Foodbuzz Festival: Day 1

First off, my apologies for not posting so regularly the past few days! As I mentioned before, I was in San Francisco this past weekend attending the first ever Foodbuzz Festival. What an incredible weekend. I was able to meet so many bloggers in person after having admired their blogs. It was also great meeting so many new bloggers.

We spent the entire weekend eating, eating, and more eating!. It was a blast! We sampled food from a variety of sources: everything from small, local, artisanal vendors to large corporations with a focus on natural, sustainable foods.

And oh my . . there are some really cool vendors out there selling some really cool stuff. I will need to spend several days sharing with you the highlights of this trip . . . so much to talk about!

For this post today, I’ll share with you our adventures on Friday night – the kickoff of the Foodbuzz Festival.

Street Foods of San Francisco

The Ferry Building in SF is a large building right next to the water filled with a wonderful array of bakeries, coffee shops, local meat vendors, and other interesting local eats. On our first night, we enjoyed a mock up of a night out on the streets of San Francisco where we sampled some amazing street foods from the San Francisco area.

Tacolicious

From an East coaster’s perspective, we have always thought that the west coast had better Mexican food. I sampled the potato chorizo taco, which had a wonderful mix of flavors over the traditional corn tortillas. Delicious.

I love Crispy Skins

Roli Roti Gourmet Rotisserie actually has a cart in the Ferry Building and sells these delectable sandwiches there.  What you see is a huge piece of meat wrapped with pork belly roasted on a large stick until the skin becomes gorgeously crispy. Crispy potatoes roasted in the pork fat drippings serve as the absolutely to-die-for (and may just shorten your life a bit) side dish.

The sandwich, called a Porchetta sandwich, consists of the roasted pork meat, chopped up crispy skins, caramelized onions, greens, and fresh herbs. The resulting sandwich smells incredible and tastes heavenly. The crispy skins not only provided an interesting crunchy texture to the sandwich, they had an amazing salty porky flavor that just amazing. Definitely worth trying out if you are at the Ferry Building.

Mission Minis Cupcakes

These cupcakes were so cute, and definitely caught our eye as we entered the Ferry building.  I tried the Red Velvet and thought it was tasty, but not particularly special.

The Pie Truck

The Pie Truck makes these mini-pies filled with various flavors such as zucchini-mushroom and beef-gruyere. I found the pies to be a bit oily (they are buttery pastries!) but then I tend to like lighter foods, so I might be a bit biased. Everyone else around thought the pies were absolutely delicious.  They do use fresh, local organic ingredients.

Thirsty Bear Beer

I am by no means a beer expert. I am a super lightweight and can’t even drink one glass of beer on an empty stomach. So, take this review with a few grains of NaCl. This is a local beer, and I thought it was pretty good, though nothing particularly special. In general, I’m more of a fan of deeper, sweet and malty beers, such as artisanal Belgian beers or microbrews. To give you an idea of my taste, some of my favorite beers include Chimay, Duval, Sam Adams Boston Lager (on tap), Leff, Harp, and Sapporo. This beer was a bit light, but had relatively nice flavors.

Spencer on the Go

Spencer on the Go is a French Bistro on a cart, essentially. For this event, they had an organic beet salad with blue cheese and a wild mushroom truffle tart. I was getting full at this point, and unfortunately did not try the mushroom tart even though I typically LOVE anything truffle. I love fresh beets, and this multi-colored beet salad was fresh and delicious. It tasted like it came from the farm that morning.

Vegan Raw Foods

Alive, a San Francisco based catering company, specialized in vegan raw food, which is quite a challenge. As you may know, vegan foods do not contain any animal products. Strict vegans will even avoid foods that involve animals, such as honey. The raw food movement is based on the idea that heat destroys essential vitamins and antioxidants. Accordingly, raw foods cannot be heated above 118 degrees Fahrenheit.

We sample a vegan raw “cheesecake” (made from cashews and cococnut oil] and a few crostinis. The cheesecake wasn’t bad (although it did not taste like cheesecake), but I did not particularly care for it that much because it tasted like coconut. Maybe a better name for the dessert would have been Passion Fruit Coconut Cream Cake, or something like that.

I thought the crostinis were delicious. The cracker had a hefty crunch and tasted very wholesome (which I love). The toppings were just fresh veggies marinated in various dressings. Delicious, and definitely something I would not be able to stop eating if I encountered it at a party.

Pizza Politana

I was actually really full by the time I got to this stand, but the crust looked so thin and the toppings looked so good (my favorite, marguerite), that I just had to try a slice. Oh man, I’m so glad I did! This pizza has a super thin crust that’s still crispy.

The sauce is made from San Marzano tomatoes, which, according to the vendor, are imported from Italy and have a deeper, richer flavor than any tomato grown in the US. This is due to the volcanic soil in Italy that filters the water, thus allowing the tomatoes to become sweeter and less acidic. I would have totally eaten a whole pizza if I had room – really delicious.

Hog Island Oysters

I am spoiled in that I live in Boston where we have access to some of the best oysters around. These small oysters from the SF bay were fresh and delicious, with a mild salty flavor from the sea. I still prefer Prince Edward Island oysters as my favorite in terms of flavor, but these were pretty good.

I had tons of fun sampling food with Cindy from Chubby Chinese Girl and Linda from One Scoop At Time the entire night.  Linda has a funny picture of me photographing the Porchetta sandwich here.  Check out their blogs for their takes on the Foodbuzz Festival!

Upcoming Posts:
Olive Oil Tasting
Tasting Pavilion
Community Dinner

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1 Arrow Street Crepes

Sorry for the dearth of posts the last few days! I attended the 1st Annual Foodbuzz Festival this past weekend. I had a blast, and I will share some thoughts (and pictures, of course!) from that conference once I collect and organize them!

The first time I ever saw a crepe was when I visited France in high school during one of those high school exchange programs. My friend and I were walking down a random street in Paris when we spotted a man standing behind a small street cart. He was making fresh hot crepes right on the spot.

He called out, seemingly specifically at us, "Les crepes! Les crepes!"

Then he winked at us.  I was a bit scared, but also intrigued.

I don't think we actually bought any crepes from him that day, but I'll never forget seeing him make those super-thin pancakes and wondering how they would taste.  Having grown up in Ohio with an immigrant family who mostly ate Chinese food, I had never had one before.

Man, that seemed like so long ago.  At this point I can't even remember when I finally tried my first crepe.  In any event, now I live next to Harvard Square in Cambridge, a city full of interesting ethnic dining options of all sorts.  This includes my own local creperie just a five minute walk from my home.

Arrow Street Crepes is one of the few "French-like" places near my house. It is a fun creperie about a 5 minute walk from the Harvard Square T stop. I'm not sure if it would be considered fully authentic, as the crepes are filled with a melange of creative ingredients, some of which could only be called New American or maybe Californian.  Nevertheless, they have a ton of options (including traditional crepe toppings!) and it's a great, fun little cute place for breakfast, lunch, and definitely dessert!

I enjoyed this breakfast-like crepe named The Eiffel Tower ($8.95). 2 eggs, mozzarella, baby spinach, tomatoes, scallions, red onions, & hot sauce.  Delicious.

You can't really tell much from this picture (except that the crepe is nicely thin!), but this is the Californian which includes avocados, fresh mozzarella, basil walnut pesto, turkey bacon, tomatoes, field greens, and Dijon balsamic sauce.

Of course, you can't leave a crepe place without getting dessert!  Carnivale ($8.25) which has dark chocolate or Nutella with fresh strawberries.  Of course, without fail, this one was pure bliss.  :)

1 Arrow St Crepes
1 Arrow St
Cambridge, MA 02138

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Hi Rise Vanilla Loaf

One of my favorite bakeries in Cambridge is Hi Rise Bread Company right outside of Harvard Square.  They make excellent sandwiches and their breads are incredible.  My all time favorite item there is their elusive vanilla loaf.  This loaf is absolutely amazing.  It has a gorgeous crust that I just can't stop eating. The sugar crystallizes a bit on the edges while baking, giving the loaf an amazing slightly burnt sugar buttery crusty edge. It's hard to explain, but it's oh so good.

When I wrote my wistfully dreamy post about Hi Rise Bread Company a few months ago, more than one person wrote to me telling me that an adaptation of the vanilla loaf recipe was available.  I was so excited!

It took awhile to gather the ingredients together (especially the vanilla beans and the vanilla sugar), but once I had everything I couldn't wait to make my favorite loaf!

You will need 3 vanilla beans for this loaf, which makes this loaf relatively expensive to make.  I was able to pick up vanilla beans at Costco for about $1 a bean (I had to buy 10).  I also saw them at the local grocery store for $5 each.  So, the prices do vary.

You have to plan a few days in advance for this bread, since one of the ingredients is vanilla sugar.  This just involves splitting open a vanilla bean and putting it in a container of sugar (2-3 cups) for a few days.

For a printable version of the recipe, click here.
Adapted from Hi-Rise Bread Company in Cambridge, MA, via Amanda Hesser
(makes 2 loaves)
Ingredients

For the loaf:

3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 1/2 cups vanilla sugar

1 vanilla bean

1 T vanilla extract

8 large eggs, room temperature

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

For the syrup:

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 cup water

2 vanilla beans, split and scraped

Thickly butter two loaf pans and preheat oven to 325 Fahrenheit (Note - I halved the recipe because I did not have enough sugar!)

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy (upper left photo). Scrape the first vanilla bean and get all the seeds into the bowl, along with the vanilla extract (upper right).Add the eggs one by one and beat to combine (lower left). Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and fold in, mixing minimally with a rubber spatula, until just combined (lower right).

How to split a vanilla bean

Divide the batter between the loaf pans. Bake for 30 minutes, then turn the pans and bake another 25-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out almost clean.

While the loaves bake, make syrup. In a small saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the water over medium heat.  Note: it takes a while to dissolve the sugar since the ratio makes a pretty concentrated sugar solution.  Just be patient and keep watching the solution - don't make burnt sugar here! Add the vanilla beans and seeds and stir a little to loosen the seeds. Remove pan from heat.

When the loaves are done, cool them for 10 minutes in the pan on a rack, and then turn them out onto the rack.

Brush the loaves generously on all sides with the syrup. Repeat the brushing with syrup a few more times as the loaves cool.  Note: I did not have a brush, but I was able to successfully spoon small amounts of vanilla syrup over the bread.

Enjoy!

Our Verdict
This loaf is delicious, but it's not the same as the Hi Rise Bakery vanilla loaf. This loaf is a little less sweet and less dense. It's fluffier - a bit more cake-like and less pound cake-like than the original Hi Rise version.

Considering that this recipe already involves 8 eggs and 3 sticks of butter, it's a bit scary to imagine what more must be added to make the denser and sweeter Hi Rise loaf!

In any event, this loaf is still very good and I still can't stop eating it.  I've been having it every morning with a nice cup of espresso.  The espresso is the perfect balance to the buttery, rich cake.  This loaf still has the signature burnt sugar crusty edge that I love, and it has a deliciously strong, fragrant vanilla flavor.

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