IFBC Adventure – Sur La Table + Kitchen Aid (extreme excitement for those of us who get worked up over this sort of thing)

 The 2015 International Food Blog Conference was this past weekend in my hometown, a good reason/excuse for my pal Erica to visit. It also gave us both the opportunity to learn a bit more about blogging, connect with our fellow bloggers, and, of course, have some hearty snacks.

 

The day before the conference, I was contacted and asked if I’d like to, last-minute, squeeze into an amazing pre-conference excursion “KitchenAid and Sur La Table.” It was a trip to Sur La Table’s headquarters and a chance see a demo of some new Kitchen Aid products. As any home cook/gadget lover knows, the only response to this is ooooohhhahhhhhhh.

 

Kitchen nerd that I am, I was so excited I sort of felt nervous. This excursion had sold out months ago, and they must’ve had a last-minute cancellation. Since I’m local, it was easy for me to do a wee bit of re-arranging my work schedule, and attend. AND – apparently there was a transportation snafu for the group transport option; but since I drove myself, I was the only one there for the first 30 minutes or so. It gave me an extra opportunity to browse around their displays and chat with some Sir La Table’s incredibly warm and friendly staff. I also got to hear stories about the leftovers the Sur La Table staff gets to eat when the chefs test recipes. If I ever decide to give up social work, I’m calling Sir La Table. I’m not sure what a 15 year veteran of the non-profit world has to offer the professional culinary field, but I’m confident I can figure something out.

 

At the event, we learned about some really fun new products – I’ve been reading about spiralizers on other blogs, but now I absolutely want one! – and were treated to a great demonstration, and was really fortunate to receive some incredibly generous gifts provided to us by Kitchen Aid and Sur La Table.

 

Here’s a photo tour from yesterday – including some demo photos (and my favorite – a crowd of bloggers taking actions shots of the spiralizer in action. Everyone was so excited, it sort of seemed like Bono was there, demonstrating how to make zucchini noodles).

 

 

This was the room set-up, facing the test kitchen, with fun products lined up along the back of the room

 

 

And this is the product they demo’ed – the Kitchen Aid spiralizer; the test kitchen chefs made a lovely zucchini noodle pasta with some fresh, seasonal ingredients. It was very tasty!

 

 

The machine itself was super impressive – they also showed how to peel/spiralize and apple (interesting for those of us that make pies!).

 

 

I giggled seeing how excited everyone was – I was definitely in a room of like-minded people! Below is a photo of people crowding around one of the chefs to take an action shot

 

 

We parted with a very generous bag of giveaways – including the KichenAid Precision Coffee Press – and this amazing kale stripper (never would have bought on my own and it stripped the hell out of the kale I made last night – it was amazing!).

 

In addition, Sur La Table and Kitchen Aid is sponsoring a contest for the spiralizer for the bloggers that attended this year. I’m throwing my name into the contest, and will let you know if I win!

 

Many, many thanks to Sur La Table and Kitchen Aid for such a great afternoon!

Posted on September 21, 2015
This entry was posted in quick and easy, Seattle and tagged ifbc, Kitchen Aid, Sur La Table.