IFBC day two

Day two was a blast! The day started right back up in the Westin Hotel around 8am where we were greeted with a lovely assortment of muffins with coffee in the lobby of the floor where all the main events were held. We found our way in and grab seats at a table where Julee and I met a group of ladies. One in particular from All Recipes!! How cool is that! Not to forget we had some awesome containers of Noosa yogurt, flavors like coconut & pumpkin with different parfait toppings to help ourselves to. It was delicious! Being that I never have tried Noosa it was nice to get a taste. We loved it but both agree that it's more like a dessert than a healthy yogurt.

After a quick light breakfast we sat in on some amazingly inspiring speakers. First up was Karen and Andrew, authors of many food related books however the newest one due to come out in October is The Vegetarian Bible. They both had great stuff to say about how they got to where they are and it was interesting how they made a name for themselves with their own books where as we have the world wide web and other resources to really begin a platform and start branding. Yay for us! 

Next speakers was probably my favorite of the whole day and that was Todd Coleman a photographer along with many other things. He mainly photographs food or at least that seems to be his passion and spoke about it with us. Of course, I was most excited about all he had to say and he inspired me in a great way. Photography has been something I haven't been able to really devote too much time to and he spoke to my soul and really seem encouraging to all of us who aren't feeling like we are crappy photographers. 

After that we had fun meeting Chef Thierry Rautureau AKA Chef in the Hat, owner of LUC Bistro and Loulay Kitchen in Seattle. Coolest dude ever! Very entertaining and gave us so many useful tips on cooking and canning. It was very impressive the way he combined unique things together to create such a simple yet elegant dish. I hope to one day enjoy dinner at one of his restaurants. 

We were spoiled once again with a very impressive buffet style lunch with a few desserts to top it off. While we ate, Ninja introduced their new blender that they just put out on the market. Lunch consisted of crisp grilled vegetables with a side salad. For main courses there was some sort of Parmesan chicken or a vegetable lasagna with another penne pasta dish as well. A few other things that I didn't have the pleasure of trying because it seemed I over did it on the other foods and room on my plate was zero to none. Oh well. I did however save room to devour dessert which was a mini tiramisu. Yum-o. 

Did you know that Krusteaz is based in Seattle? I had no idea! They had a seminar that we sat in on and learned a little about their products along different ways to use them. Their new flatbread seems interesting and we were introduced to a few different ways to use the flatbread. They come in a few flavors and I was lucky enough to snag a sample box the other night, Italian Herb . Can't wait to try it! 

After Krusteaz, we ended the day with a Brand Management class. It was the least hands on out of all  of the events and more informative. Lots of fantastic info about branding blogs and more in depth about things to keep in mind when trying to grow a blog. 

All in all, our second day at IFBC was an eventful one and one hell of an experience. I would love to attended every year after this one and I'm happy that I got the opportunity to go. Big thanks and a huge hug to Julee for that! Although both of us gals won't be attending Sunday we still believe we got the most out of the conference as a whole. I met a lot of inspiring people that I look forward to connect with! IFBC + Foodista and all vendors ROCK.