Click here to view Caitlin Hunter’s album of her first day at the conference experiences.
Our day began with an early morning walk down Rue Bleury to get to the Palais by 7am so that Kevin could get tickets for Thursday’s limited seating tasting events, and I could get some coffee. CHECK. We were a bit early to be seated for breakfast in the auditorium, but they were already serving croissant, eggs, fried meat, and potato squares in the hallway outside, so we helped ourselves. We were joined by a cheery salesman from the outfit that imports Coombes Cheddar from England here for his first ACS conference from his base in Chicago. I mentioned that Alison and I had visited Salisbury, England recently and his face lit up: “That’s very near where I grew up!” Just by chance, in my notebook, I still had a few labels of the meat pies we bought at the Salisbury farmers market when we were visiting: Bridport Gourmet Pies (Dorset Fidget, and Pork & Blue Vinney Pie) and he did a double-take: “My goodness, these are from my hometown!” So, you never know what you’ll run into at an ACS convention, as long as you keep introducing yourself.
Once we headed into the auditorium we were spotted by a part of the Maine crew, and we joined their table. We discovered that the tables added a selection of cheeses from that morning’s sponsor (the Vermont Dairy Council) to breakfast, so I happily sampled through that, though I remembered I had to be careful and pace myself. Unfortunately, Caitlin had not had the same thought — “I’m already cheesed out!” she said to Brad at one point as she contemplated another dab of the Winnemere.
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Out of my and Kevin’s Craig’s List apartment on Rue Hutchinson — uphill from downtown — early this morning, looking forward to the coasting down to the Palais to pick-up my tastings tickets first thing…except, as I swiped my credit card to get my code to unlock a bike at the rack around the corner, I took a *little* too long, or I pushed the wrong part of the screen, and instead of displaying the unlock code, I got the welcome screen. When I swiped my card again, it said I had already taken out the maximum number of bikes…! So I got a little extra exercise this morning by walking downhill. I still arrived in time to get the first two tastings tickets handed out.