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Sally’s roundup of Paleo f(x)

What a great weekend it was! I finally got to meet the incredible Kinsey Jackson in person and she and I spent three days hanging out with 3,000 other Paleophiles who gathered in Austin, Texas for the biggest Paleo party of the year. Well, we had so much fun it felt like a party, but Kinsey and I actually worked really hard to spread the good word about Paleo Plan and the Paleo diet to all the wonderful folks who stopped by our totally awesome booth!

When we weren’t meeting, greeting and getting to know fellow Paleo peeps, we were picking the brains of doctors, researchers, leaders and organizers in the community who have committed their careers to the field of ancestral health. We met gurus Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson, Chris Kresser and many others whose contributions are leading us further down the road of the Paleo movement towards a better understanding of what makes us healthy and vital human beings.

We ate delicious Paleo food, soaked up a ton of Paleo knowledge in thought-provoking lectures, gathered cooking tips from live culinary demonstrations, and indulged in some intense hobnobbing and product sampling with over 100 other vendors hawking their Paleo goods and services. I’ll give a special shout-out here to Nikki’s Coconut Butter and Fox Hill Kitchens – Awesome Bunz, our amazing vendor neighbors.

It was totally worth driving from San Antonio to Austin through crazy thunder, lightening and rain that was the South Texas weather all three days to be part of Paleo f(x) 2015. I can’t wait to do it all over again next year!

Kinsey’s roundup of Paleo f(x)

Yee hank! This was my first trip to Austin, Texas EVER, and it won’t be my last! I was anticipating meeting some great folks at Paleo f(x), but I had no idea that Austin itself is chalked full of kind and fun people who overall, seem way less stressed than the populations of other big cities I’ve visited. I’m writing from the airplane flying home to Washington State, reflecting on the past week, which was no less than life-changing.

For starters, I got to meet my co-worker Sally for the first time in person. We look like sisters, and I feel like we have known each other forever! Sally and I ran a vendors booth for Paleo Plan, and spoke with hundreds of people about how our Paleo meal plans help save significant time, money, and energy in meal preparation. Every chance we got, we would go hunt and gather samples from the vendor tables, and I was introduced to several new products, some of which I totally fell in love with.

As Sally said, we were lucky enough to have our booth next door to Fox Hill Kitchens, and the owner Julie is nothing short of a culinary alchemist/genius. Her English muffins and hamburger buns taste EXACTLY like sour dough rye bread (I even asked a bread eater, and he agreed)! I was eating them dunked in Kasandrino’s olive oil, and I thought I had died and gone to Paleo heaven.

Our other neighbor, Nikki’s Coconut Butter, spoiled us all weekend by generously feeding us samples of her 5 different flavors of coconut butter (my favorite was vanilla cake batter)!

I haven’t always been a fan of nut and seed bars…until I met The Granilla Bar. The creator, Denise, has nailed her recipe, and these are hands-down the best tasting Paleo bars I’ve ever had.

I almost cried when I ate a tortilla that tasted exactly like a corn tortilla (I’m of Mexican heritage, and I must say, corn is one of those foods I miss the most!) Somehow Must B Nutty has figured out how to make tortillas out of almond flour that taste just like corn tortillas! (sniff, sniff)

I was also introduced to cassava flour, and Otto’s Cassava Flour is a delicious and nut-free alternative to almond and coconut flours. You know what else is a fantastic alternative to nut flours? Cricket flour! No joke, we hung out with the creators of Hopper Crunch, a new company producing granola out of cricket flour! Sounds kinda gross, but it’s not! Turns out crickets taste a lot like sunflower seeds, and are packed with protein and sustainability. :)

There were so many more vendors at f(x) that are worth mentioning, and I definitely will in a future blog post. But for now, I’m going to kick back on this flight home from Austin to Seattle, chow a Granilla Bar, and marinate on the incredible taste that f(x) left in my mouth. There’s something super comforting about being surrounded by other people who also understand the importance of eating with intention. Sometimes it feels lonely eating Paleo, when everyone around you is shoveling Frankenfoods in their faces. My trip to Paleo f(x) this year was a wonderful reminder that I am not at all alone, and that there are thousands of others out there who also believe in the power of Paleo. I will definitely be returning next year to attend Paleo f(x), but in the meantime, I’m going to savor the memories, and this Granilla Bar. :-)