So we’re back in Boulder and while I openly admit to how much I love food - 10 days of really good eating can start to weigh you down - umm literally. I’m glad to be back in the “fittest town in America” with world-class athletes around to remind me what I need to be doing to work off the 3 trips I made to Taylor’s (if you’ve been there you’d agree it’s worth it).

As you probably know, Rob and I have been out in the bay area traipsing around San Francisco and Palo Alto and we even made a quick trip up to Napa for a weekend. Between the Copia Food Festival, Oxbow Market, The Ferry Building, Slow Food Nation Farmers Market & Taste Pavilions and then plenty of restaurants crammed in-between…we ate well.

My best spent calories include:

Heirloom Tomato Panzanella (Copia’s Edible Garden Festival - Napa, CA)

I went back for seconds after trying this dish. So good. Of course the key was the fresh heirloom tomatoes. Fortunately for me the farmer who grows the incredible tomatoes was just a few booths down. So Panzanella led to an hour long conversation about tomatoes, which led to an invitation to come check out the farm, which led to a farm visit of eating lots of tomatoes and helping to pack an order for Chez Panisse. There will be more on our fun at the farm soon!

Pica Pica Maize Kitchen - Corn Flatbread (Oxbow Market - Napa, CA)

I enjoyed a corn flatbread ham and jack grilled sandwich, which was great but I was most intrigued by the bread itself. It was sweet corn, soft bread but crisped up nice around the edges. I had never seen anything like it. The cool part is that the bread is gluten-free. Since a gluten-eating gal like myself went crazy about it, I was especially excited for all my gluten-free friends (Andrew, Jan…) about a non-cardboard tasting bread alternative.

Taylors Automatic Refresher - Texas Burger - (Ferry Building - San Francisco, CA)

I think I already let the cat out of the bag that 3 meals during the 10 day trip were consumed at Taylors Automatic Refresher. Usually I get more creative and vary my options, but oh was it good. We tried several things, loved the BLT - but I think my favorite was the Texas Burger, topped with jack cheese, fresh guacamole, salsa, mayo & pickled jalapeños on a toasted egg bun. Gourmet junk-food. Yummo.

We Love Jam - Blenheim Apricot Jam (Slow Food Nation - San Fransisco, CA)

If you’ve been reading the blog for a little while you’re probably now thinking I have some strange fascination with apricot jam, as I seem to talk about it often. Not sure how to explain it except for the fact that it’s a hard product to produce well and for those that do, I like to talk about. This apricot jam is made with Blenheim apricots which actually are considered an endangered variety of apricots - who knew? They started with a small batch (100 jars) from one very old tree and then it made it into Food and Wine mag and had thousands of orders coming to them. So now they are making more jam, which means they are working with farmers to grow more Blenheim apricots. An apricot jam with a cause. I love it.

Hodo Soy Beanery - Satay Soy Noodles (Berkley Farmers Market - Berkley, CA)

Chris Shipley, a mentor for us at TechStars, gave us her list of favorite food products and Hodo Soy Beanery was one of them. In her words, “Let’s just say that this place has me eating soy/tofu products.” Since they only sell their products locally in the Bay area, we were excited to get to try it on this trip. Carolyn, one of the producers, says the key to good tofu is really, really fresh tofu. She let us sample everything and even gave us some Spicy Soy Croquettes (Rob’s favorite) to take home with us. My favorite was the Satay Soy Noodles and was quite impressed the tasty noodles I was munching on were merely tofu that had been pushed through a pasta extruder. She only sells the product locally - so you have to make a visit to the Bay area to get a taste. Absolutely worth it.

Needless to say, we enjoyed our trip and definitely enjoyed the Bay area. It’s filled with foodies that shared our same passion for artisan food.