food show

Trendspotting: Goat Cheese and Friends
Like I mentioned earlier, we ate a lot of cheese at the Fancy Food Show. But oddly enough, we ate more goat milk flavored items than cow milk flavored items. Now there's nothing wrong with goat cheese (in fact, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the stuff), but it seemed as if goat milk products far outnumbered cow milk products. And I know that goat milk has been a trend for a little while (in fact I'd seen a lot of these products before), but it was still surprising to see so many of them under one roof.

There were too many products to actually keep up with, but here are a few that garnered my taste bud's full attention:

• Goat Milk Butter from Meyenberg
  This was one of my favorite things at the show. It was a rich creamy European style butter but with a rich goaty flavor. I had to go back for seconds... actually thirds.
• Creamy Goat Cheese from the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company
  This was a nice and spreadable goat cheese that was available in three flavors: Classic, Roasted Red Pepper and Olive & Herb. I thought it might make a nice alternative to cream cheese in the morning, or tossed with pasta.

Four more and a photo gallery, so read more

As you probably know, PartySugar and I have spent the last several days at the SF Fancy Food Show. Just so that you get the idea of what it's all about, let me start by saying that it's a bajillion square miles of food vendors, food packaging, gift baskets and anything and everything you can think of food related. Okay, so it wasn't really a bajillion square miles, but it was HUGE. There were over 1,000 companies from all over the world, hawking products ranging from homemade gingerbread to fiber water and everything in between.

While there we met some famous faces (Paula Deen, Martin Yan and Ina Garten) and some not as famous faces (Heidi Swanson from 101cookbooks.com and Cybele from Candyblog.com).

We also ate and drank everything. Cheese, chocolate, carica (a delicious chilean fruit), sparkling juice, sorbet, infused water, freeze dried fruit, infused liqueurs, drink mixers, cured meats, bacon, hot sauces, teas, pomegranate jelly beans and just about anything else people shoved into our faces. It was like food heaven - carpeted, flourescently lit food heaven.

Although there were over 80,000 items on display (I'm pretty sure I read that in one of the brochures), there were definitely some things we kept seeing over and over again. Some of the big trends were:

• Anti-oxidants - the trend is still riding high, only this year it's goji berries
• Infused waters and soda marketed for adults
• Tea - especially a "blooming" tea
• Goat milk products - move over little cows!
• Infused liqueurs and easy drink mixers
• Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate - actually seems that dark isn't a trend anymore, it's more of a standard

I'm working on posts for some of the big trends, so stay tuned. Also, we lured our amazing Sugar video producer with promises of free cured meats and candied apples, so stay tuned for some great video footage too! Now if only we had smell-o-vision, or better yet, taste-o-vision!