Conference day! As well as my time to scout out Seattle's best and strangest food. Obviously, an excursion to Pike Place Market was in order. It was only a half mile from the hotel and the weather was brisk and sunny. I woke up at six, studied a little, and then headed off after checking out the sponsored booths at BlogHer.
The BlogHer sponsors were awesome. They had killer contests, amazing and interactive booths- make a rhubarb creature! Make your own yogurt! The fun was endless.
I started out my morning the way God intended, with some customized latte action and a plaid shirt. Sassy and caffeinated, I hit the awesome breakfast buffet and went on my way.
Bagel stakes! Yes!
Pike Place was an easy walk and offered so many things to see and do. I won't bore you with facts or information or blah blah organic blah blah local color but I will say this. I don't like people. You know I don't like people because when I'm not making fun of food here, I'm making fun of people and then relating them to food. But the people in Seattle were weird, and by weird, I mean idiosyncratic. Funky. Not crazy, but not antisocial, either.
Case in point: I'm not one for friendly banter with strangers. I'm not that guy who holds hands with random, unsanitary people at a concert. I try not to make out with strangers, though they throw themselves at me so. And the most reviling thing someone I've never seen can do is say something unsolicited to me because rarely do my quips come out as well-played and rehearsed as they do in my head, hours later. The best I've done is a "mmm," which makes me look constipated and aroused at the same time.
But these people, man. Something about the air unlocked me. These people zoned in on me to give me the what-for and I gave it right back. A drop-dead gorgeous drag queen walked by me when I was taking the Molly Moon photo, sizing me up and whispered, "Oh, you like that dog?" And something clicked and I stared right at her and said, "Fuck, yes, I love that dog." Not untrue. I'd been to three dog-themed eateries that day, but still uncharacteristic.
The man selling these crabs asked me if I was going to buy one to take on a hot date. I declined purchasing but offered to take one to the park. Seriously, I don't know what came over me. I was like an annoying frat boy and a drunk college chick all rolled into one, except that it was ten in the morning and I wasn't inebriated.
For Christ's sake, I screamed "YOLO" at someone.
This can't be good.
After collecting myself, I got some breakfast. It was like being in a cartoon, guys. One minute you're walking with a sense of purpose to Beecher's cheese for an Atkins-friendly breakfast of cheese and more cheese, and the next minute you're taking a comical U-turn into a small bakery, cramped with people, lured by the smell of something with a seductive magnetism. Welcome to Piroshky Piroshky.
What's a piroshky? No idea. Something delicious. I wanted to bring home fifty of them. Motivated by self-control and a credit card with a reachable limit, I settled on marzipan and ate it in Beecher's. So classy.
It's also worth noting that my original destination for breakfast was a crumpets-only shop and because you must eat crumpets at a crumpet store, I got two and ate them. I repeat, YOLO.
Ricotta and lemon curd. The only non-housemade item was the paper plate it was on, and it was likely upcycled or purchased on etsy.
After my breakfast bacchanal, I headed back to the hotel to pace anxiously around the room and get ready for my panel. Lillian, April, and I met up ahead of time to scope out the area and had a decent idea of how to fill up an hour and a half without resorting to knock-knock jokes or trust falling.
The panel was a smashing success. Did you know that despite being on a panel about how to relate food to humor, one must know that food is and never will be, under any circumstances, funny? Take it from an expert, I had no idea. And here I thought I was totes successful. Internet famous. Turns out I was doing it wrong and mushrooms can go back to being singularly gross and not at all humorous. We could all do well to keep humor strictly within the realm of 1950's pop hits and gentle anecdotes.
Also, true story- nobody wanted to take a photo with me. And I tried so hard to guilt people into it, too! I think David's annoying front-row paramour took home more women than I did. He also left the audience with a swell takeaway for a how-to panel along the lines of, "If you're having joke problems I feel bad for you, son, I got 99 problems, but kitsch ain't one," and most of them left grumbling shortly after.
Oh well. It was Baby's First Speaking Engagement and will go right in the scrapbook alongside the removal of my wisdom teeth and photos of my first prom. However, I didn't completely Britta it, and I found that I meshed with everyone well and that we had clever and hopefully, insightful information to bequeath unto all the participants.
I was famished afterwards, but glowing with pride, so I returned to the room to snap photos of myself that may or may not have ended up on craigslist after the fact and then made a second grand entrance to the Spanish ballroom to meet my throngs of thong-waving, adoring fans and eat carbonated tomato appetizers and ahi tuna tacos.
However, miniature tacos and fizzy fruit do not a Foodette make, so once more, I schlepped off to my favorite mystery restaurant, the likes of which shall be revealed in a full restaurant review tomorrow.
Eating this made up for having to sit at the bar.
And then I went back, full of love, poutine, and internet memes, my innards vibrating with delight, and slept until my flight back east.
Thanks, Seattle.
Thanks for the pepper garlands.
The neon beacons.
And the piles of photogenic cookies.
But most of all, thank you for being a little quirky.
We'll always have BlogHer Food.
To all who checked me out, took a chance on me, undressed me with their eyes, brushed against me, dealt with my yammering, ate with me, drank with me, locked eyes with me from across a crowded room, and let me speak, thank you.
You all mean the world to me.
FoodetteLabels: dinner, lunch, news
The man selling these crabs asked me if I was going to buy one to take on a hot date. I declined purchasing but offered to take one to the park. Seriously, I don't know what came over me. I was like an annoying frat boy and a drunk college chick all rolled into one, except that it was ten in the morning and I wasn't inebriated.
After collecting myself, I got some breakfast. It was like being in a cartoon, guys. One minute you're walking with a sense of purpose to Beecher's cheese for an Atkins-friendly breakfast of cheese and more cheese, and the next minute you're taking a comical U-turn into a small bakery, cramped with people, lured by the smell of something with a seductive magnetism. Welcome to Piroshky Piroshky.
What's a piroshky? No idea. Something delicious. I wanted to bring home fifty of them. Motivated by self-control and a credit card with a reachable limit, I settled on marzipan and ate it in Beecher's. So classy.
We'll always have BlogHer Food. 
