Ready to see a lot of photos of food?  The Saturday of the Daily Buzz Festival was a lot of fun and unsurprisingly, was all centered around FOOOD.  I am so stuffed.

MORNING:
Bright and early Saturday morning (8:30AM!), we met at the Ferry Building for a sustainabilty lecture and a scavenger hunt.

A representative from Cuesa, the organization dedicated to sustainability who runs the farmer’s market, gave a talk.  The Ferry Building Farmer’s Market has been around since the early 90s….way before there was such widespread availability of organic  and sustainable produce.

About 5 minutes into his talk, the fire alarm went off!  We relocated to outside the building…….and drooled at the cute fireman who came by to check it out (false alarm, of course).

After his talk, we paired off into groups for a scavenger hunt!  I teamed with two other bloggers— and get this— coincidentally, our last names were all three the EXACT same with just one letter different (does that make sense?  It was like Smith, Smyth, and Smiths…but those weren’t our names

The hunt took us all around the market.

love this photo because they are cracking up!

Nic from Nibbles by Nic taking photos…..being with lots of blogger = lotsa people take photos!

Me posing in front of the market……I didn’t realize until AFTER that I was standing in front of the knife sharpening table- ha!  This lady stopped to tell me how she thought it was “just perfect” because we are near halloween…

Our scavenger hunt was things like– name two types of beans they sell at the bean booth, find the weirdest produce at the market, list the specials at the meat station, etc.

This was the weirdest thing I saw….lobster mushrooms!

They also gave us tokens so we could buy some things.  I bought some broccoli, tomatoes, and carrots.

So much good food!! I don’t normally go to the Ferry Building Market because there’s a farmer’s market right across the street from my apartment…..but this reminded me that I need to go more! They have six times what they have at my market and all so.so.so.so. good!

After we finished the scavenger hunt and exploring, I said goodbye to my “teammates” and walked home to chill out for an hour (and drink another cup of coffee!).

The Afternoon:
Around 1, I met my good friend Liz and her sister Lindsay for the Taste Pavillon!  It was at the Metreon in this big room with great views of the City.  The “pavillion” was huge!  I am full just THINKING about, it was that insane.

Was hard to get a real picture of it, but it basically looked like this– food booths lining both sides of the walls and lots of people eating and walking around…

The booths were mostly represented by smaller, local, sustainable companies.  Most of the booths were manned by the owner of the company or at least someone who was really passionnate about their product.

Liz, Lindsay, and I ate a ton!  We couldn’t help it….it was all so good.

Lots of sweets, of course.

Beer and wine to taste.  This honey basil stout was really yummy!

handing liz a taste…

Non alcoholic wine that was GOOD

and plenty of other foods– steak, crab legs, kale chips, chili, cheesey garlic toast, mini slaw sandwich, pumpkin chocolate chip scuffins (scone/muffins), and a ridiculous amount more.  Pretty much anything you can think of.

these scuffins were SO good and ate them with peach butter….yum

Truth be told, we all felt pretty sick afterwards….but it was kinda worth it.  We shopped downtown a little and then I walked the 2 or so miles home.

EVENING:
Only a couple hours later, it was time for the last event of the night……DINNER! (though no, I wasn’t even close to being hungry!).  The dinner event was at the Academy of Sciences, which is a great venue.

We had cocktails in the aquarium area

I met some fellow Bay Area bloggers and had a fun time talking with them.

And then we all ventured upstairs for dinner.

I only stayed at dinner long enough to snap these photos because I wanted to rush across the bridge and into Marin for that birthday party…..

After the party, I got home and collapsed into bed.  Full day events are always a whirlwind and this was no exception.

So- here are my take-aways from the Festival….

1) I heard that they had speaker panels and seminars on taking photos or general blogging advice last year….that was missing from this year’s conference and I think everyone agreed that they would have loved if it was still included.

2) I don’t really think I fit into the “food blog” category….I mean, I blog about food and what I eat….but I’d say that 85% of the people there were blogging solely about recipes or restaurant meals…and that’s not my blog.  No complaints though…I still felt it was relevant and inclusive, but it just made me think about where my blog “fits.”

3) Wow, there are a TON of blogs out there.  I had never heard of most of them and I feel like I’ve heard of a LOT of blogs….so it just made me realize how many there are.

4) The DailyBuzz people worked really hard to put on a well-organized and fun event….it was really nice to be “taken out” all over the City (play tourist sorta) and I really enjoyed being part of the blogging scene.

5) I really do love blogging and it’s been such a fun hobby for the past 11 months!! So glad I started it.

OKAY, so that was my looonng Saturday in a nutshell.

Tell me….

—- When people ask you about your blog, what do you say (your elevator pitch)?  (i.e., I heard a lot of, “I take highfat comfort foods and make them into something healthier” or “I create kid-friendly meals,” etc this weekend).  I don’t have my elevator pitch down, so just curious what you guys say!

— Do you live in a “foodie” city?

— Eaten any cool combos lately? (aka peach butter, basil beer, etc)