broccoli and chocolate

Dear purveyor of every other brand of everything, ever:

Hi, thank you for coming to my website. I hope you get a moment to look around before racing to my contact page and immediately emailing me about events and products that may only be mildly relevant, if at all, to my blog topic. I will try to respond, but only because I’m sort of anal-retentive about responding to emails. I will probably say no thank you politely. For those of you in the food and restaurant industry, thank you for your email; I really appreciate the invitation to your event, tasting, or product trial. You guys rock. Now, listen up.

You’re having a media event. For one reason or another, you’ve invited me! Yeay! I have no idea what to expect from this invite. I will probably ask you. Can I bring a guest? Will there be food suitable for a pescatarian? I won’t ask the 589 other questions that my over-planner brain has thought of, but I will decide whether to go or not. And if I’m very very lucky, your event will be like the Thorny Rose bowling night a few weeks ago. And then I might even blog about it. I present my case:

Exhibit #1: The invite to the Thorny Rose event:

Thorny Rose Event Invite

This invite is rad. Look at the fonts! Aren’t they fun? Read the content. Cheesy puns, Instagram-esque pictures, reference to The Big Lebowski. I mean, I suppose this is really a marketing lesson in catering to your audience, but dang, well done. Also, I love bowling. And The Big Lebowski. And I don’t even hate wine anymore. And they said I could bring a plus one (they even said “or two”!), which makes most media events wayyyy less awkward. Rad.

Exhibit #2: The event:

Look at everyone having fun!

They rented the entire Mission Bowl facility. Private party, biatches! My name wasn’t on the list for some reason, but someone who seemed important waved me in after asking me my blog name. I’m sure they had no idea who I was, but since I knew to give a blog name, they probably knew I was invited. So I felt vindicated and welcome. Good move TR.

Exhibits #3-12: Free wine at the bar. In rad custom plastic cups a la Wine Lands. And free bowling. And t-shirt prizes if you got a strike (I got FIVE — yeah, I was in excellent form). And roving appetizer attendants. And a necklace making station. And silly props to use for the photos that the prof photog was taking of you while you had an awesome time. And Jenga and other board games at the tables. And the Creme Brulee cart — yes, they rented the Creme Brulee Cart — for your personally crafted dessert enjoyment. Do you see how this was successful?

Also, they happened to take this awesome pic of my +1, Ms. Smalls. Look at that form!

In conclusion, this was obviously the Best Media Event Ever. I mean, maybe these rad events happen all the time and I’m just not invited. Fair enough. Either way, this was pretty much perfection. And then they followed up by sending out the professional pics, and even sent me a free bottle of wine. Nicest. People. Ever. Thank you Thorny Rose, you really know how to show a girl a good time. I would go on a second date with you, fo sho. Everyone else: take note. And don’t forget to invite me.

Sincerely,

~broccoli and chocolate~

Oh, wow, did I really not blog about the festival last year? That’s sad. Well, some shit was happening in, like, my real life right around then. Do excuse me.

So… though I only have a 2010 blog entry to prove it, this was my third annual Foodbuzz Blogger Festival. This year’s fest was by far the best in my opinion, and I say that not only for rhyming purposes.

“Spiked” watermelon at the Starlight Room. They were weird.

This year they condensed the festival to two days instead of three. Good move. I don’t need my entire weekend monopolized. And the upped the quality of each event, save the Tasting Pavilion, which is still my least favorite event, I’d say.

The event consisted of:

• Meet and greet / appetizers / welcome session at the Starlight Room on Friday evening.
• A dine around town dinner at the restaurant of your choice, with $50 CASH provided to spend on Friday night. Weird. But good.
• Scavenger hunt at the Saturday morning farmer’s market at the Ferry Building.
• Tasting Pavilion at the Metreon Saturday afternoon.
• Gala dinner at the Cal Academy of Sciences Saturday night.

I have never been to the Starlight Room. It looks hokey and for old people. That may be the case, but I loved it. The decor was ridiculous but awesome, the view was great, and there was an open bar. Also, my good friend, Mr. M. Quinn Sweeney, accompanied me thusly:

Quinn eat food!!!

After the Starlight, Q and I made our way to Baker and Banker for our dine around town experience. I think the idea was that you go in some sort of group and get to know people. If you’ve met me, you know this is not likely my first choice. Though, Q did point out that talking to a stranger at a Foodbuzz festival was indeed how we met two years ago. (Side note: we are not a couple. This was confusing to people at times throughout the festival.) Basically, this was Q and my friend-iversary. Adorbs.

The spread at the Starlight Room.

Baker and Banker will receive its own separate regular b&c entry. We had a good time though, fo sho.

Saturday morning’s scavenger hunt was at 8am. WTF? That is too early for a Saturday morning even though it sounded fun. I slept through that biz, then cleaned my house so that I was suitably “omm” for the Tasting Pavilion in the afternoon.

The Tasting Pavilion is a fixture every year, it seems. The venue is rad, and some of the food is good, but mostly, it’s just a big gauntlet of generic vendors giving out food samples. There are some local places (Kika’s Treats!!!), the ubiquitous Three Twins Ice Cream, and a few more good things, but generally it’s just a lot of packaged food and lots of repeat vendors (how much biscotti does a person need in one session?). Anyway, not my fav, but I went anyway.

Saturday night was the Gala dinner. They rented out the entire Cal Academy. It was unnecessary. It was ridiculous. It was amazing. I only wish we could have frolicked around in the aviary in our socks. Alas, that will have to wait for another time.

Q, M, and me in the aquarium tunnel at the Cal Academy. Notice the lack of people elbowing us in the face and children screaming. Private party, biatches.

The reception was downstairs in the aquarium. Drinks and appetizers in the aquarium! Best ever! Dinner was upstairs in the back directly across from the main entrance to the building (but before the albino crocodile enclosure… you know what I’m talking about, right?). There were a dozen or so round tables set up and we seated ourselves freely. I brought the Mala-monster to this event because she’s awesome and they let me.

This gala was buffet style, which I much prefer. Some peeps were saying the sit down dinner is classier, but I thought the buffet was much more appropriate. And I didn’t waste nearly as much food because of it. Still open bar, pretty good catered food, and good company at our table.

Yummy ravioli and squash soup was served hot and fresh in individual servings cooked to order at the buffet.

The night went quickly and was over before we knew it. We had a really good time. Then my other friends came and picked me up and I went bowling in Pacifica. Because that’s how I roll sometimes. Thanks again, Foodbuzz. See you next year.