FANCY FOOD SHOW part 1

The Fancy Food Show was one of my goals after the hospital drama in September.  I had to get healthy to be able to walk for hours for two days.  There are literally miles of booths.   Marty and I love this show:  the new foods, the tastings, the samples, the beauty/fun of the displays..  If you want to read past blogs on the show, go to the archives and look at January.  I have narrowed down the  first day pictures from 80 to 15.  That was hard to do.  I want you all to see all the good stuff.  Oh well.



 

I want the gallon jug of Bloody Mary mix on the right.  It was tasty.

 

 

A new product, Bacon Hot Sauce.  You can really taste the bacon.  They gave me a regular size bottle, not just a sample.  

 

 

Marty tasting cheese, and then telling me how good it is.  I was so good and rarely tasted the cheese.

 

 

I was not good any time they were putting out PIG,  This is le jambon (French aged salt cured ham).  He is slicing it paper thin. Delicious.

 

    

This is what I mostly ate beautiful veggies and low fat/sodium dressings.

 

 

I loved loved this booth.  Duck liver pate and duck liver rillettes.  Forget that low fat stuff.  This was heaven.  And they gave generous samples, and more than one. 

 

 

Love the meat part of the show. 

 

 

Half a wheel of cheese.  Some vendors were serving pasta dishes in the carved out wheel.  Again, Marty said it was really good.

 

 

One of many vanilla vendors.  Their booths smell wonderful.

 

 

Did I mention the cheese?

 

 

The perfect vendor, pig and cheese.

 

 

Booth after booth with great cured meats. 

 

 

More wonderful ham, this time I think it was from Italy.

 

 

These gentlemen hammed it up for the picture as I ate their great ham.

 

 

Chef Russell Jackson cooking wonderful New Zealand lamb.  It was soooo good.  Yes, he looks familiar, you have seen him on TV.  He was a finalist on Next Food Network Star, and has been on Iron Chef.  He was a chef in San Francisco, then moved on to New York City.  I think he might be back in San Francisco now.  He was fun and interesting to talk to.  Chef Russell has goals for his style of cooking and on marketing himself. 

 

Marty and I were really tired after walking 6-7 hours. We sat down a couple of times by electric plugs to charge our phones.  A lovely day. 

 

Stayed tuned for part 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Fancy Food Show 2012 part 2

Monday we went back to check out the other hall of the Fancy Food Show.  If this is your first time reading my blog, read yesterday’s post to catch up.

I was worried about walking yesterday.  I aggravated an old foot injury.  My foot was swollen and really hurt.  How was I going to walk for hours?  I keep all my support and braces for bad parts and I found an elastic sock with Velcro ankle straps.  I wore it, I was slow, but I made it through the day.

So on to Day 2 of eating our way around the world.

This lovely lady is generously spreading humanely produced Foie Gras on little toast.  I did not discover Foie Gras until well over 50.  I regret those lost years.

One of the hundreds of cheese booths.  There was a point I just couldn’t eat more cheese.

From Italy, Parma Ham on the hoof.  Don’t tell anyone, but I almost like the European hams better than Kentucky Country Hams.  Each type of long cured hams have incredible flavors.

The show has a standing rule, no cameras unless you are a registered press person.  No pictures allowed.  Yet many of the booths ask you to take pictures and put them on Facebook or your blog. Very few booths won’t allow pictures.

I am going to hell for this picture.  After I took it they told me I couldn’t take pictures.  I apologized, told them I had been asked at other booths to take pictures.  I would delete the ones I took.  They carefully watched me delete.  Except as you can see I didn’t, I just pushed the picture to the side.  Bad, Bad me.  Marty didn’t get caught.  He is one sneaky dude.

This is an antipasto spread, company shall remain nameless.  After tasting many of the pickled veggies, I didn’t like anything except the cipollini onions.

                           

This is very much a family pasta sauce business.  The pictures are the parents of the people working the booth. The recipes come from their parents.  The sauce was pretty good.

                                                          

More ham, this time Speck from the Austrian Italian border. 

                                                

More ham and cured meats.  Do you see a pattern here?

This booth was fabulous!  They had duck rillettes, duck pate, duck mousse.  They had other pates and terrines.  But why fill up on those when they were serving duck three ways.  I loved loved the duck.

 

This picture is for Luis and his family.  Mexico had a huge section of the floor with multiple booths. They served mole, guacamole, salsas, safflower oil, tequila, and other products.  Great display, and it all tasted great also.

                                                                  

And we are walking out the door.  What an incredible event!  I didn’t even show you the candy, cakes, breads, wines, beer . . .   Can’t wait for next year.

Easter Dinner

Easter is a major religious holiday in our families.  But we are not really traditional about what is served for dinner.  I don't remember growing up that we always had ham.  Maybe we did, but I don't remember it.  Country Ham was an important ingredient in special meals.  But just to have it for Easter, I don't remember.  Marty's family didn't have ham just because it was Easter either.

This Easter Marty did 90% of the cooking/preparation for our dinner.  We had tossed salad, creamed  peas, roasted prime rib, and popovers.  Below are pictures of part of the prep and the finished product.

 Marty made popovers.  They are just flour, butter, and half and half.  The whole point of popovers is to hold butter.  You put a couple of slices of butter in the popovers cups, preheat the cups and then put the batter in them.

                                 The batter ready to go into the popover cups.

 The prime rib has come out of the oven.  It will rest for 20 minutes, and then the meal will begin.

 After resting 20 minutes the roast is ready to be sliced.  We cook to medium rare.  Is it perfect?

                        We found shelled English peas at an Asian market.  They looked wonderful.  Wrong.

                               Marty is making a cream sauce for the shelled peas.

            Putting the peas into a bowl.  Don't they look rich and wonderful?  Wrong.

            

                                       Marty is slicing the prime rib.  It is perfection!

                              Makes you drool doesn't it?   Two huge slice of wonderful beef.

                                    Popovers!  These are ready to be pulled out and to be served.

              Yes, even though there was a huge amount of butter in each cup, they will stick.

                            Marty pouring a 2002 Cabernet Franc by Rubicon.   It was wonderful.

                  Tossed salad, peas, popovers, butter, wine, and prime rib.

More of the same meal.  Oh, did I tell you how awful the peas were.  I washed them, I tasted the raw ones and said they are bitter and hard.  Marty said when they are cooked they will be fine. I told Marty when to put them on.  He did, he made a cream sauce.  When we tried to eat them, they were hard ( they had cooked long enough to be soft) and they were bitter.  They were thrown out, as were the rest of them that were in the crisper drawer.  I love creamed peas.  We were very very disappointed with the peas.

The rest of the dinner was outstanding.  We have some of the almost raw centers of the beef left over.  Marty plans to grind them with butter or bacon grease and make some fancy ass hamburgers.