2012 Foodbuzz Blogger Festival - Part Deux – www.strudelandstreusel.com

2012 Foodbuzz Blogger Festival – Part Deux

We heart the Taste Pavilion! This was our pal Erica’s first year at the TP (that’s her above), but she’s a smart girl so she knew to wear a roomy dress that allowed for plenty of snacking while still looking fashionable.

There was a lot to love, and photos of our favorites are to follow…

The TP required *a lot* of chewing, since there was so much tasty food to be found. But we definitely had our favorites, and they’re outlined below. Our only disappointment was that many of the vendors were local to the Bay Area, so we’ll only be able to enjoy them when we’re in town. But they’re very much worth knowing about!

We both tend to make our own soup (especially since Strudel’s mostly a vegetarian, so good soups with a vegetarian base are nearly impossible to find), so we have high standards. We were both blown away by this soup! The zucchini soup (the only one we tasted) was so delicious – you could totally taste the veggie-ness, but it was also super creamy and smooth. Amazingly, it’s vegan! It’s primarily sold in the Bay Area, but it looks like some of their products can be ordered. Totally worth a visit to their website.

Here’s the team from Nature Box. They’re the kind folks that hooked us up with tasty treats in our welcome swag bag. Nature Box provides a service that’s like a CSA, but with snacks – granola, dried fruit, nuts, and some great snack mixes delivered to your home once a month. We tasted some really delicious dried pears at the TP, and since we’ve been home, have really enjoyed the Blueberry Almond Bites, which are little squares of puffed rice, almonds, and blueberries. They’re like super healthy mini rice crispy treats without the marshmallow, and you know – the preservatives (not that anyone here at S&S has issues with rice crispy treats, of course).

Strudel, in particular, has an extraordinary love of the pickle. The more pickled the pickle, the better. And if you add some spice (ie the spicy bread and butter pickle from Sonoma Brinery) they you’ve got an extremely happy Strudel. The only upsetting thing about Sonoma Brinery is that they primarily sell in Northern California. It’s like looking at a photo of a love you know you’ll never know again.

This delicious treat – rice and beans and a mini corn muffin – came via Minnie Bell’s. Ms. Minnie Bell is a lovely woman who just bought a food truck and will be sharing her food around San Francisco. The food was absolutely delicious – great flavor and a nice bit of spice and was – yes! – vegetarian. It’s nearly impossible to find good vegetarian soul food, so this was a real find.

Some delicious organic ice pops from Lick Pops. Check out their flavors! Totally worth seeking out if you’re in SF.

We have become Very Serious about Honeydrop. Their tea tastes so fresh and natural – and they sell around the country! Definitely worth seeking out – it’s much better than those national brands that are pretty tasty, but nowhere as good as this stuff. They can be found at WholeFoods.

A phenomenal crab cake from Alaska Seafood.

We met the lovely Meredith, the passionate owner, tenacious baker, and night owl (apparently she was up all night baking for the festival) of After Suppa. She makes whoopie pies, and they were amazing. She’s just starting up her company, and clearly knows her way around the oven. We were so appreciative of the hard work she put into making it to Foodbuzz!

And the last of our favorites from the TP – snacks from 18 Rabbits. They sell granola and bars, and we can say from personal experience that it’s all very tasty. We had a sample of granola on top of ice cream, which made Erica proclaim that she was having a healthy snack (Streusel went ahead and clarified for her that she was still eating ice cream and therefore in this example couldn’t actually qualify as healthy). Definitely delicious though!

We made our way through the Taste Pavilion in about 2 hours, and then headed back to our hotel to lay around and let the food settle. We watched Food Network to prep ourselves for the evening (Iron Chef, silky chicken challenge). After some time (spoiler alert: the Iron Chef won), we hauled ourselves out the door and to the busses that took us to the Gala. Foodbuzz pulled out all the stops this year…

Tah-da!