A Fabulous Food Buzz Weekend Take #1

First off I'm so sorry for the delay of this write-up, catching up on real life after all of my travels of the past few months got the best of me. That being said I just had to share some of my experiences in San Francisco during the Food Buss First Annual Food Festival. I was fortunate enough to go to San Francisco for this event. Believe me when I say I was fortunate, not only did I get to visit this wonderful city and see my good friend Suz from You Can't Eat What but I got to spend the weekend with a bunch of other foodies eating and drinking twice our weight.

The weekend started on Friday evening, after registration and gift bag full of all kinds of swag, stay tuned for review of some of the products. We then went to the welcome cocktail party on the terrace at the Hotel Vitale, with a gorgeous view of the Bay Bridge and the Ferry Building. There were a few custom designed Sky Vodka cocktails, though I went straight for the bubbly. After some cocktails, Mac & Cheese with Bacon and meeting up with Jessica from A Fete for Food we headed on over to the Ferry Building for a fabulous Street Food Festival.

The Street Food Festival featured everything from delicious mini cupcakes (my fave was the horchata)
to deliciously rich and fresh organic vanilla ice cream,

to braised beef tacos, to delish cocktails. The favorite of the majority people of the night seemed to be the Porchetta Sandwiches and while they were great I was partial to the Kumamoto Oysters and The Pie Trucks Steak & Gruyere Pies.
I also had an awesome Basil Gimlet from the guys at Rye.

Filled to the brim and a bit jet lagged we decided to go to the Slanted Door in the Ferry Building for a cocktail I had a Ginger Limeade that was so perfectly balanced and exactly what I wanted. Of course me being me I completely knocked my own drink out of my hand, it hit the carpet and shattered! Big surprise to those who know me. The best and most surprising thing about it was that in 3 minutes flat the staff had cleaned the glass and gave me a brand new drink. Now I've drop alot of cocktails in my time and never once have I been brought a new one by the bar. Aside from how delicious the cocktails are, the Slanted Door is my new favorite spot, anywhere based on the graciousness of the staff. Did I mention that they use fresh and real cranberry juice too, not cocktail crap. That makes a real Cape Codder, deliciously ruby red and quite tasty according the Jessica who sampled one.

After a nice sleep, we were up and at it again on Saturday. First order of business was a trip to the Ferry Building Ferry Market. I'm a farmer's market junkie. This past summer the boy and I would take a different back road up north each weekend in order to discover a new hidden gem of a market. As much as we found some great markets, the Ferry Building Market put them all to shame.
From mounds of gorgeous multi-colored peppers to the St. Benoit freshly made Meyer Lemon yogurt, which I was too busy eating to photograph, to honey collected from hives strategically set up all over the region. The amount of delicious and farm fresh products was overwhelming especially considering in Toronto the Farmer's Market season has wound down.
This visit offered me my last fix before winter sets in. My one regret is that I wasn't staying somewhere with a kitchen to be able to by and use some of these fabulous products. The reality of having to pack anything I bought forced me to managed what I picked up, so I stuck to some posole, something I can't ever find in Toronto except at a specialty market, some honey collected from hives at the CIA in St. Helena and a jar of Strawberry & Ollalieberry Jam from Swanton Berry Farm.
The last thing for Saturday morning was getting to meet Pim from the Fabulous Chez Pim. I love her blog, her marmalade and jams and was very excited to meet here and have her sign my copy of her new book "The Foodie Handbook: The (Almost) Definitive Guide to Gastronomy." She was so lovely and gracious and completely encouraged me to use my love of jam making and start making marmalade this winter. I read the book on the flight home and it's great too. Stay tuned for a review in the coming weeks.

I'll end this first part of my write-up here. Stay tuned for more of Saturday's events from a Farm-to-Table discussion to the amazing Tasting Pavilion and Outstanding in the Field dinner. I am still smiling thinking about the weekend and can't wait to share more with you.

Enjoy!