Last week I got a golden ticket into New York’s biggest food convention. It has a great name: the Fancy Food Show. You know it’s fancy from the very first world!
This convention swarmed NYC’s Javits Center with well over a thousand booths featuring foods from all over the world.
Willy Wonka didn’t greet me when I walked into the towering glass ceiling. But I sure felt like Charlie Bucket as I walked down the isle filled with amazing cheeses, vats of every kind of olive, strange pickled fish, beautifully decorated cakes, simmering sauce, and unbelievable frozen appetizers.
You can’t get in this convention unless you have a verifiable connection to the food industry. It’s way more exclusive than Comic Con! (It smells much better too.)
Everyone is there for a reason beyond STUFFING THEIR FACE! NOM NOM NOM! Everyone is very professional and making important business connections. Business owners finding new products for their establishments, manufacturers finding new ingredients, chefs drawing new inspirations. These are priorities.
Now, I was quite a minority with my priority which was very much NOMMMM!!! MUST TRY ALL OF THE FOODS!!! I’m the kid who would’ve fallen in the chocolate river and been hauled off by Oompa Loompas, were Roald Dahl in the driver’s seat.
It’s a New York cliché to have a dietary restriction in this town. Everyone has one these days! But let me tell you, my Fancy Food experience made me so glad I’ve resisted this cliché.
I’ve never been so happy to not be lactose intolerant.
Never so happy I’m not a vegetarian. (One in four people in NYC are!)
So thankful I’ll try pretty much anything. Especially if it’s pickled fish from Scandinavia.
Oh! And gluten? BRING IT ON! Especially if it’s straight from Italy!
POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME!
THIS IS RICH!
I ate all the food, I shmoosed with all the foodies. Tried to take photographs of food…which unfortunately is not so easy with an iPhone.
Did I mention I have a major sweet tooth?
Did I mention I left with a bag full of goodies? It was like trick-or-treating! On the last day exhibitors just started unloading their products on people so they wouldn’t have to cart them back on trans-atlantic and trans-continental flights.
So I have all these goodies from all over the world, mostly snacks and sweets and thus non-perishables, and if they stay in my apartment, I’m never going to fit in my swim suit when I go on vacation later this month.
I’m kidding but I’m NOT kidding. YOU HAVE TO HELP ME. Help me by taking some off my hands!
Guess what that means? A give-away! A fancy food give-away! I’ve stuffed a flat-rate box full of these treats from all over the world and send it to one of you lovely readers! Leave a comment and share my blog on some sort of social media: that’s all you need to do to enter. Oh, that and be willing to give me your mailing address! Good luck! I’ll announce the winner on Monday 7/13!
If you want MORE #foodporn, check out the time I went to the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco!
Yummy! I would’ve eaten till they would have to roll me out, love pâte! I tweeted the post. And happy happy birthday!
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That octopus looks amazing! Shared with my Twitter followers!
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See, I debate going to food events this big. One the one hand, who the heck doesn’t LOVE great food??? But on the other hand…I would not be able to help myself and I would try to stuff my face with as much food as I could possibly handle. Which is probably not exactly the healthiest thing to do 🙂
You had me at “food.” (OK, it was “porn” that caught my eye first, but I’m trying to keep this classy.)
Mmmmm! Best New York Cliche ever!!!
I went to it a few years ago. Great time and so much food! Now I am hungry reading this and I need to go to the gym first!
Phil recently posted…Dominick’s – An old school Italian joint in Da Bronx, NYC