Vacation week two -- The Stay-cation

My good friend, Heidi, food snob & Registered Dietitian, invited me to the Fancy Food Show held at the Jacob Javits Center. She went Sunday, Monday AND Tuesday, but I only went on Tuesday. As we entered and she gave me my badge, she warned me, (1) they give out samples but you're not allowed to take them out of the venue, (2) pace yourself, and (3) they will harrass you to try to sell you stuff. So I got my samples, didn't pace myself and let Heidi do all the talking. After about an hour or two, I was stuffed full of food samples, as was my bag which weighed about 50 pounds and my feet were killing. I was ready to leave, but we hadn't even gone to the international food sections or the cheese room. Ah, the trials of going to a food show!

Look at all this cheese, usually a big tempation for me... and just the thought of eating a bite of it made me want to barf.

This is a picture of a CHEESE CAKE!! Doesn't it look amazing?? Some people didn't want us taking pictures of their products, but I asked (actually, Heidi asked -- as usual, she did the talking), and they graciously allowed me to take a picture and informed me that this was like the cake at their wedding.

At the end of the show, the vendors didn't want to pack their stuff up to go home so there was a mad dash to get as many remaining samples as possible. At every exit, there was a box for people to drop their samples.... to go to City Harvest. We were trying to figure out how we were going to get all our food home and not give them to some homeless people that we knew would not appreciate gluten free cookies or Sunflower butter cups or Falafel chips. Turns out that we were actually allowed to bring out one bag of loot, and when I got home, it felt like Halloween.

Heidi did actually get some products that might be useful for the cancer patients with whom she works, and also let them scan her badge so that she can get more samples in the mail. But this was more than enough for me. A super fun day and way to spend my vacation!