Healthy Living Summit 2011 – Day 1

It’s the farewell day of HLS, but I figured I’d put up the post about day 1.  Kind of long so I added a break.

Friday I was able to go to a demo by Frito-Lay at the Reading Terminal Market.  We learned about how Frito-Lay does their R&D for their flavors and it was interesting.  I had no idea so much work went into picking a flavor.  The first part of the demo we heard about the company itself.  They actually have over 30 plants in the country and each plant only ships to a few nearby states.  Apparently chips do not travel long distance well.  After the info session, the chefs showed us how a flavor can be interpreted a few ways and demoed some recipes we can make at home to pair with their products.  Our host was Chef Stephen who I absolutely adored.  I wish he was the chef at my work caf!

This was the tomato basil chip they carry.  The sauce is the same flavor.  What they do is create the flavor from real ingredients, either in a sauce, broth, etc. a few different ways.  They then submit this to review and whichever one gets the most widespread approval is the basis for the chip.  Who knew?

First comparison was a coconut curry.  This flavor was submitted by one of the other attending bloggers.  They were prepared differently, but both were definitely a curry.  We then polled which one people preferred.  We also did this test with carmelized onions, one was served with goat cheese and the other with parmesan and provolone cheese.

 
Honestly, I’m not a big onion fan, but these were pretty good.  I liked the one with the parm better, though.  Next, were the insanely yummy recipes.  They made an avocado hummus which was absolutely delicious, the small serving was not nearly enough.  I cannot wait to the get the recipe from them.

Then, we had a bruschetta quinoa salad.  Also yum.

The demo was a great time.  I got to hang with CJ and take some fun pics which I need to get (I was awful with picture taking this weekend).   

  
The hat was too small for my noggin.  Photos courtesy of Frito-Lay!

After the demo I rushed home to pack up some stuff and then I zipped down to the airport to pick up Jordan!  I was able to snag her from the waiting area right as she was walking out and we were on our way to Ali’s apartment for some pre-cocktail party hangout time.  There were some sweet eating, a Wawa trip, and a little pregaming.

Jordan was pretty stoked to get some Wawa goodness, as you can see.  Eating done, it was time to get pretty and head to RTM.

 
The cocktail party was a lot of fun.  The food spread was pretty enticing, although I was still pretty full from the Wawa trip before.  I grabbed some veggies and some of the passed apps though, you gotta sample the free food, right?  This isn’t even a representative pic of the whole spread, but you get the idea. 

We had two drink tickets which I used to sample the beer selection.

J and I were pretty excited to see they had Dogfish Head.  The Chicory Stout has a roasty flavor with a hint of coffee.  It went down really smoothly, I was sad I didn’t know about it sooner because they ran out of this pretty fast.

I got to meet so many people, it was such a whirlwind party!  It was especially a pleasure to chat with Natalie!  She’s tons of fun.  They had a photo booth which always is a good time.  After the party wrapped up, we went to the hotel for a last round of drinks and then made our way to Ali’s to head to sleep.  Day 1 was a huge success.  Stay tuned for Day 2!