JK DeLapp is a Man, Baby! and Other Tales of the Conference

[Guest guest]

Like most of you, I'd assumed that JK was a middle-aged housewife with grey

hair in a bun, an immaculate white apron and several apple pies always in

the oven for the grandkids. After all, who else would so charmingly

discuss cast iron and copper cookware to the virtual exclusion of

everything else? When a guy walked up to me at the conference and

introduced himself as JK DeLapp, two split-second thoughts dashed through

my head -- " husband? " and then " son? " -- before I realized that I'd been

completely wrong, and JK DeLapp was not only a man, but fresh out of

college at that!

That surprise was one of the highlights of the conference, but I almost

didn't recover from the shock, so I took a picture of him with my camera

phone for my address book to remind me of his gender whenever my fragile

mind threatens to slide back into its former, more comfortable patterns of

thought. If any of you feel like you're in similar danger, just say the

word and I'll email you the snapshot.

More seriously, my obligatory needling of JK now done, he turned out to be

a great guy, and one of the actual highlights of the weekend was meeting so

many of you from the list. I've never felt nearly so comfortable with a

bunch of e-friends in my life, and Jewett was kind enough to host a

post-conference list party on Sunday night, a smashing success which I hope

immediately becomes a tradition. (See how I'm volunteering her services on

her behalf? Clever, huh?) I'd try to mention everyone I met, but then I'd

probably manage to forget someone (I slept for 12 hours straight last night

and I still haven't caught up on my sleep!) so I'll avoid embarrassing

myself and hurting any feelings by letting people who were there speak up

for themselves. Suffice it to say that you were all supernally cool!

I admit I was disappointed by a couple panels and lectures, but they were

far outweighed by the good ones. In particular I was blown away by the

vitamin B12 lecture by Dr. Dommisse and the cancer lecture by Dr.

. Either of those by themselves would've made the trip

completely worthwhile and then some even if I hadn't learned anything else

or met anyone whatsoever. They were really that good. And in fairness, I

think the vitamin D lecture by Dr. Cannell and the CoQ10 and statins

lecture by Dr. Langsjoen were every bit as worthwhile, but I knew

more of their material going in, so they had slightly less impact on me

personally. At any rate, I'll write up and post my notes on each of them

soon so we can all talk about them. I only wish I'd been able to split

myself in three so that I could've attended all (well, almost all) the

lectures on all three subject tracks.

This was my first WAPF conference, so I can't compare it to previous years,

but I heard that attendance was up to around 900 from about 600, which is a

nice increase, and the vendor pavilions were impressive.

I second -- and third, and fourth, and fifth! -- Suze's recommendation of

the red palm oil from Jungle Products <http://www.junglepi.com/index.html>

which you can buy online or at Whole Foods or a few other retailers listed

on their site. It's much thicker and darker and far more aromatic and

flavorful than any other red palm oil I've tried. It actually tastes

almost like there's pulp in it -- it's actually hard to believe it's even

the same food as other brands -- but it's just oil. I can't recommend it

highly enough, and I ordered a couple jars for myself. Jungle Products

also sells coconut oil, but I wasn't nearly so impressed by it. It's not

that it was bad, but it didn't really compare to QFI's oil and it certainly

wasn't the revelatory experience that their remarkable red palm oil is.

It was also a kick walking into a huge room full of Amish farmers and other

vendors selling raw dairy of every description and all sorts of other

foods, beverages and whatnot. I wound up lugging home 9 pounds of butter,

2 and a half gallons of heavy cream and miscellaneous other treats like

creme fraiche, sour cream and raw colostrum, not to mention several bags of

ice to keep them all fresh during the trip, and I again have to thank the

saintly Jewett for part of that, since she gave me a bag full of cream

and butter to augment the absurd purchases I'd already made.

I was kind of bummed to see Standard Products selling snack bars made out

of brown rice syrup, but as with the disappointing lectures, that was a

very minor part of the overall experience.

I could say a lot more, and I will, but I'm running out of time, so I'll

leave it at this: I'm told I'm something of a curmudgeon, so you're all

fired from the list. I'm shutting it down tomorrow.

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