Lessons learned today:

• Driving in a car with 2 cats is not always fun. But I still love our little monsters.
• Arizona is too cool for daylight saving time.
• McDonald’s is gross.
• Dairy Queen is pretty cool.
• Things always take longer than you planned.

Breakfast – a few warren pears from Frog Hollow Farms (samples from this weekend). They’re almost too ripe at this point, so I wanted to use them up.

Snacks throughout the day – more pears.

Lunch – Southwest chicken salad from McDonald’s. Not very good! I am not a McDonald’s fan. There are many other better fast food salads out there. I also snagged some of Bobby’s fries. They were gross.

1st Dinner (7pm) – a side salad and a grilled chicken ranch wrap from Dairy Queen. This wrap was fantastic – yummy cheddar, creamy ranch, and a nice piece of grilled chicken on a tortilla.

2nd Dinner (11pm) – a shared grand slam with Bobby from Denny’s. We got hash browns, eggs sunny side up, hearty whole wheat pancakes, a biscuit, and turkey bacon. Both the bacon and the pancakes were “healthier” options on the menu. Bobby had all of the hash browns. I had most of the pancakes, some of the biscuit, some eggs, and 1 of the bacons. I heart Denny’s.

We are staying at a Motel 6 in Kingman, AZ. Anyone ever been there? I think we might get Denny’s for breakfast tomorrow, too… I plan on keeping it a little lighter (probably just a huge bowl of oats).

Off to get some rest and get ready for more driving tomorrow… I’m gonna try to get a massage out of Bobby. Happy Tuesday!

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!

A few of my favorite bloggers have recently committed to getting back on track. Caitlin declared the whole month of November as a time to get back on track; Angela is doing it for the first week of November, starting today (the 2nd). I’m feeling it too: I haven’t been doing that much yoga, I haven’t been walking as much as I like to, and, to be perfectly honest, I’ve been eating a lot of crap. I haven’t been practicing mindfulness either, and I find myself munching through the day instead of eating proper meals.

This challenge might be hard for a few reasons – 1) Bobby and I are driving across the country next week; 2) the holidays and lots of decadent foods are coming up; 3) due to the move, I don’t know what my new routine will be (we’re moving to Manhattan btw). But I’m going to try. I’m synthesizing their goals and mine, and this is what I came up with. I’m going to try to do this for as long as I can. These aren’t arbitrary; these goals are what my ideal lifestyle would be so I want to keep up with them.

1. Go to bed early (by 11:30pm) and get 7-8 hours of sleep a night.
2. Cut out artificial sweeteners. I’ve been on a diet coke kick recently and it’s time to stop.
3. More veggies, less fruit.
4. More cooked foods, fewer raw.
5. Lots of water and tea.
6. Cook and plan more (or at least eat out at cheap-yet-healthy places).
7. Sit down for every meal.
8. Do something relaxing for 30 minutes every day (yoga, a bath, these exercises).
9. 30+ minutes of cardio each day (walking, running, yoga).
10. Give myself credit. Even if I don’t do all of these things perfectly, I’m going to give myself credit for the attempts and partial successes.

Because we’re moving, I’m trying to use up the groceries we have and I don’t plan on buying more. This week I’ll be eating out a lot but I’m not too worried about that; I love eating out and I can always find something healthy on the menu. The only thing that worries me about eating out is the money issue. I wish I was less frugal

The other issue I might have is that this weekend is the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival. I plan on eating well, but I doubt that I’m going to get much sleep because two of my favorite bloggers are coming to stay with me and we’re all going together. I am so excited to meet them.

Some of the yummy dishes I plan on making and eating during this November challenge are…

a healthy Thanksgiving meal, like last year’s

fresh delicious salads

lots of squash fries…

this fun Indian mushroom recipe

… and lots more. You should check out my recipes page for more inspiration. This bread recipe was one of the first things I ever posted (December 2007).

Anyway, back to the “back on track” plan. Today has been a good day so far. I did a yoga class this morning at my studio and I went to bed early last night (crashed on the couch at 9:30pm). I wanted to go to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, but Bobby has band practice… so maybe not.

And now this post is getting epic. Happy November! Are you challenging yourself this month?