You all know how much I heart Foodbuzz. Now look at all these awesome samples that I heart as well (from the afternoon tasting). I can’t possibly post everything I tried, but here are the pictures that came out well.

Brandi’s Stuffed French Toast:

Sabrina’s Egg White Veggie Frittata Muffins:

Frog Hollow Farm’s dried fruits (and Warren pears! So amazing).

Frog Hollow Farm also had a variety of chutneys and conserves, which were incredible. This was my favorite booth of the afternoon.

Some kind of shrimp and scallop ceviche from Fuego (can’t find a link):

A cool table with non-traditional shortbread made by Botanical Bakery:

Handmade marshmallows (pumpkin was one of the flavors) by Gateau et Ganache:

Chocolate covered nuts. I brought some of these home for Bobby and he has been calling them "poo balls". They are delicious despite their odd nickname.

My favorite candy of the day, made by Nina. Her Single Malt Scotch Bar was awesome.

Annie the Baker’s cookies. Amazingly buttery and delicious. They tasted just like cookie dough.

p.o.p. candy’s toffee – I had so much of the chai one. It had nuts and dried fruit.

Yummy (and pretty) chocolates.

Fabulous spreads.

479 Popcorn. My favorite was the curry (odd because I don’t like Indian food).

My other favorite dish of the day – Vineyard Pantry’s Autumn Savory Tartlets (little pastry filled with wild rice, butternut squash, blue cheese mustard, cheese, and more). I can’t wait to experiment with their products.

A crazy cool beet meringue goat cheese savory dessert thing. It was a work of art (and quite tasty).

Olives.

Shannon’s savory bread pudding.

I still have pictures from dinner, but I’ll save them. I met so many amazing people, including Emily from Foodzie – what a cool woman. That is a company I would love to work for.

A big thanks to FOODBUZZ for an amazing weekend.

In other news… wish me luck – we’re moving this week. (We’re taking off Tuesday instead of Monday.) Road trip from Sunnyvale to Princeton with two cats. Will be interesting.

Happy Monday! (Or Sunday, if you’re up late.) What did you do this weekend?

Now Coco and Sophia are both here!

Tonight we drove up to San Francisco for the first Foodbuzz Festival event. The welcome reception was from 5-7pm at the Hotel Vitale. This wasn’t the main food event of the day, but they did have two cool appetizers: gruyere gougeres with bacon and mascarpone and pork rillettes. They were provided by midi.

I tried the rilletes. Pretty good, but kind of salty. I didn’t try the puff things, but they looked cool.

After the reception we headed over to the Ferry Building for an amazing dinner event. Foodbuzz rented out a portion of the building and had restaurants serving food all the way down the alley.

As soon as we entered I saw mini cupcakes, and I couldn’t resist. Dessert first! I tried the pumpkin cupcake, but they also had red velvet, chocolate cinnamon, and an almond flavored one. I had an almond one on my way out for my real dessert. These were provided by Mission Minis.

I also tried this delicious vanilla bean ice cream by Straus Family Creamery. Awesome.

Then it was time for some real food. I had a bean burrito from Tacolicious. It wasn’t that good. I wanted chicken, but they were out. They had cool shirts though.

I also tried these savory vegetarian and meat pies from Pie Truck. Pretty yummy!

And a raw oyster from Hog Island Oyster Co…. awesome.

I passed on these chicharrones (fried pork chips) but they were cool looking. From 4505 Meats.

Alive had a selection of raw foods – 2 raw pizzas and raw cheesecake. These were okay. Not my favorite, to be honest.

The best items of the night: Spencer on the Go’s Beet Salad with blue cheese and "far west fungi vol au vent" (creamy mushrooms on top of a puff thing). I went back for seconds on both of these.

Then there was some incredible thin crust pizza from Pizza Politana. This was the best pizza I’ve had outside of Italy and New York. And I didn’t think I was a pizza person.

Lastly, there was a cool pork sandwich and potatoes from Roli Roti. This seemed to be really popular with other bloggers, but I thought it was just okay.

They had this funny shirt: "I heart Crispy Skin". (TWSS? Not.)

My favorite of the night was absolutely the mushroom dish from Spencer on the Go (second favorite was their beet salad). Holy amazing yum. On the way out I snagged some more ice cream and the almond cupcake.

Don’t worry, I didn’t finish everything pictured. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for tomorrow… Happy Saturday!

I’m sitting by the door waiting for kids to come trick-or-treating. I have a nice treat basket filled with random samples of things that I’ve gotten (thanks, Whole Foods!), YummyEarth lollipops, Reese’s cups (my favorite), and “Grape Coconut Jelly” (interesting Asian candy things that Bobby gets). (Don’t forget about the YummyEarth discount – good until November 15th.)

We didn’t get any kiddies last year, and I don’t know if we will this year either. Do you get trick-or-treaters?

Earlier today Bobby joked, “Maybe the reason Americans are becoming obese is that we focus on candy for every holiday and on Halloween we buy too much so we have extra left over. I bet other countries don’t do this.” But he’s right. Trick-or-treating is a very North American thing (Canadians do it too). It’s done in the US, the UK, Canada, parts of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Ireland. Apparently it’s been introduced in Italy and New Zealand (because of American culture infiltrating the media), but it’s been pretty controversial. Stuffing your face with candy seems to be a uniquely American thing to do.

As a kid I loved halloween. I don’t think I cared too much about the candy, to be honest. I did love dressing up. My mom always helped me and made elaborate costumes. I’ve been everything from a witch, to a pumpkin, to a bag of jelly beans (so cute), to a little Dutch girl with clogs, to a witch again, to a hippie… Well, you get the idea.

Of course I ate my candy – who wouldn’t? But I remember saving it for ages (I always “save” things for the “best” time) and ending up throwing most of it away after it went bad a few months later. This is the same way I treat most nice things I own; I save them for opportune times, but often the opportune time never comes and I regret saving whatever it is. Living in the moment is probably a better idea, anyway. And who wants to save something like calories? That shouldn’t doesn’t make sense.

But back to Halloween – it’s a shame that we can’t give out candied apples or homemade cookies anymore. I think that would be the best way to celebrate.

[Aside: we just got a kid! A little alligator! So cute.]

Am I being too cynical? Should I just accept that (most) Americans glorify unhealthiness because it’s “the land of the free” and we can pretty much do what and eat what we want without thinking of the consequences? I think I’m getting too pensive for a Saturday night, so I’ll stop there. Hope you all enjoyed your Halloweens.

Right now I’m watching Food, Inc. with my dad. I’m really glad he’s watching it… I’ll let you know what he thinks.

Quick summary of our day: This morning my midterm went fine; I think my bowl of protein powder oats gave me some good brain power. We didn’t really do anything else terribly exciting today because I had to show our apartment at 1pm. We got Chipotle for lunch (Dad’s first time) – I got a veggie salad, Dad got a chicken bowl, and Bobby got a chicken burrito. After the showing we headed to Santana Row, an upscale shopping area in San Jose.

Sorry in advance for the crappy pictures – left my sweet camera at home and used the small one.

Tonight we went out for dinner with out cousins. We got Vietnamese at Pho Nam in Sunnyvale. This place is great. I got #52, the Vermicelli with Shrimp. It came with veggies (lettuce, cilantro, carrots, cucumber), vermicelli (rice noodles), grilled shrimp (with oil), and a yummy fish sauce topping. We got (unpictured) spring rolls (fried and fresh) for the table as well.

I thought this meal was fab – fresh, light, and pretty healthy. Dad got pork and shrimp vermicelli (similar to mine) and Bobby got beef pho (noodle soup). Bobby also got a strawberry shake – I thought it was pretty so I snapped a picture (and had some of course).

Dessert was lots of fresh pineapple from Safeway (Thanks, Dad!).

Just a reminder – I don’t post about everything I eat; don’t think this was everything I ate today

I have been eating this awesome smoked mozzarella cheese on apples. I’ll try to remember to take a picture next time I have it. And I still have to share that crazy chocolate treat that I got recently too.

Have you had any cool new food finds lately?