Chocolate Fest: 2011

Another year another trip to the chocolate festival. This year it was being held at the Oregon Convention Center, although it was still sponsored by the Forestry Center.

Chocolates in cute packaging abound. It seemed smaller this year, I don't know if that's because it was all in one room, or if it actually was smaller. I imagine the booth price was 'pricier' this year, so maybe that was it.

The first thing we headed for was the Momokawa Sake booth. Last year the saketini was awesome, they had a different version this year, recipe coming soon. The woman working the booth asked if I had written a blog post about the festival last year. It was very surprising. I didn't catch her name, but if you read this years, "HI! I hope to see you next year too."

Pretty cake!

Mold-able chocolate in the shape of penguins. It's basically a colored Tootsie Roll.

Soap at a Chocolate Festival? Yes, it looks like they had some problems though, the sign says don't eat. Does that mean someone tried to?

The display at the Brownies From Heaven booth, they had a bleu cheese brownie that I really wanted to try, but like once you've walked through and tried all the samples you're really chocolated out.

This booth had the nerve to set out a fake cake covered in real french macaroons and then tell us that all the ones they had for sale were sold out.

We were unable to make it to the lolita gathering on Saturday, so we went on Sunday instead, however many of the booths we went to asked Teal and I if we belonged with the girls from yesterday. It's hard to explain cause it's not like we're a "group group" per-say, so we just answered no.
I have a sneaky suspicion they are the reason we were unable to buy and eat macaroons. Damn them! *shakes fist*

Heather insisted on trying as many alcohol samples as possible, even if she didn't like them.

Cocoa Velvet won Best in Show, not just because they're truffles are pretty, which they are as you can see above, but they taste amazing. The above box was 25$ still too rich for my blood but I could totally understand wanting to.

We all dressed up, but Heather decided to go in hobo chic this year instead of lolita. Her parents bought her a Machu Pichu type peasant blouse from Ecuador, and then she proceeded to add to it.

Heather made a friend. This is Derek and he very might well be the coolest kid ever, he befriended Heather and proceeded to drag her through the Chocolate Festival once more. However it turns out Derek's mom works one of the booths (ironically not the booth he and Heather are working in this picture), so Derek knew EVERYONE! Instead of samples he got full chocolate bars, and huge bags of popcorn, etc...

When Teal saw him I think she fell in love a little bit, in a completely non-creepy way of course. She kept talking about his eyes and ruffling his hair. He's a very effervescent kid, and I think maybe a little lonely, he was half-way begging us to keep him company until the festival was over. We couldn't of course, I hope maybe next year his mom will bring a friend to keep him company. Anyway, Heather went off with him, white Teal and I took pictures.

If you notice Teal is wearing the outfit I wore to the festival last year. It's perfect for her with the tea pot painted on it, they were meant to be. The convention center was not really conducive to cute pictures, it's not very pretty, or even fun like the Forestry Center, but we did our best.

It does have SOME interesting features though, can you guess what this is? Basically a clock, I know there's a fancier name for it, but it tells time, it's a clock.

Teal with a different type of clock. The area behind Teal was actually cordoned off with red straps, but it didn't look good in the picture so I moved it out of the way to snap a few shots. Teal said there was a security guard looking on so I did it as quick as I could and put them back. It was kinda worth it though cause the pictures were pretty cute.

The loot.

I did buy other items at the festival, a saketini from SakeOne , and a goat cheese filled chocolate covered fig (good by the way, more savory then sweet) from Goat Milk Candy. The Guittard chocolate bar was free and acquired by Derek, the fudge was awesome, and Theo caramel had the best texture, I was told the apple cider flavor would taste more like apple but it was defiantly more cider-y if that makes sense.

All of us together! We had a ton of people stop us for pictures, so I thought maybe having someone take a picture with all of us was fair play. Derek was part of our group by default I guess, I think we spent that last few hours at the fest. with him dragging us around from booth to booth, a right little tour guide he was. I finally had to tell him that we just couldn't eat more chocolate right now. He seemed bummed but what can you do. It was super awesome I wish I could have gone to lunch somewhere and come back, or even that there were other placed to hang out and have fun, then return to the fest., but alas there wasn't. I'm already looking forward to next year.