My off-Island adventures to San Francisco for BlogHer Food '09

I am home (finally, after many hours on the road Monday) from a fantastic weekend in San Francisco and beyond.  I'd forgotten how much I love that city.  Or maybe it's just the ability to appreciate it in a different way, now that my life is so different.

The San Francisco Bay Bridge and Angel Island 

with Oakland in the background.

As some of you know, I attended the BlogHer Food '09 Conference at the St. Regis in San Francisco.  First, let me say that the St. Regis is just a stunning hotel.  It's beautifully designed and decorated, filled with some impressive works of art.  It sits across the street from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and attached to the Museum of African Diaspora.  I did not stay at the hotel, as $450+ per night is just not my style, and more importantly, not my budget.  Besides, if I were going to spend $450 in one night, it would not be on a bed, but on gobs of food in that amazing city.

The St. Regis Hotel is filled with a wide variety of art.  

This sculpture piece adorns the foyer between 

the registration desk and the Elevators.

San Francisco is in a really good food place right now.  The city is always interesting and exciting, and there's always good food to be had, whether it's a whole in the wall or a starred establishment.  But right now, there's a lot going on in the food world, and San Francisco is really benefitting from it.  Add to that the city's choice to really embrace local, organic, seasonal, fresh, and sustainable food sources, and you have the makings for some truly interesting and creative new restaurants as well as traditional fare enlivened by the "fresh from the field/tree/vine" flavors that local sourcing brings to life.

So, San Francisco makes for the perfect place to gather a bunch of food bloggers.  If you're dying to know details about the conference, you can get some great archives of the live-blog posts by various attendees by visiting these BlogHer Food '09 Live Bloggers.  But here are a few impressions I took away from the Conference.

First, since I know this is on many of your minds, YES, I did get to meet both David Lebovitz and The Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond).  Both very brief, "Hi, nice to meet you, thanks for the great presentation/book" type meetings.  I'm not really into fawning over celebrities, and yes, people like this are kind of celebrities in my world.  The only famous people I have ever met have been writers (be they book, blog, or magazine) and a couple musicians who were well beyond their era of fame.  But these are people whose work I admire, respect, and by which I am entertained.

Ree Drummond seemed like a very genuine person and somewhat on the shy side.  But hey, after saying hello to a couple hundred adoring blog readers, maybe she was overwhelmed (I was overwhelmed).  This was a very, very chatty bunch of people.  After networking for something like 6 hours straight, I had had enough and kind of wanted to run screaming from the hotel like a crazy woman.  Not that anyone in San Francisco would have noticed...

David Lebovitz, pastry chef and author of The Sweet Life in Paris.

I got a much better shot of him posed, looking at the camera, with no

random person in the background.  But I like this one because

he's smiling so naturally.

I met David Lebovitz briefly when I took my copy of his book The Sweet Life in Paris to a book signing he did at Fog City News prior to the Conference.  David was witty, friendly, very good natured, and generous.  He let me and my friend April act like complete nerds and tell our story of how he recommended the perfect chocolate gift (Maison du Chocolat) for April when she was undergoing Chemotherapy and we realized that she therefore wouldn't be able to make the trip to Paris that we'd been hoping to make in the near future, a trip that would be very chocolate-centric!  I don't know if he remembered the letter I wrote to him at the time, as I'm sure the requests he gets are inumerable, but his suggestion was indeed perfect and he agreed that Maison du Chocolat is probably among the best chocolate anywhere and if you've endured chemo, you not only deserve the best chocolate, but you are officially justified in eating as much of it as you darn well want to.  Forever.

Oh, and he was also gracious in humoring me when I jumped back in line (cutting, like a good Parisian?) to take his photograph before I left.  I honestly didn't think he'd stop signing for a photograph, so I ended up holding up a number of guests waiting their turn.  Oops.

OK, so maybe I fawned just a little.  But seriously, he's got great recipes, chocolate, Paris, and truly funny story telling going for him.  How can one not be a big fan?

I also had the opportunity to see and old friend that I haven't seen in about 7 years.  It wasn't until I read over the speaker bios for the Conference that I realized that she'd be there.  Michelle owns a very nice, and award winning, blog called Wine Girl.  Based out of Cincinnati, Michelle is tackling a food niche generally dominated by people in or near California's Napa Valley, so her approach is really refreshing to see.

Michelle, aka Wine Girl, and me at BlogHer Food 09's disastrous Bertolli lunch.

Fortunately, good company made up for what the meal was lacking.

The Conference sessions themselves were very good.  I really liked the structure of the Conference— divided into three tracks— highlighting topics in Vocational, Visual, and Values categories.  I chose to participate in one of each category to get a good taste of not only three varied subjects, but the talented bloggers and speakers sharing their knowledge.  The schedule as a whole ran smoothly and, for the most part, on time— not an easy task at any conference.  BlogHer staff were also delightful people who seemed to enjoy their time there as well.  And I loved the fact that they had a donation center (benefitting a San Francisco food bank) set up so that attendees could donate any of their swag items they didn't want or couldn't carry home.

Like many people, my only substantial complaint about the day was the choice of lunch.   Lunch was sponsored by Bertolli Frozen Meals.  Yep, you read that right.  There we were at the St. Regis in San Francisco, at a conference populated by people obsessed (to put it mildly) with food, and they served us reheated frozen dinners.  I understand the value of sponsorships in planning and executing a Conference, especially one in which the registration was kept below $100 (which I appreciated greatly).  But this was probably not the right crowd for frozen, pre-packaged meals: a serious miss of a potentially influential target audience.  As Wine Girl noted, Bertolli would have had greater success with this group had they stuck to highlighting their olive oil to create fresh meals.  Even their bottled pasta sauce would likely have been better received than pre-packaged meals, all of which were lacking real distinctive flavor.  The appetizer salad, freshly created by chef Rocco diSpiritu was good, and made a very attractive and appetizing centerpiece to the tables.  And, as attractive and charming as diSpiritu was, the highly active nature of his presentation, coupled with the excessive volume on the gallery sound system made the "networking lunch" a bit more anxious than productive.  Wine for the event was provided by St. Supery winery and featured a Cabrnet Sauvignon, a Merlot, and a Chardonnay.

The beautiful place setting at lunch in the Grand Gallery at the St. Regis Hotel,

San Francisco. Wine by St. Supery and a salad by chef Rocco diSpiritu.

The sessions concluded with a lively keynote by Elise Bauer, Ree Drummond, and David Lebovitz, entitled "Food Blogging: Now and Forever".  All three speakers were entertaining and informative.  With three very different approaches to blogging and food, the closing keynote session wrapped things up nicely.

Closing session was topped off with a terrace cocktail party at the St. Regis.  Alas, after a full day, I was spent and couldn't bear the thought of two more hours of networking, however wonderful the company or perfect the evening.  SInce I would be leaving at 6:00 a.m. the next morning for an 11.5 mile hike through Muir Woods and up Mt. Tamalpais, I decided to hoof it back to BART for what turned out to be a relaxing ride out of the city with great views of a gorgeous Bay Area sunset.

Finally, I had the opportunity to be interviewed on SisterAct Blog Talk Radio about blogging, food, and the Conference.  I was the second guest in a one-hour show, soI don't appear until about minute 40.  That was my way of hiding, cause y'all know that I just LOVE being the center of attention.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I did a good job of being nearly invisible at the Conference...