On Saturday last week, we went to the Good Food & Wine Show, Australia's largest consumer food and wine exhibition. And for once I arrived later than jas. We both bought our DSLRs, but I didn't end up using mine. Can't eat and take pictures at the same time, plus it's harder to take pictures in crowded places. Jas unlike me doesn't take a million pictures and so we didn't get pictures of everything.  Because he is still yet to send the pictures we;ll improvise for now.


My favorite stall/vendor in terms of presentation was a wine company, which has a french chic theme with their bk/creme damask wallpaper, warm lighting and those black iron deco bird cages. When you hire a stall you can do pretty much anything with it (except dig a hole to China :P) to customize it, wallpaper, lighting, flooring, etc. Once again it's based a lot on location, the better the location of the stall the more it costs.

In terms of food the caramel sauces (salted butter & vanilla) from Caramelicious were amazing, La Belle Miette uses them in their their salted caramel macarons I've heard. I checked out the site and it seems to be on of those exclusive markets & festival foods. It's 200g for $9, but definitely worth it.


A product we love but didn't buy was Luv-a-duck, the thought of carrying around meat in my bag wasn't too appealing, plus they do sell them at the supermarket. At Luv-a-duck they did cooking demos, we tried 3 samples and I liked the lemon duck the most. And ever since I've been craving duck, and looking forwards to going to Old Kingdom after exams for pecking duck. Next time I might get the $50 starter duck pack, other reviewers say it's worth in and great value compared to buying it at the supermarket. Though cooking isn't something I've ever done outside the classroom, and hence I'm hesitant to try, as I'm picturing rubbery textured duck...

An unexpected vendor was Brown's Confectionery, which sold candy that you can only buy at Sov. Hill in Ballarat (3hrs away from Melb). But nowadays you can buy their candy online, shipping cost around $10 I think. No paypal.


We also loved sodasteam, collective great dairy's yoghurt drinks, and those smoothie cube drinks.  Nespresso was also doing samples of latte's and short black, to promote their coffee machines. Not quite sure I want to be an addict like Hector though. :P

In the afternoon we went to a show where Maggie Beer did cooking demos, pavlova and a dish with chicken and artichokes. Though she didn't do most of the demo as she burnt her hand. Jas went into borderline fangirl mode when he saw her about 25ms away XD. Unfortunately Huey was not there.


I saw a penguin promoting Mini Melts and was super excited while jas was like O.o not understanding what the big deal was, it's just ice cream. But it's in very cool little balls! It was towards the end of the day and they had a 2-for-1 offer $5 for two is a great price. Freud and I always buy them at the festivals and they're normally $6 each. Mini Melts ice cream is cryogenically frozen by immersion in a liquid nitrogen bath at -190 degrees, so cold the ice cream freezes into individual little balls. Back home they're the equivalent of Dippin’ Dots. Not sure what jas had... but I had the Strawberries and Cream (top layer), Cookie Dough and Salted Caramel. I once read this line on a food blog and it's exactly how I'd describe the ice cream - "...from god's own dessert platter".


There was only issue we encountered (other than the expected crowding): wheels. I'd add children, except that I only saw one child. Wheels, trolley wheels, as they're short-ish and pretty much on the ground we kept tripping over them. They should have just one day for all the pram/trolley people.


Jas bought showbags, one from Good Food magazine for $15-ish which had a range of mainly samples but also an adequate number of full size products, including drinks, coconut water (2), sauces, a candle ^ and some other stuff I can't recall. I wasn't particularly interested as I don't cook and there was no candy :P. The only item of particular interest was the candle, which jas gave to me. The second showbag was by Maggie Beer, with three full-sized products, one was good quality fresh-looking tomato sauce, and a bottle of Verjuice (juice of unripe grapes).


The holder is glass with a plastic 'wrapped' design on it, made from the same plastic as the type on juice bottles, but a bit sturdier. The candle is attached to the holder but a magnet in the bottom, when you've used it you can buy another one to replace it. I found the scent wasn't that strong and didn't fill a bathroom, so it was a bit disappointing and I won't be purchasing refills. Plus I had a wick problem, and the flame flickered without the wind being present.



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