Foodbuzz Fest 2011 Recap

There aren't enough words to explain how fun and totally awesome attending the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival was this past weekend in SF. Here's my foodie photo recap of my super-fun weekend. Bear with me because I was in a constant foodie coma the entire time while I was there and I had the biggest smile from ear to ear. I arrived a day early to hang out with my local girlfriends, Becky & Yvette. We enjoyed dinner at Limon Rotisserie, a yummy Peruvian tapas restaurant and later enjoyed dessert at Citizen Cake. YUM!

Bay Bridge & Becky, myself & Yvette at Citizen Cake

I had finally a chance to meet with one of my favorite Filipino bloggers, Joelen, from What's Cooking Chicago. We took a ride on the cable cars and had enjoyed some salted hot cocoas at Ghirardelli Square and sweet cupcakes from Kara's cupcakes. We even got serenaded from one of the Ghirardelli waiters, singing "I left my heart in San Francisco." We instantly bonded like lifelong friends or cousins you could say and we talked non-stop about food, family and blogging until we had to check in and register for the festival.

Then we met up with more cooking nesties, Nikki from Pennies on a Platter, Jessica from Sunny Side up in San Diego, and Jessica and her mom from My Baking Heart. (Love these ladies and their fantastic blogs!) Then we continued to eat some more at the Ferry building. We even ran into Martha Stewart and her all-girl entourage. (You can't tell but Martha was looking fierce in her leather pants, not bad for a 70 year old woman.)

Friday night was the blog awards and there were plenty of food to enjoy and eat. I had a chance to meet Jen from Tiny Urban Kitchen. Did you know that she donated her winnings from Project Food Blog - how super cool is that! Joy & Marc (Joy the Baker & No Recipes) presented the winners and I was slightly bummed that Nikki didn't win. The food was amazing and surprisingly enough - beet ravioli was one of my favorites along with the silky pomegranate puree with candied kumquat - it must be my weird pregnancy cravings - everything tarty and odd. (Insert my foodie coma for the rest of the entire night.)

Since Saturday was going to be the longest day ever, I snuck in an early visit to Tartine Bakery since I was staying with my friend, Yvette. She knew all the fun and hip spots to check out. Mmmm, the morning bun was totally life-changing and soooo incredibly tasty. The breakfast quiche was one of my favorite items there next to the lemon tart. Mmmmm - totally nom-tastic.

Then I attended the featured morning panel where Peas and Thank You, How Sweet It Is, Joy the Baker, Shutterbean and Kath Eats Real Food talked about taking your blog to the next level. I think Joy's post from today sums up on how I feel about blogging in general. I blog as a hobby not because it's my career. I love to cook and share recipes and I love connecting with people from everywhere in the world. The other morning sessions from the Edible Perspective and No Recipes were pretty straightforward.

Then we jetsetted to the tasting pavilion. It was a little overwhelming at times and almost like a glorified Costco (as said by Joelen) with your plug in informercials but thankfully my girlfriend, Yvette, was allowed to tag along. She helped me greatly with getting freebies and tasting everything we could get our grubby hands on. I was excited to get an autographed copy of Artisan Pizza & Flatbread from Zoe Francis & Jeff Hertzberg because I had bought the other two books of theirs. I can't wait to make more pizza recipes!

I did miss out on the freebie book from Tyler Florence, but still managed to get up close and personal and take a photo of him. Plus, I chatted a bit with Courtney from The Granola Chronicles and got to ooh and ahh over her signed copy. (love this sweetie pie). Another plus, I got to hang out with Nicole from Prevention RD and I absolutely love her to pieces.

Then I took off for a short nap and got ready for the Tyler Florence cooking demo and gala dinner. It was a nice way to end the fun festivities. Major plus, I finally worked up the nerve to chat it up with Joy the Baker. EEK!! She's supercool, totally down-to-earth and just awesome. I met up with Mara from What's for dinner, and I was super jealous of her fancy dinner at Chez Panisse during her stay here. Being 13 1/2 weeks pregnant during this weekend was a little bearing at times because there were so many foods and drinks that I wanted to indulge on and sometimes passed on, but all in small doses when I could enjoy it all.

I think the most valuable lessons that I learned from the weekend were among friends.

Making new friendships.

Creating new connections.

Blog in your voice.

Be yourself.

Come prepared and bring pregnancy pants (or stretchy pants) when coming to San Francisco because there was so much too good food to NOT pass up.

More importantly, support your food blogging community via emails, comments, FB, twitter, etc. Find me at @mrsregueiro. (I'm finally getting jiggy with it!)

 Thanks again to Foodbuzz for the wonderful opportunity!