Pictures from WAPF Wise Traditions 2008: Food

I have so many pictures from the WAPF conference last week in San Francisco, I wasn’t sure how to post them all. So I’m going to break this up into a few posts.

This first one will be about the food I ate. There was so much good food there. The lunches and dinners were sumptuous. And every morning there was a massive spread with soaked oatmeal, raw butter, raw milk, maple syrup, fruit and hardboiled pastured eggs.

Unfortunately I couldn’t eat most of the food at the conference (darn it!!) because I was off dairy, grains and starches.

But I still managed to eat really, really well. For starters, I was lucky enough to have a booth right next to Drakes Bay Oysters. Yes! Oysters on the half shell for only $1/pop!

I swear, these are some of the best oysters I have ever tasted. Needless to say, I ate a lot. I ate so many in fact, and sung their praises so vociferously, that they started giving them to me for free.

I had dinner with some of you readers on Saturday night (unfortunately I didn’t get a picture) and I was surprised that nobody at the table was brave enough to eat raw oysters. I know I’m always going on about oysters on this blog, but it’s not just because they are nutritious. They taste really good!

I was extremely proud of reader Christine, who came to my booth on Sunday to tell me she had eaten not just one but TWO raw oysters!

I was usually too busy to stop and eat lunch so it really helped having those oysters. I also noshed at some of the sponsors’ booths since most of them were giving away free samples. I had delicious lacto-fermented salsa and relish at Zukay Live Foods, I had scrumptious salmon, albacore tuna and salmon roe at Vital Choice Seafood, and I sampled the Braunschweiger, head cheese and liverwurst at the US Wellness Meats booth (I decided the Braunschweiger is definitely my favorite). It would taste so good on some dark rye bread and some brown mustard and a nice German pilsner. (Sigh — one day I can have those things again.)

Here’s the lunch I had waiting for me at my booth one day, thanks to reader, Julie, who smuggled it for me. It’s Braunschweiger, chicken liver pate, a pickle and a pear (so artfully done — can you tell she is a caterer?).

I had asked her to bring me the chicken liver pate — but unfortunately I completely forgot that pate is made with butter. Duh! I was sneezing a bit after that. But it was worth it.