Food Fete roundup
Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 10:50AM 
Adriana's alter ego enjoys a cholive
This week I attended Food Fete, a sort of food trade show that ran concurrent with the larger Fancy Food Show--sort of like the food version Scope vs. Art Basel minus the glamour and celebrities. This was my first of such events and it was fun.
There were two or three food ideas that I loved and will post on at some later point, probably on One Little Bite (which is why I was invited in the first place). But I thought I'd mention a few other favorites.
All evening I kept asking the reps the same question, "any plans to do an organic line?" The answer was usually "ah, um, uh..." So it was nice to see Organic Nectars, a company I'm already familiar with from the Food Coop. Among other raw-ish, vegan treats they make non-dairy gelato using cashews, and it's so rich and flavorful you don't even care it's not real dairy. It is its own good thing.
This is an olive-shaped chocolate you can use in sweet cocktails. Kind of an inelegant, goofy idea but I love saying "cholive." I think it would be just the thing for the White Russians should I ever throw a Big Lebowski party.
These are basically Russian Ferrero Rocher in a really pretty, feminine box. In fact, it's all about the box, which opens up into a flower shape with images of orchids inside ("Inspired by Fashion!"). The the company has a romantic Old Russian Empire backstory (I do love a good backstory), and the confections taste good. This would make a sweet teacher's gift--once its available in the US. For some reason, in spite of myself, I was taken by this product. The box design and the chocolates are each up for awards.
Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer
This is a hefeweizen made by San Francisco's 21st Amendment Brewery. They add watermelon juice after the brewing process, and thankfully they use a light hand because the result is just a barely-sweet, refreshing touch of watermelon. They have a compelling list of reasons for using cans instead of bottles, by the way: keeps beer fresher, lined cans don't affect flavor, weighs less than glass, chills faster, eaiser to recycle, uses less energy to transport, and goes where glass doesn't dare.
This is organic (thank you!) olive oil in a pump bottle. Love it! The Food Coop carried something like this a while back but I haven't seen it in a while. I don't use teflon/non-stick--ever, ever, ever. But sometimes I want just a little mist of oil for cooking or baking. They also do balsamic vinegars, which are less compelling to me, and canola oil. I'm not crazy about the flavor of canola, so I'm hoping they come up with another neutral-tasting oil option for baking. I know it doesn't kill me to butter muffin pans, but spraying is so much easier.
First of all, disregard this business about "natural"--it's a meaningless marketing term. Ideally your chicken is pasture raised out in the open by Joel Salatin. Since I don't live in Virginia I eat perfectly good Bobo Chicken and Murray's Chicken. Just Bare appears (and that's a big "appears") be reside somewhere between Bobo/Murray's and conventionally-raised chicken. It's not organic and not pasture raised. It is free-range, but the chickens are not allowed outdoors. What I find interesting about this company is that they label every single package with a farm code, so if there's a problem you can trace your package online directly to the farm. It's an important step in the right direction. The entire meat industry needs to do this. (Or do chicken growers do this anyway? I wouldn't know--I live in the Park Slope food bubble.)
A few other foods which shall go nameless were intriguing if also disturbing. For example, a powdered lemon flavoring--all natural, of course, but how is it better than fresh lemon juice or lemon zest? I asked the company rep this question and she said "convenience." Because lemons eventually spoil. Also, they're messy. Right. Why aren't we all just living on vitamin tablets by now?
I also tasted a chocolate truffle injected with soy sauce--I think I was supposed to be delighted with chocolate umami but it made me shudder. Such things should not happen to chocolate.
I don't know that I was the ideal target for the Food Fete. The UnFancy Food Show is much more my thing, but then I already know about (and adore) most of those foods and I learned so much at the Food Fete. It was fascinating to get out of my usual habitat and explore strange, unfamiliar food territory.
chocolate, food industry, organic
Reader Comments (1)
This sounds so fun--it's the kind of thing I fantasize about going to. I must say I am relieved to find out that a cholive is *not* a chocolate-covered olive. My sense of adventure doesn't take me quite that far.