I loved the toasted quinoa salad with smoky pecans and raspberries.  They should’ve given us the recipe 😉

Fungus!

Mushroom/wine soup

Goat cheese stuffed mushrooms

 

The Saag’s Meat Station was definitely The Husband’s favorite stop ~ check out the huge hunks of salami – he was in heaven!

I did snag one of their Chicken Asiago Sausages and it was pretty darn tasty.

The Alexia Peeps had one of the coolest stations in that we all got to vote on the new flavors they are considering making that are not out in markets yet.

If you “like” them on Facebook you get $1 off.  You can vote too and get another $1 off.  Spicy Chipotle Sweet Potato was by far my favorite.

 

My favorite cupcake vendor from last year was back…..let’s just say I made sure to try everything to make sure it was ok for everyone else to eat 😉 LOL

They did bring a Vegan Banana Walnut Muffin with a Walnut Glaze to boot.

I didn’t sample any of these cupcakes or candies, but, I did think it was pretty cool how they could make edible pictures on each treat.

I secretly knew my FAVORITE BAKER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD was going to be there because we had been chatting it up all Farmer’s Market season.

I LOVE Annie The Baker because she makes the best freakin’ cookie dough cookies in the world and well, she is just an awesome person too!

Next time she totally needs to bring her Suga Rainbow and Doodle Snicker because they rock even more than her Toffee and Chocolate PB Cookies 🙂

 

The Husband loves her too – check out the “togo” bag she hooked him up with 😀  Too bad Holly made him share hahahaha 😉

Throughout the event, Electrolux had their chef and some awesome bloggers present some delicious recipes.  The BEST part, we all got samples!

 

I think the coolest part of the booth was that you could watch what they were doing on the mirror above them.

My favorite presenter was Kristina of My Life as a Mrs. with her Pumpkin Spice Parfaits.

 

Although her recipe is definitely a “treat”, I LOVE that she gave variations for mixing it up ~ using lemon/berries, lime for key lime, etc.

I think I could eat her crumbly brown sugar pecan topping straight up.

Just like pumpkin cheesecake, but, better, way cuter and fun to eat!

At this point, we pretty much just “rolled” ourselves outside for a little fresh air.

 

And pondered napping on the lawns like all of these other food bloggers 😀

Did I mention yesterday I had the coolest roommates ever??? I miss them already 🙁

We did manage to get The boys to do a little walking and shopping with us as we headed back to our rooms to relax before dinner.

I think since I already have a bazillion pictures, I’ll save dinner, brunch and a few fun festival things for tomorrow.

Until then….here is my recap for last year’s DAY 1 and Little Bites Tasting Pavilion.

A special thanks to my roomies for allowing me to use some of their pictures since I was too busy eating everything in site to bother with my camera each bite 😀

* The Healthy Everythingatarian

* Hungry Hungry Hippie

* Meals and Moves

* The Great Balancing Act

See you all tomorrow for grand finale post!

Night all!