Foodbuzz Festival Day 2 – Food, Food, Food and Drink!

Day Two of the Foodbuzz Festival brought a food frenzy that challenged me and my stomach nearly to ruin. I ate a lot. I drank a lot. But I also walked around a lot and did what I could do to deal with it. It goes with the territory I guess.

After the content sessions were at an end busses moved us on to the Metreon for the Tasting Pavilion and a sizable assemblage of vendors looking to share their products with the Foodbuzz Community.

I arrived early and started to wander up the block and ran into Jen from Tiny Urban Kitchen. Jen and I are local to each other back in New England, but had yet to meet. I stopped and introduced myself. With nowhere else to go we set off for a walk around the block to share stories and kill time. Within a few minutes I could see why Jen is so successful. She is knowledgeable, has a quick wit and is very personable. I’m so glad I stopped to say hi. Thanks Jen!

While I was standing in line waiting to get into the Tasting Pavilion I joked that I was all set because I was going to head for the drinks first and since everyone else was going to swarm the food tables I wouldn’t have to wait in line. That was not a joke and it turned out to be as true as my gut told me it would be when I said it.

My first stop was to the Dry Creek Wines table. I was heading up to the Sonoma on Monday, and would be visiting Michel Schlumberger located in Dry Creek, but anytime I can try new wines I am up for the challenge. With nobody else at the table I slowly worked through the wines available.

I tasted several Sauvignon Blancs and Zinfandels from 3 or 4 different producers. Both the un-oaked and lightly oak Sauv Blancs were bright and refreshing, with one in particular channeling a good deal of green pepper. The Zins presented a range from juicy and fruit forward to more austere and Old World in style. I realized that I threw the marketing materials from the event in with my swag that got sent home via UPS so I don’t have the names of the producers on hand.

I mixed up the food and drinks from there on. Here is a photo journal of the highlights.

Alaska Seafod Surimi Seafood Lettuce Cups

Halibut and Caramelized Onion Croquettes with Fig Dijonaise. This was one of the most flavorful items I had all afternoon. Can't go wrong with breaded seafood. I didn't realize until I read it in her recap post that Kelly from The Pink Apron crafted this recipe and had been handing them out at the table. Click for her recipe.

OXO and kitchen gadgets galore! When I first walked up just as they were asking a trivia 

question to give away a prize. I hadn't heard the question but had to pick true or false. 

I picked true and won an egg beater. I never found out what the question was!

Mike Kohne of Mercy Wines. I tasted his Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs.

The wines come from Monterey County which is clearly emerging as another

quality West Coast wine growing region.Thanks Mike!

Ashley (The Beer Wench) of Bison Organic Beer was a real hoot! And the Chocolate Stout was well made with solid & rich, but not overpowering chocolate flavor. Another example to tuck away for home brewing projects!

The folks at Drink of the Week had punch and gin & tonics on hand. Both were made with the Bloom Gin. The punch was a riff on the Drink of the Week drink the Bee's Knees that contains lemon, honey and gin. It was a very refreshing drink with the right balance of booze, sour and sweet. Nicely played!

Fentimans's Sodas. I have used their Ginger Beer for Dark 'n Stormy's many times, but had

never seen their other products around. Their non-alcoholic Shandy soda really did taste like

lemonade and beer, just without the kick. I'll be looking for their other products now!

And of course 21st Amendment Brewing. I enjoyed their brews three times over the weekend, and had something different each time. The Allies Win The War is a collaboration brew with Ninkasi Brewing in Oregon. Fashioned from Strong Ale recipes from each brewery, fresh dates and Northwestern hops, this beer is serious business. It is malty & full bodied beer with considerable sweetness and a long, rich finish.

Vanessa Moses doing her thing for Alexia Foods. 

Tyler Florence meeting, greeting and signing books and photos. I didn't wait in line to meet him. 

I left that to the professionals... 

 There were many others tablethat I didn't get pictures at. Several additional notable products were from:

• Rosemary & Sea Salt Walnuts from California Walnuts. Gonna be making these with the fresh dried rosemary!
• Girl & the Fig - Sonoma country restaurant with concentrated and full fruit fig based products. Several of the spreads complimented a roast pork bite they had on the table.
• Vignette Wine Country Soda - I had never thought about naturally fermenting wine grape juice into soda until I had this product. Something new for me to try next year. And low in sugar so they aren't as bad for you as other options.
• Australian Lamb - Lamb isn't something I have that often so I was curious to taste some. The meat was soft and flavorful with just enough of that gameyness that meats beyond beef are known for. I asked how likely it was that I would be able to get Australian lamb at home and it turns out quite a few large grocery chains carry it. Something to look for.

After the tasting pavilion event I headed back to my hotel to relax off some of the food and drink.

During cocktail hour I caught up with Rufus McLain and Pete Spande from Federated Media. Pete and I talked wine for a little while. Jonas from Drink of the Week joined us and of course the convo about alcohol continued. We talked a about punch, the punch bowl flowed earlier in the day, and how it is a hot topic right now. Socializing over a bowl of punch is not new, but it might just save us from boring parties in the 21^st century.

Tyler Florence anchored the gala dinner with a cooking demonstration. He certainly got an appetite whipped up and with nothing to eat on the table I was feeling the beer and wine more than I had wished. I hadn’t eaten during cocktail hour in favor of some good conversation over drinks. Bad choice, this time.

I actually felt bad for Tyler. A good portion of the audience was yapping away while he was demonstrating and entertaining us. But just like the modern movie-going experience it seems like a lot of people don’t act with courtesy and respect in public anymore. Their behavior and it’s reflection on them stands on its own.  

The demonstration was exciting to me primarily because I was watching a celebrity chef in person. I am not as much of a foodie as a lot of the other Foodbuzzers so this type of activity doesn’t really jazz me up the same way. The innuendo-laden tweets during the demonstration were hilarious and I had to jump in and bring dough balls back in from the morning. Despite tweets about Tyler’s meat nobody bit on my balls. I mean the tweets about my balls. No, wait, I mean, whatever!

By the time dinner was half over I was bugging out over all the usages of fantastic and amazing to describe some of the items from the tasting pavilion and dinner itself. Fantastic? Really? What are we trying to say here?

Dinner was catered by the hotel. It wasn’t gourmet and if you had it at a wedding you’d probably bitch, but it would be the same food. Furthermore I felt bad for Alexia because their fries were mangled by the kitchen. If anyone from Alexia is reading this and wants to send me some samples I promise this much, I will cook them correctly, serve them to friends that I have requested objective feedback from and will share what comes of it. Your products deserve at least that much and I am truly sorry that I couldn’t say more while I was at the festival. Shit happens!

So here’s the deal. There are several words that MUST be immediately retired from the food blogger vocabulary. They mean nothing and they are too easy for us to use in order to be part of something when we really have nothing to say. Those words are:

• Fantastic
• Amazing
• Incredible
• Awesome

What I propose instead is that food & beverage bloggers try to delve into their senses a little bit and express what they are smelling and tasting rather than generically branding something as “good”. Some people will cry foul that this is the domain of trained writers. Let me clue you in, it’s called thinking. Try it some time. Writers take thinking to the next step in something called creative expression. You can try that on anytime you want as well. I promise it won’t hurt.

Do I think I am any good at this? Not really, but I know the difference and expect more from myself. I can’t sit idly by while the community I am happy to be part of floats along so much unoriginal and unexpressive communication in play. We ALL need to up our game! I’ll take my medicine along with everyone else. That’s why I think it’s fair for me to say what I’m saying.

I tweeted the following about dinner:

“The food was ok. There is nothing outright bad to say, but that doesn't say much. Catered food is tough, but it can still be good.”

I really didn't have a problem with what I was served. I didn't have any expectations so it could have gone higher but the fact that it didn't is fine. I could have said it was amazing to be nice, but why? What I did say conveyed the reality in front of me and being nice just to be nice is so over. In the end I was distracted with conversation and meeting new people so I didn't really care much about the food.

The one topic I got involved in at dinner and continued conversations about through brunch the next day was the vegetarian/vegan meal for the Saturday dinner. Just so we are clear, I am an omnivore, I’ll eat anything. I have tried some foods, not liked them and will not likely eat them again but that is a preference, not a lifestyle nor medically necessary.

Based on what I saw the catering staff and kitchen were not well prepared to serve as many “alternative” meals as was needed. That’s too bad because Foodbuzz asked about people’s preferences and in the asking there is an expectation. So what should be done?

One idea, thanks Miriam, is to serve a vegan meal to everyone. But why? There are several reasons. First off, it would be cost effective. Buying in bulk for any catered meal keeps the cost manageable and the more the better. Serving the same meal to all maximizes that idea. On top of that consider the creative challenge doing this would represent, and the uniqueness of the meal that could have been presented. It would have gotten everyone talking, even the omnivores like me. Finally it would have been logistically simpler. Cut out the confusion for service. Something for next year and I hope someone from Foodbuzz sees this and considers the idea.

Dessert came and again it was omnivore-centric. I was feeling a bit militant for my underfed peers at this point. Again, there was nothing wrong with dessert, it just didn't inspire me.

My alternative was a bottle of Kurt’s Apple Pie from Moonlight Meadery. It was the dessert in place of dessert that I needed. And my tablemates (Devaki, Greg, Kelly, Shannon and Vanessa) seemed to be agreement. In my opinion it is one of the finest adult beverages being produced in the state of New Hampshire right now and I poured it with that assertion. Vanessa Moses (The Cooking Chicks Chicago) responded to my NH references with, “I've never met anyone who throws down so much for New Hampshire”. Well, we rock. If you’ve never thrown down with anyone from New Hampshire you really haven’t lived. “Live Free or Die” is our motto and quite honestly nobody does it like us! Seriously.

A big thank you is due to Foodbuzz, the sponsors and all of my fellow participants for creating such a fun weekend. I’ve offered my critical feedback and I've also shared my stories of what I enjoyed and the fun I had meeting new people. Good and not so good all wrapped up together. See, I used a meaningless word again, good, but I think you get my point.

And I have to put the following photo in just so Greg can leave me a comment asking me why the hell I did it! Sometimes things just have to be done…

We were having fun and when the work is done that is what it is all about!

Cheers!

Jason

Foodbuzz Festival Day 2 – Treatise on Goals & Where Do We Go From Here?

Day Two of the Foodbuzz Festival brought content sessions, the tasting pavilion and the gala dinner that included a cooking demonstration with celebrity chef Tyler Florence. The morning content sessions will be the focus of this post.

The morning content sessions were held in the event space and conference rooms at Federated

Media headquarters situated not far from Giants stadium. An easy hop down the Muni from Union Square. 

Breakfast was provided, it is a foodie conference after all, and the highlight for me were the Black Pepper and Cheddar Scones. The combination of those two ingredients in a savory scone created a slightly crunchy exterior followed by a slightly spicy dense bread interior. I took one with me to enjoy on Monday morning when I would finally be on my own for food! Oh, and I got to finally meet Chef Dennis (A Culinary Journey with Chef Dennis). 

Get Serious!

The first session was Taking Your Blog To The Next level with a panel of bloggers from the Foodbuzz

Featured Publisher Community that included, Sarah Matheny (Peas and Thank You), Jessica Merchant (How Sweet It Is), Joy Wilson (Joy The Baker), Tracy Benjamin (Shutterbean) and Kath Younger (Kath Eats Real Food). The overall themes for the session, and that of all the sessions I attended, were determine and focus on your goals, be authentic and project what you are passionate about and not just what you think will be popular or is trending to generate hits. These are all worthy and practical themes to guide your actions with.

I think it is important for blogging communities to be honest with themselves, be objective about the rhetoric versus the reality and walk the walk. So when it was asserted, and no amount of tongue and cheek masks the truth here, that everyone was here because they wanted to “generate traffic, get famous and make lots of money” I was sure it was going to be a long day. These weren’t the goals of everyone I asked about them to, and that speaks directly to where I will go next.

Setting Realistic Goals

If I have to bring the objectivity to the party, I will. At the risk of being marginalized by the community because of my critical honesty I am going to explain why I think those goals are antithetical to the themes spoken out of the other side of the mouth, and why they are unrealistic for everyone to expect. And don’t worry, I won’t make my case without offering my suggestions for how we can use the themes as a guide and set achievable goals. To reinforce that point I offer this. A large part of success in any venture is being in the right place and knowing the right people at the right time, or simply put, luck. You can’t manufacture luck. All you can do is be out there with a solid understanding of your goals and a good personality.

The presenters did an admirable job of providing tips on how people might take their blog to the next level, but where we were largely lacking in specific examples the tips came off as less tangible than they could have been. The tip about the necessity of having beautiful photos on your blog smacks of superficiality and form over function in the grandest of ways. You only have to have them if YOU want them and they shouldn’t come at the expense of YOUR voice projecting YOUR experiences in YOUR content. If someone clicks away because the picture isn’t satisfactory to them they aren’t interested in your story anyway. And you blog for because you love it, right?

In blogging making money is largely associated with ad revenue from traffic. If you flip over to book publishing or endorsements that is a different stream and I’ll ignore that here because the former is often a requirement for the latter. Generating lots of traffic is hard work. The tip here was alluded to but not outright stated in raw and detailed form. Plan on working more than a fulltime job on your blog to generate lots of hits and therefore lots of revenue. Having that time and spending it this way is a choice.

In order to reach the biggest audience to generate all of that traffic you will need to tread into the territory of topics that are popular or likely to trend no matter your passion for them. This the psychological aspect behind SEO, tuning your blog position to have the highest identity for search trend hits. That works against your blog being a passionate expression of you. Consider how often you see the same bloggers involved in all the virtual events that draw in people across all sorts of stated focus areas. You have to decide if you want to be part of a small community of like minded people or dispassionately pump out content to chase down traffic with.

You can’t reciprocate the volume of traffic you get past a certain point, it’s just not mathematically possible. To be both a publisher and a consumer is actually two jobs and you only have time for so much of each. Once you reach that point the majority of your traffic is unengaged and the connection to your community is at its apogee. And popular publishers need lots of consumers to stay popular. There is only going to be so much of that to go around as a community grows. This means the possibility you will be a community superstar is greatly diminished. The statistics on communities tell the story, and come in the form of a 1/9/90 rule. For every 100 community members 1 is an active publisher, 9 are active engagers in the community and the other 90 are consumers who engage infrequently. For the sole publisher to be popular that person needs the others members to focus on his content, and not their own content and traffic. They NEED your focus to make their focus more important. You see the issue, right?

I Get It, But What Do I Do?

So what should one do, especially if they still aspire at a chance at popularity and getting paid? The easiest way will be to look for a job in the industry you have passions about. If you have a job that pays the bills and you don’t want to change, you may need to change your goals. Time is the ultimate leveler here, and if you have all the time in the world to invest and to be patient you might end up winning in the end. Unless you plan on “working” all the time you just won’t be able to do it. Once you think about the reality here and fall back on, “but I write my blog because I love it”, you have a lot of options to continue to have fun, build a small and loyal community and be out there for luck to take over.

I will say that as I was doing a bit of review on the content for the post I bounced over to the sites of the presenters and found that Joy Wilson has a recent post entitled Real-Talk Blog Tips that addresses some of the tips offered with a bit of detail. Many of the points are consistent with what I am saying here and the more voices addressing the issues the better.

Write about what excites you. I came back from the Wine Bloggers Conference in July with realization that my passion for wine, beer and spirits had gotten muddied in all of the food projects I had been doing. I had taken on those projects because of my supposed desire to resonate with the Foodbuzz community. I was doing things I was less passionate about. I reset my focus. That refocusing has made me consider my connection to Foodbuzz, but my goal after this weekend is to try and find foodie partners to help co-present food and beverage content that springs from our mutual passions. I made some connections, and I need to make more, that are promising towards this goal.

The points in the above paragraph were reinforced in the Blog Design Bootcamp session when I offered my inner considerations about figuring out how to resonate with the community more. I need to refine my mission statement to include a goal to partner with others to help share my passions and enhance both my own and partner’s blogs. Got it.

Putting Yourself Out There & Making Connections

Whether it is to partner with or because what they do resonates with you, make connections with other bloggers that make sense for you. If they are also looking for birds-of-a-feather to engage you make find they aren’t just traffic, but an influencer for you, and vice versa. How popular they are shouldn’t matter and focusing on that in an attempt to use the association to increase your position in the community is going to reflect badly on you.

Another thing from that session that was on my mind was my focus on beverages and how that makes me unique in the community. I love what I do and know it is where my focus should be. My niche was held out as a positive thing and the advice that I stay true to it was heard loud and clear. Thank you to the Kristin Guy (The Cuisinerd) and the Sabrina Modelle (The Tomato Tart) for their great ideas and advice!

I also attended that session because one of the action items I took away from the Wine Bloggers Conference earlier in the year was a blog facelift. I need to do it and I picked up some tips to kick around as I gear up to tackle this task. I have set this goal for me. I want my own blog to look nicer, and the bonus that it will present better to others is just that, a bonus. The one specific tip I picked up was that when considering a new color palate for your blog you can pick a photograph you particularly like and extract the colors from it. Pretty neat!

One of the underlying an implicit themes in blogging is to make it about you. I think each new blog post should be part of an unfolding story, containing both revelations of the new day and connections to days past, even if those connections aren't directly stated. As an example, over the weekend I visited several brew pubs and beer bars in San Francisco. This is something I love to do. I feel like I can take the pulse of a place through the locally crafted beers. At 21^st Amendment I was hoping to find their IPA named Brew Free or Die. Why? Because my home state of New Hampshire’s motto is Live Free or Die and Brew Free or Die is the name of the homebrew club I belong to. They didn’t have it on tap, but it showed up at the Friday night event which gave me a smile. The beer was good but the personal connection, 21A had to contact the club to ask permission to use the name, was what I was after. I also went to Gordon Biersch specifically because I wanted to try their Marzen, a beer that is a recommended style example for the Marzen/Oktoberfest category of the BJCP style guide. I had judged this category for a recent competition and I wanted to try an example that I can’t get at home. In those two posts, both already live, I continued to follow my passions and connected the activities in them to my life. For readers I hope this helps them better get to know me and the things I am interested in. We should all aspire to tell stories (OUR stories) in our blogs. This is a welcome alternative to the factual and procedural details of cooking, which can be so dreadfully boring without a good story.

The final session was on Effect Social NETworking, primarily a conversation about using Twitter to engage other and promote you and your blog. Facebook and Google Circles were also mentioned. Thank you to Irvin Lin (Eat the Love) and Stella Parks (BraveTart) for their energetic presentation of the subject. Some of the stories Irvin told about his tweet-style (missing words and unintended plays on word let’s say) came across with palpable authenticity.

I didn’t end up getting a lot out of the session being an active Twitterer and frequent considerer of how the tool can be used to market a content brand, but I did pick up one interesting opposition of two ideas. It was stated that the half life of a Tweeted link is about two hours. I suspect this is largely because most people chase followers and clog up their timeline with so much stuff they miss lots of value-laden tweets. Without a shift to using lists (or some other meta-model) to corral followers of varying important topics down into smaller timelines this is not likely to change. From this it could be fairly inferred that you need to tweet the same new content several times, and with a bit of shrewdness maybe at different times of day and on different days, to get the most thrust into your follower base. There has been some industry analysis that supports this idea. What followed however was a comment that resending the same link multiple times risked irrelevance whereby you would be perceived to be creating a lot of noise. These two ideas are somewhat incongruent to each other and might need additional thought to have good sense made of them.

There was also talk about Klout and how it was a good measure of your influence. I have Klout account and have had score averaging in the 50’s for almost a year. It has been as high as 63 and with recent algorithm change I saw it briefly sink into the low 40’s before springing back up. I don’t check it that often and I don’t carry out specific actions in hopes of increasing it. I do what I do and am who I am, and I use the score to help me see the community I am part of in a broad way. Focusing too much on measuring something I do for fun takes away some of the fun. The Klout Perks program is a nice bonus though!

I broke out of the session early to interview Rufus McLain one of the Foodbuzz Community Team members for a future post. Learning more about what they do in support of people like me ended up being hugely valuable for someone flirting with the choice to renew the contract or not.

Conclusions

If bloggers want to get paid like a job, they need to plan on working a job for their blog. Want to be notable for your blog beyond a small group? Refer to the prior sentence. Otherwise, keep doing what you are doing because you enjoy it and the connections you make along the way should create plenty of opportunity for fun. Don’t worry about how much of this, or how do I make more of that, or why is that person more popular than me, you’ll only end up back at the first sentence of this paragraph.

Cheers!

Jason

Foodbuzz Festival Day 1 – Meeting & Greeting

I came to San Francisco and the Foodbuzz Festival to meet new people, some I would know from Twitter and their blogs, and many others to whom I would be newly introduced and take time to share stories and geek out about food with.

Anything else that came of my time with the Foodbuzz community would be that proverbial bonus and the side trips I had planned before and after the festival are sure to lock in the trip as worthwhile.

The Foodbuzz Festival kicked off with a welcome reception and dinner at the Terra Gallery not far from the Hyatt which was the base for the conference. I chatted up a few folks on the bus as we rode to our destination and it was clear everyone was excited to check out what the FB crew had planned for us. Laura from Sprint 2 The Table and Sarah from Smart Kitchen were particularly interested in my beverage and winemaking slant. I was hopeful that my blog’s focus might resonate with the foodies I would meet. 

Having the priorities that I do the first placed I headed to was the bar. I already knew that Bonny Doon and 21 Amendment Brewery would both be pouring their products, giving me lots of worthy options!

I started off with the Querry from Bonny Doon, an apple, quince and pear cider (maybe not specifically the right word, but it conveys the understanding) which I recommended to several other festival goers checking out the bar selection after arriving. It turns out cider is more of a solid common denominator for the foodie set than I had ever imagined. And that makes me immensely happy. I love cider, think it is underappreciated and can see it going places with more attention.

I wandered over to two friendly looking ladies, Kelly and Shannon, who had also just met. We started talking about the festivities ahead and the cider that we were all drinking. The cider pours cloudy with considerable carbonation and moderate white head, much like a golden ale. It is very nuanced with tart cider apples and some subtle spice influence, something I would characterize as like ginger. This product presents itself very much like a sparkling wine or champagne, making its appeal to women that much more clear to me.

( Me, Shannon and Kelly enjoying a late night drink. )

Shannon’s blog is named Killer Bunnies which I found hugely memorable and a great conversation starter. To find out that her blog is that of a vegan baker nearly made me piss myself. I came to find Shannon snarky, funny, irreverent and quite fashionable if her shoes on Saturday night are any indication. Shannon, I need a picture of your shoes to show my wife, she might think I was being creepy otherwise!

One of the meetups I was very much looking forward to was Meg Maker from Bonny Doon Vineyard. Meg also writes the blog Maker’s Table. The big joke was that we both live in New Hampshire and had to travel to California to finally meet. With a hug exchanged I introduced Meg to Kelly and Shannon and asked Meg to talk a little bit about the cider. We talked a bit and Meg moved on to work the room.

Kelly writes the Pink Apron and was equally interested in the time in SF to meet new people, check out the festival food and have some fun. Kelly’s admission that she worked in food marketing and that one account she supports is McDonalds inspired some interesting conversation about foodies and the foodie agenda. That conversation morphed into one about local food and how foodies and food bloggers can be so driven about the importance of local food but be so ignorant of the economic and accessibility issues that go along with it. My biggest concern is the one size fits all mentality where foodies push local food as an imperative that everyone must take up without recognizing how few people really care about the idea and aren’t in search of a solution to the perceived problem. As I always state with these comments, I’m not saying that this is right or just, but it what it is and more people pushing the agenda need to acknowledge it, understand that their passion may not be shared, and act accordingly.

I went back to the bar and grabbed a 21 Amendment Brew Free or Die IPA. This is another 21A beer that is pleasantly drinkable with plenty of hops and a little sweetness to balance everything out. And the name! Anyone from NH or members of our homebrew club Brew Free or Die can get with that!

We transitioned from the reception to dinner and you’ll note I haven’t mentioned the food yet. That’s because I didn’t pay much attention to what of the passed appetizers I had consumed. The people were more exciting. Before moving on I grabbed a glass of the 21A watermelon ale thinking it might make for interesting pairings over dinner.

We moved upstairs found a table and hit the buffet lines to seek out some eats. The variety was broad with a wide range of ingredients and techniques. There were dishes made with scallops, pork belly, a beef stew, macaroni & cheese with bacon, lentil salad, beet ravioli and others. Many of the recipes were provided by Foodbuzz Featured Publishers, a great opportunity to share with the community to be sure.

The biggest challenge for the food was that because it was being made for so many people it didn’t have the charm that the recipes they were made from hint at. A few examples might help people contextualize what I am suggesting. The pork belly was lukewarm and chewy rather than soft. The lentil salad was absent of some spice and salt making it seem flat. The bacon on the macaroni and cheese tasted like Baco’s and I have doubts that it what was intended. I didn’t find anything that was outright bad, but I can’t gush about what I did have. When I get home I will take a stroll back through the menu and seek out any recipes that I might want to replicate at home.

Jen from Tiny Urban Kitchen, and the winner of Project Food Blog 2010, shared  a bit about her journey in food blogging and what she is up to since Project Food Blog. Her primary topic was her motivations to donate her PFB winnings to charity. You can read more about her post PFB adventures in her recent blog post.

The Foodbuzz Blog Awards seemed to be very casually received and with the amount of talking during the announcements I can only think many people didn’t care. We were nominated in the Best Single Topic category and while we didn’t win I was the person in the room clapping the loudest for all the nominees and the ultimate winner. Being a good sport is an absolute requirement for authenticity. Shame on many participants for not being more engaging in the award announcements. There is a lot of talk about community and in this case I didn’t see it. Foodbuzz, you might want to scrap this activity in the future, I don’t think enough people care.

While I was mingling around I grabbed a glass of the BonnyDoon Contra, a red field blend of 6 different grapes. I found a nice mix of black fruits and earth in both the nose and mouth. I didn’t give it as much attention as I would have like, but then again I do know where to get some if I want to give a more thorough review!

We moved on to dessert which came off more positive from what I saw. Multi-colored macarons, truffles, mini cheesecakes and cookie sandwiches all got some thoughtful consideration. The most overwhelming feedback was on the pate du fruites, which from what I understand was massively sour. I didn’t try it and I’m not sure what result was expected, but the feedback I saw didn’t seem to make me think this was it. The most interesting dessert item for me was a chocolate hummus filled pastry cup. The savory aromas and flavors gave the hummus away easily. The presentation was oddly reminiscent of refried beans, which certainly is an interesting twist. With a little less sugar the filling could be used in a savory dish where chocolate was a good fit. This versatility gave me a few things to consider.

Over dessert I shared a bottle of my own 2010 Strawberry wine with my tablemates including Monica, Debby, Joshua,  Allie, Shannon, Kelly, Dorothy, and Cynthia. Sharing the fruits of one my passions with new people is always exciting for me. I love feedback and collecting impressions from new tasters offers me information that is crucial for better understanding my own wines. I was honored at the positive feedback and the mentions I got in the wrap-up of several of the tasters the following day. Check out Shannon’s kind words in Foodbuzz Was Fun Last Night and Cynthia’s Facebook pictures from the table.

The event wound down and I boarded the bus headed back for the hotel. Earlier I had thought some form of after-party would have been fun, but as I got closer to the hotel I realized water and TV was going to be enough to see me off to sleep. Having been up for almost 20 hours and knowing I needed to rest up for day two, this plan didn’t bother me at all.

Cheers!

Jason

Cider Free or Die

It looks like finally getting around to joining the BrewFree or Die homebrew club came at the right time. Group buying is one facet to homebrew and winemaking clubs, and when it works, it works really well.

Not long after joining the club I got a note through the club listerv about a group purchase of cider from Sunnycrest Farms in Londonderry. At the price we were quoted for the expected volume we would buy as a group, which ended up being 175 gallons, I calculated that I could buy four buckets for the price of three based on the price I paid in 2009. More liquid gold for the same money? Sign me up!

The day to pickup the cider came and club members from all over the southern tier of NH converged on Londonderry and stood around a raised tote filling buckets for several hours. There was much talk about people’s fermentation plans, what yeast, types of added sugar, do you sulfite or not, etc, etc, and there was plenty of laughter.

There was a healthy mix of experienced cider makers as well as folks trying their hand at it for the first time.With plenty of knowledge to be shared amongst those assembled, there clearly will be much anticipation built up as we all wait to share our creations with fellow club members.

The cider was pouring at about 46 degrees, which is too cold to start with so at a minimum letting it come up to room temperature before pitching any yeast would be expected. The gravity of the raw cider was 1.046 at 46 degrees and the pH was 3.5. 

I also sulfite my sweet cider before using it to ensure nothing unwanted gets a chance to grow. A little pectic enzyme will also go a long way to help foster clearing later in the process. A good stir ensured decent aeration and with that my four buckets of cider would sit for 36 hours before any more attention was required.

As many of the followers of my wine, beer and cider projects have become accustomed, the story always gets more interesting from here. Fermenting four buckets of cider as is would produce a pleasant result, but it isn’t interesting enough for me at this point. So what did I do?

I always add more sugar, acid blend and grape tannin to my ciders. The outcome is much more like an apple wine, but don’t tell my guy friends who love the stuff. They might stop drinking it!

One bucket saw an addition of a gallon of B grade maple syrup and is fermenting with Trappist Ale yeast. Sounds crazy, but in reality I stole the idea from Crispin Cider after sampling a cider of theirs made using similar ingredients.

Another bucket had eight pounds of honey and four cinnamon sticks added to it. It is being fermented with a Sweet Mead yeast. My first cyser.

The two remaining buckets had their gravity increased with white sugar and are fermenting with traditional cider yeast. One will be made still and the other will be sparkling.

Fermentation is winding down for all four batches, but there is much more waiting ahead. Clarification of cider is a notoriously lengthy process, but I still have some from 2009 to drink so I can be patient!

Reports from other club members run the gamut from similar applications of maple syrup, honey, white sugar to brown sugar, amber brewing candy and all sorts of yeast types. The party we are going to have when everyone shows up with cider is going to be epic!

Cheers!

Jason

Gordon Biersch – San Francisco

I continued my day one beer quest at the Harrison Street location of Gordon Biersch. Last week when I was judging for the NERHBC several of the example beers for the Oktoberfest/Marzen categories were from Gordon Biersch. One of my fellow judges suggested they might be one of the few others, Spaten also being another, that I might find domestically. Seeing the name come up in a brewpub search locked in a visit. A visit means a new chapter of learning for me, of trying several beer styles that are held out to represent the style so well that they are used to train BJCP judges.

I sat down in front of a sampler again, a very nice broad survey again, and got to work expanding my palate.

Golden Export

Munich/Helles Lager 5.0% ABV

Light gold color with a slight haze. The aromas of rising bread was what I first noticed. The beer is surprisingly sweet, lightly but sweet, with a subtle hop influence and a clean finish. This is not a style of beer I am that familiar with, but this particular example has me thinking more about it.

Hefeweizen

5.5% ABV

A yellow gold color, unfiltered and cloudy. Pronounced aromas of banana and clove. This is very much a typical Hefeweizen. It is highly carbonated and very crisp. I found a touch of sweetness  in this beer as well. This is drinkable, almost to a fault. I could go way wrong with too much of this!

Czech Pilsner

5.6% ABV

Golden color with hints of orange. Light malt aromas in the nose. The light malts come back in the mouth and are met with a bold, but pleasant hop bitterness. The hop flavor is in good balance with the malt.  Finishes dry and crisp.

I recommended to Margot that she consider this style of beer for her educational lineup in 2012. While it is boldly bitter I still think it would be a worthy beer to learn how to make. With the hop flavor being well balanced it doesn’t come off as a hop bomb which is one style she isn’t the biggest fan of.

Marzen

5.7% ABV

Light amber color. Aromas of toasted bread. The toasted bread translates into flavors as well, paired with hints of dried fruits. This beer is ever so slightly sweet. Immensely drinkable. This is definitely beer I would like to experiment trying to make. When made well I can see how the balance and generally moderate aromatics and flavors can result in a hugely drinkable beer.

Oktoberfest

This was the seasonal beer during my visit. Orange/gold color. I didn’t get a lot of aromatics, some light and mildly sweet malts did come through. The bit from the hop bitterness is noticeable. Another gently sweet beer. I would characterize this as whole grain bread. There were hints of tart dried fruits. I preferred the Marzen over this, but can understand this style a little better now having tasted one of the classic examples.

Conclusion

The Marzen was the favorite for me with the Hefeweizen being one I think that would appeal to a wide audience. All of the beers were tasty and clean, something that will clearly draw in lots of repeat drinkers.

So far I am digging my survey of some of the beers from San Francisco. I came across several styles in cans from 21^st Amendment at the day one Foodbuzz Festival reception. I’ll share my thoughts on the evening’s drinks in an upcoming post.

Cheers!

Jason

21 Amendment Restaurant and Brewery - San Francisco

I’m in San Francisco for the Foodbuzz Festival and you know what that means, I’m going to be checking out the local and regional drink. Having such a specific focus might seem like a bore to some, but not to me! I came to San Fran to meet new people and do what I do best. I might be the Drink Doctor, I can take the pulse of a place by visiting a selection of its watering holes. And that’s just what I’m going to do.

My first stop is at the 21st Amendment Restaurant& Brewery on 2^nd street. Brewpubs almost always offer a beer sampler, and to me this is the best way to get a sense of the place. The windows were open so the cool breeze (it was unusually cool from what I gathered) was coming in right next to the table I snagged.

VIA

Belgian Single – 5.9% ABV

Golden color with a short off-white head. Almost clear. Light malts and some fruit in the nose. Low bitterness Wicked drinkable. Straightforward, but very smooth

Leuven Life

Belgian Pale Ale – 5.3% ABV

Gold/orange color. Hazy and unfiltered. Definite hop influence. Muted aromas but another massively drinkable beer. Much more bitter than the last (4x the IBUs) so it stands out.

I’ve found the smartest thing to do on the beginning of a beverage adventure in a new city is to ask folks at a nearby table. With luck they will live and/or work in the neighborhood and can help direct your next steps. Taking my own advice I chatted up a couple of guys at the next table and the through the course of the conversation I confirmed that two places already on my list, Tornodo and  Magnolia, are not to be missed while in town. Check!

Ancat Dubh

. Dark Belgian-style Saison 6.3% ABV

Medium brown in color with hints of red. Dark malts and a good balance of hops. Hints of funk in the mid-palate. Just enough roasted character to be notable.

Ninkasi Total Domination IPA

Northwest style IPA 6.7% ABV

Orange/gold color. Hazy and unfiltered. Very fruit nose. Light body with considerable hop nuance. A resiny/piney character dominates the finish. Apricot flavor in the mouth.

Rammstein

Strong Bavarian Wheat 7.2% ABV

Golden color. Hazy and unfiltered. Strong banana aroma and flavor. Surprisingly light body. Low hop influence in both flavor and bitterness. A savory element to the finish.

Roasted American

Amber American Ale 5.8% ABV

Reddish brown color. Clear. Warm roasty aroama. Gentle hope flavor, but the hops come back on the finish. Some nuts and well toasted bread in the mouth.

So what do you pair all these different beers with? Well, not any one thing, really. But the fried Monterey Calamari from the appetizer menu caught my attention so I went with it. I won’t profess to any pairing magic, but I will say that the calamari were cooked just right and were served with some fried capers which was new and interesting all to itself!

Fireside Chat

Spiced Dark English Ale 7.9%ABV

Medium brown in color with hints of red. Spiced evident in the nose. Slightly sweet. Palate of spices is very well balanced. Finishes solidly as a English ale with waning spice influence. The spices and the hops feel like they were supposed to go together.

Schooner’s

Oatmeal Stout 4.8% ABV

Guest brew from a local brewery. Dark brown and opaque. Classically constructed. Faint aromas of chocolate and coffee. Light bodied, with good balance of malt and hops.

Two Rivers Cider

6.5% ABV

Another guest brew. Anytime I find local cider on the menu I try it. But most of you already knew that.

Light gold in color. Gentle apple aromas. Crisp, dry and sparkling with tart apple slant I’ve come to expect from this style of cider. Refreshing, although the tartness is lengthy so the service temperature should be on the low side in my opinion.

The Final Analysis

I am going to go with the VIA and the Fireside Chat as my two favorites. The simplicity and drinkability of the VIA was very noticeable. The balance of the all of the components, including the spice, of the Fireside Chat made this beer work for me. I might even come back for one before I head home!

Cheers!

Jason

Motherhood and Kurt’s Apple Pie

Waxing poetic about drink is not new, and I certainly don’t raise the specter of the art form in any tangible way. But just like those who came before me, when I find some juice I love, I gotta sing it loud and proud.

I’m talking about Moonlight Meadery again. Huh, them again? What gives? Are you a commercial producer wondering how you might get this much love? It’s not magic and just because I don’t sing a particular product’s praises doesn’t mean I don’t have love for it and its creator. But, if there is one what is the formula? Start by making a killer product, then be really nice, warm and welcoming to visitors and finally be an example of how important hard work is. I'll find you eventually. Trust me.

Kurt’s Apple Pie is a seasonal product from Moonlight because it is made with apple cider. Getting the cider locally means a short window each autumn when it is fresh pressed and available just a short ride from the production floor. The cider this year came from Sunnycrest Farms on High Range Road in Londonderry, NH.

The recipe for this mead comes by way of a guy named Kurt, a lifelong friend of Michael Fairborther’s (proprietor of Moonlight). Michael asked if he could have the recipe to use in his commercial venture and the rest is history. Having a hugely successful mead named in your honor by a friend is pretty freaking cool!

Vanilla is the predominant aroma, but I also found other spice, honey and wisps of apple too. The flavor is like apple crisp, with enough of a savory element akin to nuts or oats (maybe the vanilla) that is goes beyond just apples. The spices, cinnamon is included as well, are restrained and well balanced against the apples and honey. The finish is sweet with the essence of honey, somewhat like the character of an ice wine.

The flavors presented here are a confluence of tastes that exude this place and the season. I am a lifelong New Englander and apples, baking spices and this time of year are joined at the hip. This mead puts an adult spin on the mix that I am so happy to be able to enjoy. Even though it is sweet, there is an elegance to that sweetness in the form of some acidity of course, that pulls it back from anywhere near syrup. That really makes it work for me.

This product is likely to be a back to back sellout, and when it is gone, it’s gone! I’ve got a small supply to ration so I can get my apple fix until my newest ciders (including one with honey and cinnamon) are ready sometime next year.

Cheers!

Jason

Ancient Fire Cellar Update November 2011

Despite currently running on a generator no harm has come to any of our active wines or ciders, and the wine cellar is well protected. I say that like I have been sitting in a rocking chair with a 12 gauge at the cellar door. Not exactly. I’ve been drinking from it pretty regularly so I know it is safe! Because we are a pretty low tech pair of home brewers and winemakers the only thing we haven’t been able to do is use the dishwasher to clean more bottles to fill with the remainder of the 2010 reds. That will have to wait. So what have we been up to?

This past weekend saw Ancient Fire creations judged in the 6thAnnual Northeast Regional Homebrew Competition. Our entries included six beers, Maple Brown Ale, two different hoppy Pale Ales, two Stouts and an Orange Wit. Also vying for some love were our Orange/Vanilla Mead and Hard Cider Batch #4 from 2009. When the results came in there was significant cause for celebration. For our first ever beer win Margot took home 3^rd place in the Stout category with her Foreign Extra Stout! It really is one of the best beers to have ever been made at our house, and those results back that up for us. We also took home 2^nd place for our Cider and 1^st place for the Orange/Vanilla Mead! Keep an eye out for more information on where the recipe for this mead might be going real soon.

The 18th Annual Amenti del Vino Amateur Wine Competition was judged over the weekend as well and we had a total of 10 entries submitted for that competition. The results haven’t been posted yet, we suspect the freak storm that affected CT where the competition was held might have delayed the posting of the results.  We’ll announce any results for us as soon as we have them.

So with the wins earlier this year for our wines 2011 stands as the most significant year for our home brewing and winemaking projects. Not only have we made wine, cider, beer and mead all in the same year for the first time, we’ve also been recognized in each category in various competitions as well. Thinking back to when I started I can safely say I never imagined I’d be able to say something like that.

We have been busy lately (or more so I have been, Margot is planning a couple brew days later in the month) moving wines from 2010 and early 2011 to the bottle and wrangling new batches of wine juice and cider.

Recent additions to the 2011 lineup of wines includes Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Strawberry/Riesling Amarone, and Zinfandel. All of these wines are well underway and should make their tasting debut sometime in 2012 and beyond.

Getting in on the group cider buy with the Brew Free or Die (BFD) club ended up being a great idea. I got more cider for less money than in past years! I have four buckets of cider going, with three different recipes. Two of the buckets are a traditional cider (albeit higher in alcohol as I prefer it) and one will likely be my return to attempting to make a sparkling cider. I’ve made a mess of that technique in the past and skipped it in 2009 to avoid losing any product. The other will be made still and should come off as a typical dry, light cider. Another batch saw the addition of a gallon of B grade maple syrup and is being fermented with Trappist Ale yeast. I expect some nuance in the final product from both the yeast and the maple syrup. The last batch is my first Cyser, apple honey wine, and is happily fermenting away with 8 pounds of honey from the Milford, NH area, cinnamon sticks and Sweet Mead yeast. So far it tastes wonderfully spicy, much like apple pie filling.

We’ve been busy, but we ain’t done yet! Margot has plans to brew an Oatmeal Stout and I a Red Ale with rye in a couple of weeks. These will be our last beers of the year, making a total of eight, and the most beer we’ve ever brewed in a year.

I also have another mead project in the queue, with 24 pounds of honey on the way. At a minimum I know that I will be making a Blueberry melomel (fruit mead) and a Cherry/Black Currant melomel. I am also considering another methleglin (spiced mead) and potentially a braggot, which is a mead brewed with malt and hops, a honey beer if you will.

My final project will be a maple dessert wine using the second gallon of syrup I sourced from Ben’s Sugar Shack in Temple, NH. I’ve had mixed experiences with maple syrup in the past so both the cider and the maple dessert wine will require time and patience to ensure the fermentation is complete and no exploding bottles are created!

With all the excitement round we surely plan to do some celebrating during the upcoming holidays. I’ve been surveying some of the 2009 white wines we still have on hand and am finding several unexpected delights. Those will be some of our showcase wines for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Cheers!

Jason

Please Excuse The Station Break

Well, things are pretty tough in quite a few places in New England, and when the power goes out you better believe we'll be affected, because we always are! Quite a few people are displaced, hanging on and overall behaving well after several days without power and/or being trapped behind tree covered roads. There is light at the end of the tunnel for most, but that light is potentially several days off for us, and that might be lucky based on some of the stories I've heard!

The generator has been cranking away since Saturday night which leaves me with no stove, no desire to create a big mess in the kitchen that I will have to hand wash, so that means no nifty and neato fodder for the blog. We have no broadband (the cable companies don't have backup plans in most communities) so even with the generator our computers pretty much stare at us dumb. We turned them off instead.

This all sucks leading up to the Foodbuzz Festival on Friday, as I had hoped to post some new creations before I left to use as conversation starters. Oh well, I'll still have stories, just not about food and the joys of creating and cooking in my kitchen. I am going pull together some beverage reviews tonight and publish them
tomorrow from work (this one is going up form the bus) just so the blog doesn't collect dust, but that is all I've got for now!

Cheers!

Jason

Late Summer Pairing with Rodney Strong Chardonnay

Earlier this month I riffed on a recipe from the book Down Home: Downtown – Seasonal Recipes fromTwo Sonoma Wine Country Restaurants that Robert Larsen of Rodney StrongVineyards had given me at the Wine Bloggers Conference in July.

I got busy with Regional Wine Week and forgot that I had never published my review of the wine and the pairing. It was still late summer-like when I made the dish, a broiled salmon with a Panzanella salad, which is quite different that the weather today after our first snow and with temperatures in the 40’s. I guess this is my subconscious hoping for what is evident to be just a dream, but alas winter is coming.

You can find the original recipe I worked from on page 97 of Down Home: Downtown. One thing to note is that there isn’t a recipe for the drizzle shown on the fish in the book’s pictures so I can’t say what the exact flavors were intended there. Here’s what I did:

For the salmon I used an olive oil rubbed cast iron skillet over medium-high heat to cook it to browned on both sides. I then transferred the salmon to a 400 degree oven to finish the cooking. This takes 2-3 minutes per side. This method is dreadfully easy and ensures your salmon has a bit of crisp on the outside but is gently cooked inside.

For a drizzle I made a poor-mans Aioli with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, garlic and salt.

The Panzanella salad was absent of the corn from the original recipe, contained white onion and had two kinds of sweet heirloom tomatoes from a local farm.  The dressing was made as it was described using balsamic vinegar, garlic, shallot, olive oil, salt & pepper.

Having recently perfected the above cooking method for salmon there is no way that part of the dish could have been better. The faux-Aioli was excellent and the pairing with the wine really did work. That said, I would have used red onion in the Panzanella salad. White onion was what I had and it just didn’t measure up. There was nothing wrong with the salad, I’m just imagining home much more I would have enjoyed it. The addition of the corn would take it up a notch as well, so do it if you make this dish, or something like it.

The Rodney Strong Chardonnay suggested in the book and that I paired with the dish is from the Sonoma County series and is easily accessible in my local state liquor stores. The nose is spicy with a bit of buttered toast. I also picked up lemon and pear. On the palate the pear came back but with more of a baked slant to it. The oak is nicely balanced to be more on the spicy and not overtly woody side. The acidity of the wine is healthy enough for a clean finish.

The wine and the fish were a great combination, the roasty crust on the outside of the salmon was balanced by the oak and the acidity of the wine helped offset the subtle fatty character typical of salmon.  The wine and the salad weren’t as well made of a match, but there was nothing off-putting when they were combined; there just wasn’t any magic.

If you are dealing with the onset of winter like we here in New England I hope this late summer meal offered a welcome distraction for just a moment. If not, go out and cook something befitting warm weather just because you can.

Cheers!

Jason