Your brand ambassadors are ALWAYS this excited!

As long as I’ve been a fan of Tillamook Cheese I’ve also been a fan of The Price Is Right! Recently the Loaf Love Tour crew decided to get tickets to attend the famous game show while in LA. When I got the confirmation email with my name printed on the ticket I couldn’t contain my excitement! Most big groups of people who attend the show wear matching t-shirts that explain where they came from. We really wanted to wear our Tillamook shirts but you’re not allowed to wear branded shirts. Jammin Jason got creative and still figured out a way to represent his cheesiness on a homemade t-shirt.

By Ashley

S'mores after delectable Tillamook Sharp Cheddar and salami sticks

I think it’s common knowledge that great foods taste even better when served on a stick…corn dogs, popsicles, chicken satay, the list is endless!

Each week the Loaf Love Tour crew has a day or two off, but working or not, Tillamook Cheese never leaves our thoughts. This past “weekend” the team decided to head to an LA area beach and build a huge bonfire to roast hot dogs and toast marshmallows for s’mores. While we were enjoying our fire roasted snacks, TillaMaya reached into our stash of Tillamook Cheese cubes and decided to see what happens when you roast a Medium Cheddar cheese cube on a stick. The result? AMAZING ooey goodness in its purest form. The open bonfire and the melted cheese while sitting in the sand under a black night sky were simply awesome! We went on to roast Sharp Cheddar with salami and it was equally delicious! Do you have any ideas for our next bonfire? Let us know what to roast and we’ll let you know how it turned out.

By Susan N.

The LA Zoo is home to one special super yogurt fan

This year marked our first Loaf Love Tour visit to the Los Angeles Zoo. In typical LLT fashion, it was a hot sunny day and we saw lots of orange clad fans! I was asked by a zoo employee if we had visited other zoos and I said, “Yes, but every one is different and filled with awesome memories.” Los Angeles did not disappoint!

Unlike our lucky friends and family at home, some Tillamook products are harder to find in Southern California. The exciting news is that our Tillamook Low Fat Yogurt can now be purchased at area stores so we decided to treat our fans at the zoo to samples of our delicious Marionberry Yogurt and Oregon Strawberry Yogurt in addition to mounds of tasty cheese cubes!

This family couldn't decide whether to show off their yogurt or our Yum bus!

Of course our delicious berry yogurts were a huge hit, but we had a truly unexpected fan of these yummy treats. Near the end of the day a Zookeeper stopped by our yogurt sampling station to tell us that one of the gorillas had been very sick. He hadn’t been willing to eat anything and they were very worried about him. However, when they offered the gorilla our Tillamook Yogurt, he started eating right away and loved it! We were so touched by this that we left a small stockpile for our gorilla on the mend and hope this Tillamook Yogurt fan gets well soon.

Do any Tillamook products make you feel better when you’re sick? For me, it’s Marionberry Pie Ice Cream all the way. Yum!

By Susan N.

What a view!

Well it’s that time of the year when the Loaf Love Tour comes to the beautiful state of California. This is our last state on the tour, and our first time being in the Pacific time zone. After being in Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Utah the last six months, I must admit that it feels good to be this close to Oregon. It was an interesting road trip to get here: I bought $20 worth of snacks (I devoured them all, of course) and all the lanes on the freeway were closed because of construction, which led to hours of sitting in traffic and we arrived to 100+ degree temperatures in Sacramento. Other than that, the trip was uneventful.

Our three month trip through California will bring us to several different cities, including Sacramento, San Francisco, L.A., Orange County, and San Diego. I’m looking forward to San Francisco the most, not just because it’ll be a break in the 100+ heat the Loaf Love Tour has been experience for months now, but mostly because we’ll get a chance to breathe in the salty air of the Pacific Ocean again. It’s not quite the salty cow smell of Tillamook, but it’ll do. I can picture it now: driving the Loafster across the Golden Gate Bridge, my hair blowing in the wind while music plays on the radio (okay, you probably know our Yums don’t have radios, but maybe I can convince another Brand Ambassador to sing for me?). Perfection.

Mountain and Central time zones have been great. I hope you’re ready for us California. Check out where we’ll be on the tour schedule.

As always, stay cheesy!
Dandy Andy

By Andrea

It is always a challenge to keep up a healthy lifestyle on the road with the Loaf Love Tour. After all, we’re surrounded by cheese and all sorts of yummy recipes. Not to mention Tillamook Ice Cream, which hits the spot after a summer day on tour! Rather than giving up an ounce of my favorite foods, I’m always looking for ways to burn calories.

Luckily, most hotels have some type of workout room or a pool, which helps, but since we brand ambassadors are always resourceful, I have integrated cheese lifting into my workout. No one ever said weight plates are the only way to body build!

The LLT workout routine

As I was looking around my hotel room one morning, I realized that a cooler with cheese would be a great weight lifting tool! I loaded two bags of Tillamook Cheese of each sampling variety: Monterey Jack, our World’s Best Medium Cheddar, Sharp Cheddar, and, of course, Pepper Jack (which gives the whole workout an extra kick, I think). Estimating each bag to be about 3.3 lbs, that is over 26 lbs of cheese alone! Add in the weight of the cooler and ice and I’ve got 50 lbs to work my legs and core. By the end of this workout you better believe my legs and upper body are begging for some protein. Which is easy to obtain! Open up the cooler, and bam! All sorts of protein in there. So not only does it serve as workout equipment, but also as a source of nutrition.

A few days a week, I do 3 sets (10 reps each) of these by stepping up on a chair or ottoman. I’ve also picked up ottomans, and I do “boxer abs” by sitting and leaning back while twisting at the waist.  Great for abs and core! Sit ups and inverted push ups (with my legs on the bed) round out my time in my personal workout gym AKA my hotel room. Its the ultimate cheesy workout circuit. Throw in some jogging in our great Northwest locations and I’ll be in the best shape of my life and having a fantastic time on tour! We just reached Seattle and we’ll be here sampling cheese and meeting Tillamook fans until August 23. I’m looking forward to heading out to run and bike to explore this great city! Check the tour schedule for a detailed list of stops!

By Alberto

Come show your Loaf Love pride at the San Francisco Zoo on August 25!

We’re making our way through California and soon we’ll be wheeling around the Bay Area! For one day only you’ll be able to see the world’s smallest insect, the tallest giraffe, and Tillamook all in one place! The Loaf Love Tour will be at the San Francisco Zoo on Saturday, August 25. Stop by to see us between 10am and 5pm to enjoy yummy cheese samples, play games, and get Tillamook goodies!

Don’t forget to pick out your outfit early, because the first 100 fans decked-out in Tillamook orange will receive free entry to the zoo! Anyone wearing orange after the first 100 will save $1 off zoo admission. Get ready for a cheesy high five and a hug, because you’ll see me, Loafy, there too!

Our wonderful Loaf Love Tour Brand Ambassadors will be handing out samples of our natural cheeses. Make sure to grab our booklet with Tillamook Cheese coupons and recipes for you and your family.

See you at the San Francisco Zoo on Saturday, August 25!

See where else we’ll be in Northern California on the tour schedule.

By Loafy

Our wonderful hosts

Since January 2011 I have been living on the road representing Tillamook Cheese for the Loaf Love Tour. During this time I’ve met literally thousands of people! Of course the vast majority are Tillamook fans, but I also meet many grocery store employees, staff from Tillamook, sales people, and food brokers. One of my very favorite people I’ve met on tour is Lynn Brown, the Tillamook broker here in Salt Lake City, Utah! Lynn makes sure there’s an abundance of Tillamook products available on local grocery store shelves for Utahns to eat and enjoy. He’s also made me and the rest of the Loaf Love crew feel right at home with his sincere thoughtfulness and hospitality! One of Lynn’s signature lines has gotta be, “You call me if you need anything!” and he really does mean it! He goes out of his way to make sure we’re all extra taken care of while in town.

In true Lynn spirit, last weekend he invited the whole Loaf Love crew over to his house for a Tillamook feast. As our time is winding down here in Utah I was really looking forward to spending time with Lynn and his family before sailing off to Northern California. They put on a tasty meal that did not disappoint. The feast started out with some veggies, dips and chips. They made a special salsa with shredded Tillamook Cheese mixed right in to go with tortilla chips. As my small contribution to the spread, I brought ranch dip made using Tillamook Sour Cream! The appetizers didn’t last for long before the main meal was laid out.

A couple weeks beforehand Lynn had found out that I don’t eat steak or chicken, so he made sure to get some fish for me and cook it well done, just how I like it. To go with the assortment of steak, chicken, and fish they also had salad, fresh corn on the cob with melty Tillamook Butter, and my favorite casserole ever that they called “funeral potatoes” topped with a generous layer of ooey gooey Tillamook Cheese. This was the extra special dish on the menu for me because my grandma makes the same thing and potatoes are my favorite food ever (right behind Tillamook Cheese, of course). I mean, how can you go wrong with potatoes and the World’s Best Medium Cheddar?! You pretty much can’t! Oh boy, everything was delllllllicious! My mouth is melting just thinking about it! Being hotel dwellers, a home-cooked meal is something we on the Loaf Love Tour crew DO NOT take for granted!

But it didn’t stop there…the meal was topped off with Sandy’s special homemade scratch chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting served with a generous scoop of Tillamook French Vanilla Ice Cream. It was all amazing! My coworkers and I were all saying we hadn’t been that full since last Thanksgiving! In addition to an incredibly yummy meal, there was great conversation and a bit of relaxing, too. It was a wonderful afternoon! Thanks to Lynn and his generous family we all got to feel a little bit at home with a Tillamook filled feast. They even packed us up leftovers just like family would do!

Thank you, Lynn, for all you do to help us be successful and feel at home in Utah. We’ll miss ya!

See you soon Sacramento,
Noelle

Find me on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter

By NoelleLLT

A passable doppelganger?

Here on the Loaf Love Tour our hotel rooms don’t usually have kitchens, but we’re surrounded by great recipes featuring Tillamook products. I was especially excited to find our new Tillamook Light Yogurt in Salt Lake City because it satisfies my sweet cravings without adding to my always-eating-out waistline.  The same day I spied our delicious Tillamook Light Yogurt on the shelf, I received our latest Loaf Love Tour recipe: Yogurt Dessert Parfait courtesy of Chef Keegan Gerhard.

If you’re like me, you eat with your eyes as well as your taste buds so I figured I’d see what hotel room “cooking” could do to satisfy my craving for this tasty looking recipe! One container of Tillamook Light NW Berry Patch yogurt, a crunched up granola bar, some fresh blueberries, a dollop of whipped cream and my special addition – a dark chocolate covered blueberry and I’m in dessert parfait heaven!

Granted, Chef  Keegan’s version is probably tastier, but if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I hope he likes it! Tell me, are there any delicious recipes in the Tillamook Kitchen that you take visual inspiration from?

By Susan P.

The Loaf Love Tour is rolling into Seattle with a kickoff event at the Woodland Park Zoo! Stop by our eat and greet Saturday, August 4 between 9am and 5pm to enjoy yummy cheese samples, play games, and get Tillamook goodies!

The first 100 people who come to the zoo (West entry) wearing Tillamook Orange will get into the zoo for free! Anyone after the first 100 will save $1 off zoo admission. Inside the zoo, Loaf Love Tour Brand Ambassadors will be sampling cubes of our yummy natural cheeses and handing out bingo cards that you and your family can take around the zoo to find fun animals and Tillamook Cheese! When you’re done, swing by the sampling station to collect a special prize! And don’t forget to grab a coupon book with coupons and delicious recipes for you and your family!

Find a schedule of all of the Loaf Love Tour stops at LoafLoveTour.com!

By Loafy

Still smiling at the Hogle Zoo!

This past weekend the Loaf Love Tour was at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah. There was a lot of excitement surrounding our day at the Zoo – not only did the first 100 people dressed in their cheesiest Tillamook orange get in for free, but we also provided free cheese, coupons, smile sticks, and a whole bunch of fun! It also seems as if we brought a little bit of our Northwest weather.

After getting little or no rain the last few months, the Utah sky decided to open up and deliver a nice little rain shower. Being from the Northwest, I felt right at home and it was a much needed break from the 100 degree weather! And to my surprise, the downpour didn’t faze the Tillamook faithful in the slightest! Without missing a beat, our tents were surrounded by people wanting their share of the tasty Tillamook Cheese samples… over 13,000 samples in fact!

It just goes to show you that rain or shine, Tillamook Cheese and the Loaf Love Tour are an amazing experience!

If you want to experience the Tour yourself, go to LoafLoveTour.com for a full schedule or follow me on Twitter @JamminJason.

By JasonLLT