The Thanksgiving edition of my favorite food mags arrived about 2 weeks ago, giving me ample time to peruse the recipes and start testing to see which will make the cut for the Thanksgiving menu this year. I have more than enough time to get recipes figured out, but turkey-time is now! If I want anything other than a Butterball on my Thanksgiving table, planning early is essential.

The past few years I’ve gone with the stately Bell and Evans Turkey that makes its way onto a silver platter and served at the White House every year. Each turkey is fed a diet that consits of corn, soy, vitamins and minerals, never any animal by-products. They’re free to roam, with plenty of fresh air and clean well water. Each house produces only one flock per year to avoid disease and the need for drugs. I’ve always been impressed with the quality and flavor.

 Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia.

This year, I want to go one step further and order a heritage turkey - a variety of domestic turkey which retains historic characteristics that are no longer present in the majority of turkeys sold at supermarkets today. Heritage turkeys are physically capable of being raised in a manner that more closely matches the natural behavior and life cycle of wild turkeys.

Many people have never tasted a heritage turkey (myself included), since these breeds were displaced by the Broad-Breasted White Turkey in the 20th century. Anyone I’ve talked to that has actually tried a Heritage Turkey says the flavor will knock your socks off and beats any Broad-Breasted Whites aka Butterballs. They have a richer, more intense turkey flavor than commercial birds. One hallmark of the heritage turkey is that it mates according to nature, unlike the American Thanksgiving classic, the Broad-Breasted White, which has been bred for white meat and is so top-heavy it can’t walk or breed naturally. Sad huh?

Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch, based out of Lindsborg, Kansas is one of the few farmers in the country raising heritage turkeys and they sell them through their website. Not sure about availability, as I have not placed my order yet, but from the look of their site it seems that they are not sold out just yet. But watch out, I might just beat you to it. : )

Just on the edge of The Mission District, a San Francisco neighborhood with strong Latin American influences, sits a contemporary looking building with the words La Cocina (meaning “the kitchen” in Spanish) stretched along the wall. Inside the building magic happens in the form of magnificent food creations. We were lucky enough to be a part of that magic last Wednesday night for their “Magic of Mole” cooking class, taught by Irma Calderon - a student at La Cocina.

It started with Irma’s recipe that’s been passed down through her family for many generations. But the recipe wasn’t the usual suspect we find in cookbooks. There were no instructions, no exact measurements. Irma’s recipe is one that relied on the ingredients available at the time, along with an expert palette to taste and tweak as the cooking process moves along.

Irma taught us all about Mole, which I was surprised to learn (along with most of the rest of the group) that it didn’t have to include chocolate to be considered a true mole sauce. Dried chiles, nuts and spices are all staples in the dish.

Jason (on the left) and Caleb (on the right) run the La Cocina program and lead the cooking class. Part of the class was learning how to butcher a chicken (the chicken was a key ingredient in the mole dish). Jason walked us through the process and helped us to sharpen our knife skills.

Nik, myself and Rob, were all suited up in our aprons cooking away. I think at this point we had already enjoyed a few glasses of wine (you know it’s a good cooking class when the keep your wine glass full…).

Irma gets some of the freshest ingredients from Mexico and these chiles were some of the best I’ve seen. They were dried, but still soft and fresh. These are the key ingredient to a classic mole sauce.

Almonds, walnuts, cinnamon stick, garlic, prunes and raisins get sauteed in olive oil. The combination of these fruits, nuts and spices create the rich complexity of the mole sauce.

Once the cooking was complete…it was time to enjoy our masterpiece.

The dinner table, in the middle of the kitchen, was all set for our authentic Mexican feast.

We enjoyed a meal of roasted chicken with Irma’s famous mole sauce, refried pinto beans, mexican rice, and a fresh garden salad. Fantástica!

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.

Today was our first day at Slow Food Nation and it was packed full of food discovery, lots of learning, and plenty of eating. Slow Food is an incredible organization and it was clear how many hours were poured into the event. Major kudos to all of those that helped to make it happen. Our time was spent at the Taste Pavilion, which wasn’t just about tasting (although we did lots of it!). It was all about learning the origins of your food, how it’s made and where it comes from. Of course, everything I believe in when it comes to the food we eat.

Eileen from Ritual Coffee Roasters, the head curator for the Coffee Pavilion said that each producer was hand-selected for being the best in the country. And each Pavilion has their own unique way to show off their specific craft. While all of the displays were fantastic - my favorite was the Pickling Pavilion. Yes, a whole Pavilion dedicated to pickled goods. Canning jars were artistically displayed with the names of pickle producers from across the country stuffed inside each jar. They also suspended all the canning jar lids individually from the ceiling. I can’t imagine how many hands and how many hours it took to hang the lids - but it truly was a sight to see.

While we were at the pickling station, I enjoyed a flight of sauerkraut - yes you read that right (see below!). I’ve never been a fan - but I knew this would be the place to try if there was a chance of finding sauerkraut I liked. The ingredients were simple - only salt, spices and seasonings. When it’s prepared the old fashioned way, it requires no vinegar and no pasteurization. The salt is what makes the “sour” in sauerkraut. And the result? A wonderfully fresh flavor and crisp texture.

My favorite ended up being Three Stone Hearth’s “mid-summer kraut” an artisan sauerkraut infused with lemon and lavender.

Here are some of my other favorite products from our journey around the Taste Pavilion.

Here a barista gives me a lesson on artisan coffee growers and roasters. My favorite was an Ethiopian coffee from Ecco Cafe. It was a sun-dried coffee that was naturally sweet, had great body and blueberry notes.

Those wheels of chocolate in front are called the “ibarra disc” from Taza Chocolate. Taza makes Mexican stone-ground, organic chocolate that is minimally processed and incredibly delicious. These wheels are created with just a few ingredients - cacao, cane sugar and a little cinnamon. The traditional way to enjoy them is to combine with hot milk. According to Alex, one of the founders, it creates some of the finest hot chocolate.

The Olive Oil Pavilion not only had a beautiful display (those bottles wrapped around their entire pavilion), but they had an Extra Virgin California Olive Oil, Sorelle Paradiso that was definitely one of the best I’ve ever tasted. I also learned that 90% of most olive oils you find on the supermarket shelves are rancid - yuck! The worst part is most Americans are most familiar with that flavor and think that’s the norm.

We plan to head back to the Taste Pavilion for more eating on Sunday. Of course, we’ll share our food discoveries here on the blog.

In about two weeks we’ll be headed to Slow Food Nation an event bringing together foodies to celebrate artisan food producers from all over the country. The event is in San Francisco from Aug 29th through Sept 1st.

Slow Food is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.

The Foodzie crew will be there meeting incredible food producers from across the country, learning how they produce their food, and of course eating a lot.

Let us know if you will be attending. We’d love to see you in San Francisco!

Normally I wouldn’t find an ad for a casting call appropriate content for our company blog, but…as a foodie, I believe in sharing my love for food. So I thought I’d help spread the word. The Food Network is looking for terrible cooks who want to be transformed by their team of expert chefs. This casting call is in Denver, CO, but I imagine they are doing casting calls all over the country. See the details below.

Food shows are a great way for us to discover new products and the NY Fancy Food Show is just about the king of all food shows. There are so many producers that attend and there is what seems to be endless rows of booths with a total of 180,000 products to taste. It usually takes about a week post-show to start feeling hungry again. It’s a tough job, I know.

Many of the producers that attend this show are much bigger than what we’re looking for because of the $10-15k producers have to fork over to attend. The little artisanal gems we find at these shows are usually the ones that have doubled up on the smallest booth space and lack any fancy, attention-grabbing signage. This year we didn’t attend because we are up to our ears just trying to get the Foodzie marketplace ready to launch. But that didn’t stop me from seeking out the best-of-the-best lists from some of the foodies that attended.

Here are a few products that sounded interesting:

Das Foods - French Salted Caramels

Frankenstein Mills - Pancake Mix

Cypress Grove - Truffle Tremor Goat Cheese

Whitson’s - Chili Seasoning

Check out the full list on AOL that combines both Slashfood and Epicurious editors top picks. The runners-up can be found at slashfood.com.

I love the farmers market and lucky for me, in Boulder, I get a double-dose each week - once on Saturday and once on Wednesday.

One of my favorite finds so far at the Boulder market is Ela Family Farms variety-specific applesauce. Most applesauce brands you find are just blah and don’t come close to that robust apple flavor you get from making it fresh on the stovetop. Not to mention, 50% of the apple crop that supplies commercial apple sauce comes from China - yucko. Ela’s applesauce starts with apples from Colorado and is packed when the air is crisp and the apples are at their peak flavor.

It was interesting, as we sampled the whole line-up at their booth (Jonathan, Gala, Fuji and Braeburn) I found my tongue most happy with the Jonathan sauce, which also happens to be one of my favorite apples to eat in-hand. Jonathan’s are slightly sweet and moderately tangy. Each sauce closely mirrored their respective apple in flavor and for good reason - Ela’s doesn’t add any sugar or extra ingredients. They keep it simple - just one kind of apple - served straight up. And it’s delicious.

During our weekly mentor session with Chris Wand last week, he asked us all what we missed from back home in North Carolina and immediately my reaction was Prissy Polly’s BBQ. It’s the classic southern hole-in-the-wall dive, where the sweet tea flows and you get free (really good!) banana pudding if you get the trivia question correct. Needless to say, thinking about Prissy Polly’s had me longing for some goood BBQ. It just so happened that the next day Chris was heading up to Frisco, CO for a BBQ Competition with his girlfriend Tina and some friends and he invited the Foodzie’s to join them.

Chris is a Kansas City BBQ Judge, so we had an expert on hand to help us navigate our way through the festival. There was a ton of BBQ and we tasted a lot of great pulled pork, sausage and chicken, but the highlight was definitely Big Mike’s BBQ.

Chris was wise to get us into the Big Mike’s line early so we could try his famous ribs. His ribs are covered in a zesty dry rub, basted with his special sauce and then slowly smoked over the grill. Big Mike’s was clearly the “peoples choice” by the length of the line that stretched far past his stand for the entire day. We waited about 20 minutes in line for our ribs, but they were absolutely worth it.

Second best to Big Mike’s ribs, had to the be the pig racing. I had never seen anything like it in all my life! The little piggies get corralled into their gates and then when the gates open they waddle their way around the course to see who can get to the oreo cookie at the finish line first!

The whole day was just perfect with a beautiful backdrop of the rockies, a nice cool breeze and plenty of juicy, smoky, tender, wonderful BBQ. Thanks Chris for giving us a little taste of home!