What does a room full of close to 50 food bloggers look like? I found that out on Wednesday evening at the California Olive Ranch EVOO Dinner at Café Levain. It all started when I read about the event on Twitter and knew that I wanted needed to be there. Olive oil, foodies, a great dinner and a wine pairing? I would be crazy not to attend. The event started at 5:30 with some “social” time. This is hard for me! I am an outgoing person but I have to work really hard and walking up to a stranger and introducing myself and giving me elevator speech. It just feels so odd to me. But I did it and even dragged the boyfriend with me.
Our seated dinner was at 6:30 and we listened to Mike from the California Olive Ranch describe how they make their olive oil and why the quality of the olives is so important. We began with an olive oil tasting and covered and swirled our glasses to let the oil heat up slightly and release all the wonderful flavors. After all the cupping and swirling (sounds strangely dirty) we slowly sipped while sucking in air through our teeth. It was very fruity, grassy and had hints of butter.
A lovely amuse-bouche to start, it’s even fun to say, a chilled soup with peas, radishes and finished with olive oil. Very fresh, light, cool. Most people at the table were licking their bowls clean. I liked it but didn’t LOVE it.
Course #2 was a farmers market salad with mixed lettuces, buttermilk-tarragon vinaigrette, garden herbs, peas, chevre and candied nuts. A great starter salad minus the dressing, I appreciated the flavors but tarragon is not my favorite. That anise flavor just doesn’t do it for me. The wine pairing was a 2009 Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc; a light crisp and slightly acidic white. I really enjoyed it and that is saying a lot for a someone who doesn’t love white wine.
Sitka Sound Red King Salmon with shrimp, marinated white beans, English shell peas and chili oil. The salmon was very fresh and such a beautiful pink color. The wine pairing on the salmon was my favorite of the evening a 2009 Castillo de Jumila Rose. A tiny bit sparkling, amazing flavor and the perfect shade of rose.
A charred beef hangar steak with fingerling potato confit, local mushrooms with balsamic and preserved lemon. A very Midwestern meal but not my favorite, the steak was a bit chewy for my taste. The gourmand ate his entire plate 
The wine pairing was a 2007 Cline Zinfandel, a wine most people have had but a nice pairing with the steak.
Dessert was hands down my favorite course, not overly sweet and the perfect hint of olive oil. An olive oil cake, panna cotta and a gelato. It had a great salty/sweet combo and the small bites were a great size for me. I was disappointed with the wine pairing on this course. Normally I love prosecco but te Santa Margherita was bitter and too effervescent. I will admit to being a bit of a wine snob but will usually at least try something. Big thumbs down to this one.
It was late and dark, hard to get a great picture of the dessert 
Being in a room full of fellow foodies is so much fun, the tables are all loud and full of laughter, everyone is taking pictures, tweeting, facebooking and just enjoying the conversation. I can not wait to go to another Minnesota Food Bloggers event.
Lessons of the evening? I should have had my small lens on my camera, a non food blogger has a hard time understand a room full of food bloggers, and olive oil panna cotta might be the best thing ever. Just saying.
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