We returned from Ketofest yesterday morning, very early yesterday morning, from Connecticut by way of New York City.

There were the usual multiple hour delays, both coming and going – at least my traveling companion was enjoyable to be with =). We attended Ketofest just as regular people, rather than trying to be a vendor – which was a good thing as it let us learn from others. That said, it was impossible to miss us: the Keto Chow t-shirts were a bit obvious.

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The “Keto Food Pyramid” was something I put together a few months ago, planning to put it on the back of a shirt – but the project kinda died with all the problems we had with Keto Chow 2.0 production. Last week I decided it would be a good idea to have them for Ketofest, so I ordered 6 (3 for each of us) from Vistaprint and had them before the end of the week; though at $18 each (delivered) they’re not really viable for selling – we are working on having a couple hundred made with on a dark gray shirt instead of white. We got a lot of compliments on the pyramid and the shirts, it was a good conversation starter though I’m not sure how many people noticed that the base of the pyramid was Keto Chow =)

We did bring a bunch of chocolate Keto Chow samples – they were handy to have when we talked to people about what we do: “here’s my business card, and here’s a sample of Keto Chow – you mix it with heavy cream and it makes a complete meal.”

Anyhow – Ketofest. Friday we flew from Salt Lake to JFK (2 hour delay) and then drove to New London, CT. New London was right in the middle between New York and Boston, there were more flight at better times at JFK so we went with that. Fun fact about New London: even on a Friday night, EVERYTHING shuts down at 10 PM – this was a problem because we planned on grabbing some heavy cream on the way. Turns out there was a 24 hour Super Walmart just outside New London but we didn’t find that until Saturday morning. I mixed up some Keto Chow with water, stuck it in the fridge and we went to sleep. Next morning we grabbed some heavy cream, added it to the previously mixed Keto Chow and headed off to Ketofest.

There were some issues with the registration bags (they were sorted by first name – oops!) but we got to meet a bunch of great people and it was surreal having everyone around already know what keto is!

Ketofest consisted of 2 days: “Social Saturday” and “Science Sunday”. The majority of Saturday was cooking classes, eating fatty meat (a 250lb pig brought in and roasted by a local pig farm – I can imagine Carl calling the place: “yeah we want the fattest pig you have and when it’s cut up we want ALL the fat left on it, can you bring extra fat?”), and hanging out.

The cooking classes were in a “Maker Space” where you have a commercial kitchen, a wood shop, 3d printers, laser cutters and more (I would have LIVED in a place like that as a kid), it was REALLY hot in there until I plugged in the big fan and got a cross-breeze going. Richard was helping Brenda make her famous pork rind waffles:

We headed off to the plaza to eat some roast pig

We hadn’t signed up to taste the waffles and it was standing room only, but I’ve made them myself so no big loss. They did have left over Smoked Salmon Asparagus Frittata that we got to try (my wife made more last night for dinner!). Fiorella’s Polenta Poppers were good enough that my wife made those last night for dinner too. We left before Richard started his “Pulled Beef 6-ways” where he was doing a speed-run of 6 different uses of frozen pulled beef:

While there we bought some keto bagels and then it was back to the cooking classes, they had some left over beef that was really good, and then we watched how to make some lemon cake (which was fantastic):

Following that, we went on a Segway tour of New London, ate at Hot Rod’s (Cajun dry rub wings for me, prime rib for my wife and a pint jar of bacon for an appetizer). Then it was time for the movie at the Garde Theater:

Ivor Cummings had secured permission for us to watch “The Widowmaker” – he’s been helping David Bobbett (the guy who funded the movie) get the word out. Powerful movie. After the movie I was walking behind a bunch of people who were talking about the science behind the coronary calcification test, they joined up with a bunch of people in the lobby talking science. I saw Dave Feldman so I went to say “Hi” but I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation. I’m glad I didn’t, I was standing in a circle comprised of a veritable cornucopia of doctors, scientists, and nutrition geeks – some of the biggest names in LCHF: Ivor Cummings, Jeffry Gerber, Dave Feldman, and some others that I don’t have the face matched up to the name =)

I’m actually a bit sad that I didn’t record the conversation. It’s the sort of thing that should have been a panel discussion with everyone on stage.

The next morning we headed back to the Garde to bask in science. We got to talk to Dave Feldman again, he even posed for a “Keto Chow Group Shot” with his own blender bottle of Keto Chow =)

The speakers were awesome, my wife got to meet Megan Ramos and I got to talk to her husband Angel (who was standing off to the side, eclipsed by the notoriety of Megan, but he’s doing some cool stuff in nutrition too!). There was some excellent food to be had and I would have loved to stay and see all the presentations but we had to drive back to New York and Google was saying it was a 2-3.5 hour drive (that’s a pretty large window!) ended up being about 2.75 – but don’t worry: the plane sat at the gate for an extra hour waiting for a fuel form!

I had 2 samples of Keto Chow left in my cargo pockets. The driver of the parking shuttle saw our Keto Chow shirts and asked us what that was about, said he was always having a hard time finding keto food he could eat that was easy and portable (ha, seriously?!). He got those last two samples =)