Foodbuzz Festival 2010

Confession: I didn't take very many pictures at this weekend's Foodbuzz Festival. I was just having such a good time I kept forgetting to pull out my camera! I guess that makes me a bad food blogger. Oh well! Here are some of the snaps that I managed to catch.

Friday
Street Food Fair! This was a really fun event at Herbst Pavilion for mingling, exchanging our foodie gifts (I scored some Michigan granola from Wendy at The Local Chef!), and enjoying some serious food truck yumminess. I ate way more meat and cupcakes than normal and was a little miserable when I went home that night.

Snacks from Frog Hollow Farm

Pear Tarts!

Getting ready for our gift exchange!

TACOLICIOUS!

ROLI ROTI

Saturday
Breakout Sessions - I didn't snap any pictures during my first breakout session because we were learning about food writing. As an English major and teacher, I was really interested in this but basically, I learned not to use words like delicious or yummy. Um.... OK, thanks. One good thing that I did take away from that session though was an exercise in which we had to describe a food in terms of the memory it gave us, and not necessarily  how it actually tasted.

Then, I headed over to a demo by Alaska Seafood. Mary Sue Milliken from Border Grill made some crazy delicious fish tacos that I got to sample later at the Tasting Pavilion. I didn't have the best seats to get good pictures, but Mary was hilarious and so fun. I can't wait to try some of her recipes at home.

Alaska Seafood is hosting an awesome Wild Alaska Fish Taco recipe contest from November 3 to January 31. The winner gets a 3-day/2-night trip to Santa Monica and will get to ride along and serve their winning taco recipe in the Border Grill Taco Truck with Mary Sue and Susan Feniger!

The last session I went to was about "Blogging Success." It was run by a panel consisting of Tina, Damaris, and Stephanie. I was a little distracted trying to coordinate lunch plans on Twitter, but I did hear a few things that resonated with me - namely that "successful" bloggers do not necessarily blog daily (hooray!), commenting on blogs is a way of telling the author, "I appreciate that you took the time to write this!", and it takes a while to find your niche, but just keep working at it.

Farmer's Market Wandering with Ally! I love the Ferry Building but had actually never been there for the Farmer's Market, so after having our picture taken in front of a Hearts in SF in Union Square, we headed down to check out the produce.

They're putting up the Christmas tree in the background!

Jam from Swanton Berry Farm!

Tasting Pavilion
Then we walked over to the Tasting Pavilion at the Metreon where I basically ate nonstop and took only one picture, but at least it was a good one:

  
Gala Dinner
Then we got all prettied up for the Gala Dinner in the Grand Hall of the Ferry Building.

There were passed appetizers and wine and then an incredible four-course meal catered by Paula Leduc with Bonny Doon wine pairings. It was about a million degrees upstairs in the Ferry Building (or maybe we had just had too much wine...), so Teri and I sneaked off to the bathroom and removed our tights before dinner. I didn't snap many pictures (and even my pics of the food are a bit dark), but Ally, Teri, and Heather were excellent dinner company and we had an incredible time.

Sunday
We ended our time in SF with a brunch sponsored by Nature's Pride. The food was not the best and the weather was very unpleasant, so Teri and I later found ourselves holed away in a corner of Leland Tea Company for an hour or so eating scones, drinking tea, and talking about work, blogging, and life. It was a great way to end the weekend!

Lynn from The Actor's Diet (so glad I met her!) put together a great little video from the weekend. You can watch it here. It's a great review of the weekend!

Life Lessons Learned from Blogging Conferences

I promise I actually took pictures this week, you are just going to have to wait a little longer for them! I had so much fun this weekend and learned a lot about food and blogging at the Foodbuzz Festival, but the majority of what I learned applies so readily to life itself that I wanted to share:

• Know Who You Are & Be Yourself

Part of going to a blogging conference is knowing how to answer the question, "What do you blog about?" I spent a considerable amount of time before leaving for the Festival thinking about how I would "define" myself this weekend. I found that they way I described my blog had a big effect on how people reacted to me as a person. I even had one blogger (who shall remain nameless) respond with, "Oh, there seems to be quite a few bloggers like you," with a little disdain in his voice, like there was something wrong with posting healthy recipes!

But the thing is, I'm not going to change the way I blog just to make readers happy, just like I'm not going change who I am as a person to make other people happy. I blog for me, not for anyone else. Otherwise, why bother?

• Be Nice & Stay Positive

I tell my students this all the time. Just be nice! Smile, say hello, ask people about themselves, and at least pretend like you are having a good time. I was instantly drawn to the people who had big grins on their faces and were putting out positive energy, making an effort to get to know people, and in general having a great time. It was a busy and stressful weekend as far as socializing and networking were concerned, but it only comes around once a year so I felt like it was worth it to be positive and make the best of it, rather than complaining about the weather or being tired or having too many people to "have" to talk to.

• Be Gracious

I don't pretend to have a million readers, but I really appreciate the readers that I have. When people told me this weekend that they read my blog and that they enjoy it, I said, "Thank you!" and then I made an effort to get to know those people in an authentic way. This was hard to do with 350 people in attendance at the Festival, but I can't tell you how many people whose blogs I read regularly were not gracious or even remotely interested in me when I introduced myself and told them how much I enjoy their blogs.

I don't feel like I'm doing anyone any favors by writing Running Foodie, so it bothers me when people act like I "owe" them some sort of special praise beyond, "I like your blog" when I meet them. I  expect them to at least attempt to engage me in conversation instead of just waiting for me to keep talking. After I get the introductions out of the way, I want to get to know them as a person, not continue to shower them with compliments. I don't consider anyone who was at Foodbuzz this weekend to be a blogging "celebrity," but I did feel like some people acted like they were and this really bummed me out.  The best way to ensure that I don't read your blog anymore is to not be nice when I meet you in person. :(

• Take Risks

When I left for the Festival, I knew that I was not going to know a single person. This was terrifying! I am also not very good with big groups and prefer to get to know people one-on-one. Fortunately, I hooked up with Ally right away and then spent a huge chunk of Sunday with Teri exploring the city. I admit I had mini blog crushes on both of them and was nervous to meet them (what if we actually had nothing in common??), so I am so glad took a risk to meet up with them and get to know them. It was so rewarding and I feel like I made some friends that I will have for life!

Did you go to Foodbuzz? What were some lessons (life or blog-related) that you learned?


EDIT: I realized after rereading this post that I might be on the verge on sounding like a bit of a Negative Nancy, so let me assure you that I had SO MUCH FUN this weekend. I cannot remember laughing so hard, smiling so big, eating so much good food, and drinking so much good wine since my own wedding. I am already planning to attend in 2011. Thank you, Foodbuzz! I will wax poetic about the festival after I've gone through all my pictures and posted a formal recap later this week.

FBZFEST

It's a rainy Sunday morning and I'm sitting at Don's kitchen table while it pours outside. I think am still full from Friday night's Street Food Fair at Herbst Pavilion (not to mention yesterday's Tasting Pavilion and Gala Dinner) and I'm not sure how I am going to manage to fit another morsel of food into my body at the Farewell Brunch this morning, but I'm willing to make the effort if only to see these lovely faces again:

New friends Ally and Teri! I look like a creeper, but they are totally adorable :)

I'll be back with a more formal recap of this weekend's festivities (although you can read about a million of them online already, I'm sure. How do people find time to blog during such a busy weekend?), but I have seriously had a really incredible time drinking wine and eating ridiculously unhealthy food and getting lost in San Francisco and removing my tights before dinner.

More on all of that later.