IFBC in Portland – Final Recap

I did a recap for the first and second day of my trip to Portland, OR for IFBC (International Food Blogger Conference), but wanted to make sure I got one last post in to mention all the wonderful people I met, and to talk about the amazing food we had on our way out of town.  Shame on me for waiting so long to write this though…my memory is starting to fade!

I want to start at the beginning with the wonderful group of people we met on the Bob’s Red Mill tour before the conference started Friday.  These people became fast friends, and I can’t wait to see them again next year! (You guys are all going, right?)

– Cathy from Noble Pig – she cooks amazing food and has her own vineyard…how cool is that?!
– Michelle from Je Mange la Ville  – Michelle works at Bob’s Red Mill and was the one who organized the tour.  After the tour, she joined us all at IFBC for the rest of the weekend.
– JJ from 84th & 3rd –  Raised in the US, she met her love abroad who happened to be from Australia, so that’s where she moved!
– Claire from The Realistic Nutritionist – Just go look at her picture and you’ll see how adorably sweet she looks…she’s really that sweet in real life.
– Kristine from Veg Girl RD – Megan had met Kristine when she was at Blog Her Food earlier in the year, so I was fortunate to get an introduction when we were on the tour.
– Marisa from Margaritas in the Rain – Marisa is the cutest thing, originally from Hawaii, and now living in Portland with her hubby.
– Stefani and her husband Jonathan from Cupcake Project and  J. Pollack Photography respectively – She does the cooking, he does the photography…match made in heaven!
– Heidi from The Busy Nothings – Someone to talk with me about missing our kids, and someone to talk to Megan about living in a gluten-free household.

After the Bob’s Red Mill tour, we were able to get started on the first part of the conference, which happened to be a taste testing and live blogging from local Oregon producers (which you can read all about here).  We were feeling shy and nervous, and just sat down at the first table we came across, which just happened to be the COOL KIDS’ TABLE! Here we met:

– Stacey and Sam from Maxwell PR – Two very sweet ladies who put up with the rest of us loud ones!
– Vanessa from The Groovy Foody – She was worried about her hair, but I want to assure her that it looked great. ;)
– Janelle from Talk of Tomatoes – If this isn’t a Julia Roberts lookalike, I don’t know what is…
– Vicki aka “@mybigfatmouth” from “The Vicki Winters Show” –  Vicki is the loudest, craziest, and funnest (yes that’s a word) gal that I met.  She’d better be there next year!

At lunch on Saturday, we sat with another group of fabulous ladies, and I was able to chat with Heather Cheney, from Heather Likes Food.

And Saturday when we were exhausted from the sessions, Megan and I “skipped class” and had a drink in the lobby with Marisa and Heidi, and we were joined by Keren from Frantic Foodie – a fellow Canadian!

Last but not least, I have to mention Becky and her daughter Rachel from We Laugh, We Cry, We Cook – two of the sweetest people I have ever met, and an inspiration for me to get my Mom blogging more on my site!

When the session was done Sunday, we had a few hours before our flight left, so we headed out to visit a vegan restaurant that Megan had heard about, called Portobello.  It was unreal y’all.  Like crazy unreal.  If you’re ever in Portland, you need to go here, even if you’re not vegan.  We happened to hit their Sunday brunch, and here’s what we had:

Beet tartare on cashew cheese:

Benedict with roasted tomatoes, tofu “eggies” and cashew cream hollandaise:

“Cheesy” potatoes:

Benedict with crispy polenta, sautéed kale, tofu “eggies”, roasted portobello mushrooms, and cashew cream hollandaise:

After brunch, we were oh so ready to come home.  We had to take one more picture to show that we were sad to be leaving Portland, but happy to be going home.  This was my first trip away from my son, and it was hard!

That’s it, that’s all folks…I’ll be back to posting recipes from here on in.  Thanks so much for reading about my adventures!

A huge thank you to everyone who made this trip so much fun…it was an honor to meet all of you and I hope to see all of you next year in Seattle!!

P.S. I probably missed mentioning some people, and if so: I’m so, so sorry…message me!