Fancy Food Show 2010

The Fancy Food Show is in town again, as it is every January. A huge convention center filled with food vendors offering samples and looking for distribution and markets and press coverage. It is a crazy experience - many people look forward to it every year. I have a more measured feeling about the event. There is a lot of processed food there, which grosses me out. And then there are a lot of food producers that show up every year or that I've seen before. Finding something new and exciting isn't easy and isn't the main reason I go anymore. I go just to see what's there - tI hope lots of people are craving "drinking chocolate" because there are plenty of companies banking on an unmet desire for it out there - to know what's the what.

The bonus prize this year was finding a few cool things. My three favorites were, in no particular order except that which I happened to stumble upon them:

1) Hot Lips all fruit sodas out of Portland Oregon. They were all delicious and fresh and not too sweet. I hate to choose a favorite between the apple, pear, boysenberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and strawberry, but I will admit a weak spot for anything black raspberry, so that's my fav.

2) Happy Goat caramels, made with goat milk and sugar in small batches in a copper kettle. Just delicious. Creamy, yummy, and make you realize how much crappy caramel you've eaten in your life.

3) Mother-In-Law's kimchi. I'm a sucker for kimchi anyway, but this stuff was so fresh tasting and spicy and complex that it may have ruined other kimchis for me forever.