Oct 23 2011

Liquid Gold featuring KATZ Olive Oils

It’s no secret that I love taking classes at the Community Learning Center & Cooking School at the  Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op.  This upcoming Thursday (October 27th) the co-op is having another great food event – An Evening of Liquid Gold – featuring KATZ Olive oils.

It’s an olive oil appreciation class featuring Albert Katz of KATZ Olive Oils and Vinegars. Albert Katz is a chef and a true artisan – his olive oils have won countless awards, his vinegars have been recognized by the Slow Food Ark of Taste for the production method he uses, and he’s a founding member of the California Olive Oil Council.

My first introduction to KATZ oils and vinegars was through previous cooking classes at the co-op. I have managed to purchase a nice little collection. I stopped buying store bought salad dressings and have been making my own for the past couple of years. I even got in on the Co-op group buy for the special addition KATZ December’s New Oil.

Albert will be teaming with Chef Dionisio Esperas to prepare some amazing items:

  • Avocado Brushcetta
  • Roasted Pepper Saffron Soup
  • Crudo of Fish with Meyer Lemon Olive Oil
  • Grilled New York Steak Drizzled w/Olive Oil and Arugula
  • Crispy Olive Oil Potatoes
  • Luscious Olive Oil Torte

There are still seats left. If you live within driving distance and want to join me for a fun evening – reserve your spot online. If you register online, you will even get a 10% discount.

What:  Liquid Gold featuring KATZ Olive Oils
When:  Thursday, October 27, 6:30-8:30 pm
Where:  Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op Community Learning Center & Cooking School – 1914 Alhambra Blvd. Sacramento
Price:  $49, $40 Co-op owners
How to sign-up:  Register online and receive a 10% discount!  www.sacfoodcoop.com

Hope to see you there! – I will be the crazy food blogger taking a million photos. 🙂

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=6108

Oct 19 2011

Sunnyvale (Part II) – Yahoo!

Day two of our Sunnyvale adventure started with an early wake-up call. Our hotel was only a few miles from our destination – Yahoo! headquarters. Gail and I participated in a Digital Citizenship Summit. Teaching Internet Safety is an important part of our job responsibilities and we jumped at the chance to surround ourselves with other people and experts that share our passion. I’m sure Gail’s post will be about the curriculum, messaging, vision, connections, etc… mine, not so much. It’s all about the cool building and the food.

Yahoo! encouraged us to take photos (they had a flickr share) and they wanted us to “live tweet” and blog the event.  Super fun to be surrounded by tech geeks like ourselves.  We checked in – were told that video cameras would be capturing the entire day, and then we ventured deeper into the building and classroom area.

They actually had interactive spots on the carpeted floors that would change video displays on the walls.

The first thing that caught my eye was the classroom names – apparently it’s a rather new thing…

wink – The best friend of 🙂 and one of the most popular (and sassy) Yahoo! Emoticons. When words fail, try an Emoticon.

purple haze – Yahoo!’s favorite cocktail. Purple, delicious, powerful, and easy to make yourself… here’s the recipe: (Creme de Violette, Luxardo Maraschino Liquer, Gin, Muddled Lemon, shaken & stirred up, topped with a brandied cherry)  NICE! cocktails in the workplace… reminds me of the old ad agency I worked for.

homepage – Over 680 million users around the world have made it the center of their online lives – the Yahoo! homepage.

We checked out the homepage room and then dropped off our swag bags to save seats.

We then made our way to the breakfast spread…

Raspberry, blackberry, strawberry and blueberry yogurt parfaits.

Muffins, scones, danish, croissants and other baked delights…

Bagels and all of the toppings…

Bananas and apples…

A selection of mini Jamba Juices that included:

  • Five Fruit Frenzy – Strawberries, blueberries, bananas, mangos, peaches, mixed berry juice, peach juice, and ice.
  • Mango-a-go-go – Passionfruit mango juice blend, mangos, pineapple sherbet, ice.
  • Razzmatazz – Mixed berry juice blend, orange sherbet, strawberries, bananas, ice.
  • Strawberry Whirl – Apple strawberry juice blend, strawberries, bananas.

I went with the raspberry parfait…

…and granola and real sugared yogurt never tasted so good!

I also grabbed a Mango-a-go-go Jamba Juice. I used to get them all the time – and WOW… not having had a lot of sugar in a while (minus the pumpkin cheesecake) – made a huge difference – it was almost too sweet. Glad it was a super small size.

The vendors were set up in the lobby on bar height tables. We had a chance to talk to some of the founders and directors of the companies that we’ve been working with for years.

I loved that Yahoo! had glassed in lounge areas – perfect for discussion and just chillin’ with your laptop or iPad.

We made our way back to our seats for the welcome and overview after the breakfast and vendor fair.

We got a little distracted with raffle tickets that were included in our swag bag packets…

A chance to win an iPad 2, don’t mind if I do…

The room started to fill up and the sessions got underway.

The screens to the right displayed the Yahoo! TweetDeck – it was pretty cool to see the live tweets as speakers presented.

Yahoo! staff was tweeting right along with the rest of the group.

Yahoo!’s Web Life Editor – Heather Cabot, moderated the panel of experts – it was a great session. There was a lot of good conversation and audience interaction when it got to the Q & A part.

We had a short break and then got into the second session before breaking for lunch.

Lunch was housed in cute “to go” Yahoo! Safely insulated lunch sacks. We had 3 choices, veggie, roast beef and chicken.  I grabbed a chicken sandwich and we headed outside to get some fresh air.

The buildings and grounds were pretty cool. Volleyball/basketball and other outdoor courts for employees. We passed through the employee food court and ended up sitting outside on the edge of a fountain.

It was at this point that Gail’s friend said, “You’re such a nerd!” – for taking pictures of my food. I guess Gail forgot to mention that I had this food blog. ha!

The sandwich was grilled chicken breast, smoked bacon, avocado, pepper jack cheese, green leaf lettuce and organic tomatoes on an artisan sourdough roll. Bread, beloved bread how I have missed thee…. The lunch also included a whole grain salad, Kettle brand New York Cheddar chips and a cookie. It was a shortbread style cookie 1/2 dipped in dark chocolate.

We pretty much had to power through our quick lunch – we had about 25 minutes before the afternoon breakout sessions started. We decided to divide and conquer. We all went to different sessions. We reunited in the homepage room around 3:00 p.m. for the closing Q & A session with the panel and for the iPad raffle – definitely a good way to keep attendees until the end. I’m sad to report that we didn’t win the iPad – but I’m sure it would have looked super greedy if I had – since I was taking notes on the iPad I already owned throughout the sessions.

I passed on the sweets as we left to find our way back to the car…

But I couldn’t resist snapping photos of the adorable education/Yahoo! themed cupcakes. Rulers, apples, numbers, chalkboards…

Pretty flowers were displayed all over the tables…

We spent the remainder of the evening driving home. It gave us time to chat about the sessions we did on our own. I feel very fortunate that we got to take part in the summit – we left with some great resources, a Yahoo! flash drive loaded with all of the presentations and full bellies from the fabulous food. This summit proved that Gail and I are “on point” with our knowledge regarding Internet Safety. It felt pretty good to know that we were cutting edge compared to many others there.

Definitely a great day – thank you Yahoo!

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=6030

Oct 17 2011

Sunnyvale CA – Road Trip (Part I)

So my co-worker and I headed to Sunnyvale, CA last Thursday for a business thing – more on that later. I had mixed emotions about visiting Sunnyvale. You see… Ace and I lived there for a good 5 years. I was still going to college and we were both working next door to each other – me for the Gap/Old Navy and him for a grocery store that shall remain nameless. The Sunnyvale apartment held a lot of great memories for me – the biggest of all – the restaurants that we used to frequent. I chose to not drive by the old apartment or haunts, but I did hit the not-so-hoppin’ downtown for some evening shopping. Other than that, we stuck to the hotel and restaurant attached.

As we pulled into the Sheraton’s parking lot, I noticed the restaurant Faz. I had heard of it, and was excited that we could just walk to it from our hotel room.

We checked into the hotel. They upgraded us to a bigger room (nice!) and then we made our way to drop off our luggage.

The day was beautiful, we couldn’t wait to just chill out after the long drive.

The outdoor patio to our room overlooked the pool. We threw our stuff down, I did a quick Internet search on Faz, pulled up the menu, and we started planning our evening. Wish I would have packed my swimsuit.

We passed by the restaurant on our way back out to the car. We hit up Macy’s for some shopping. I had fun playing personal shopper. My co-worker Gail ended up with a really cool purse. I tried on some clothes, still amazed at the smaller sizes, but nothing screamed – “buy me!” The Macy’s kind of sucked compared to our Macy’s in Sacramento or Roseville. We kept thinking “outlet” with every department, rack, and turn.

We dumped the shopping loot off in the room and then walked to the restaurant – which had gone from dead to super busy in a matter of hours. Lots of business types like ourselves. Mostly men, but whatever, we held our own.

I pretty much went into the evening knowing that I would do my best maneuvering the menu, but wasn’t going to stress about eating something off the diet. The one thing I’ve learned this go around, you can’t always control everything… and that’s a good thing – the old me would have freaked out.

I decided that the pumpkin cheesecake needed to be tried… I’ve seen so many blog posts that have included amazing pumpkin desserts, muffins, breads, etc… so I’ve had pumpkin on the brain. My non-fat/sugar free pumpkin frozen yogurt just hasn’t been cutting it.

We started with warm pita bread and a dipping sauce that had hints of cucumber, mint, and middle eastern spices.

It was tasty, but messy… is it wrong that I was concerned that I had dripped oil on the tablecloth and that my photos would come out bad? The oil didn’t hurt my photos, the low lighting did. Oh well… the life of a food blogger.

Next up was a beet, shaved fennel, orange, goat cheese, and spinach salad with a light pomegranate vinaigrette. I loved the flavor combination and will be recreating this salad at home.

We both chose the mesquite roasted chicken kabob for our main course. Boneless breast of chicken marinated in onion and lemon juice, served with saffron basmati rice, a roasted roma tomato and grilled bok choy and red bell pepper. The smokey flavor was spot on – we really enjoyed our menu choice.

The pumpkin cheesecake did not disappoint. I never would have thought to combine the pumpkin with a strawberry sauce like you might with a classic cheesecake, but we both agreed that it worked well. We pretty much demolished the piece between the two of us. Only my second “real” dessert in the last 78 days… worth. every. sugary. sweet. bite!

Green tea did make a showing. Loved the little hot water carafes. The tea was a nice ending to a fabulous meal. Gail and could not wait to jump into our beds due to the early wake up call scheduled for the morning.

It was so nice to know that we would be attending our event and not presenting at it in the morning. We normally would be practicing our presentation, but not this night. Super low stress and a guaranteed good night of sleep.

Thank you Gail for being a fellow blogger and good sport while I snapped a million photos of our food and day.

To be continued…

Permanent link to this article: http://foodiddy.com/?p=5999