The Summer Fancy Food Show and the Gay Pride Parade both celebrating victories this year in New York. Fancy Food inaugurated the first ever Specialty Food Week in New York and the LGBTQ community celebrated the historic Supreme Court ruling. 2,500 exhibitors showcased 180,000 products, thankfully not all of them food or I wouldn’t have been able to finish the show. There were some interesting new products this year that made it worth spending three days trudging through NYC’s infamous Javits Center. These are the ten food items that are worth you tracking them down and trying them with your friends and family.
Category: Food
2015 FANCY FOOD SHOW LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
By any measure, it is truly a golden era for food in the United States, and particularly with regards to the specialty foods industry. A niche that hardly existed 50 years ago, specialty foods sales have achieved a record high of $109 billion, accounting for nearly 15 percent of all retail food sales in the U.S. While it may now seem to have been inevitable that a nation with a populace as diverse, large and steadily growing as that in America would embrace the development of an increasingly abundant variety of food products and cuisines, it nonetheless took some visionaries to recognize the potential for the growth in this area and to cultivate the means of delivering such a bounty to what has become an ever expanding marketplace.
2015 SOFI™ AWARDS
The first time I laid eyes upon the statuette given to the winners of the SOFI™ Awards – the annual honors recognizing outstanding achievement in the realm of specialty foods – I detected a distinct familiarity about the form, but couldn’t immediately place it. While the figure is fundamentally modeled on ‘Oscar’, the three-dimensional logo of the Academy Awards, in that it is bisymmetrical, golden, standing erect, and holding an object (appositely a serving platter instead of a sword), there was another aspect to it that struck me as reminiscent of an iconic predecessor – namely, the head. The SOFI statuette, you see, is apparently wearing a chef’s toque, but not one that is clearly delineated; rather the sculpting is more evocative than realistic, so that the abstracted headwear resembles as much a bulbous projection extending the cranium as a hat sitting atop it.
And then I had it – the SOFI statue is a Kanamit!
BEER, BOURBON & BBQ FESTIVAL 2015
Lots of folks dread the winter, spending the colder months on the calendar biding their time and pining for the days when they can once again venture out of doors without layer-upon-layer of clothing to protect them from the lower temperatures and occasional inclement elements. Poor souls. Even though that doesn’t describe me, as I prefer colder weather, there is something I have in common with many of those with a more delicate constitution even during the short days and longer nights of January – an appreciation for the heartier fare in food and drink both more available in and more apropos to wintertime.
2014 NEW YORK CITY WINE & FOOD FESTIVAL
Every October there are many traditional rituals marking the Autumnal season, and some of the most satisfying of these celebrate the Summer harvest by offering an array of foods and drink meant to be enjoyed communally. For the last several years a highlight of this season in New York has been the New York City Wine and Food Festival, an offshoot of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival; from October 16-19 countless events scheduled as part of the Festival took place in various sites in New York City, enabling New Yorkers the chance to sample a dizzying assortment of gustatory delights.
MONTCALM PORTFOLIO TASTING
It’s not altogether unusual for wine tastings in New York to take place in venues that often boast a unique atmosphere, whether one is considering aspects of ambiance, architecture, history or grandeur in a setting. Nonetheless it’s rare when an event space features a combination of all of the aforementioned elements – particularly when the history in question has been earth shaking and is yet still evolving. Such was the case on the afternoon of September 15th when Montcalm Wine Importers, Ltd [www.montcalmwines.com] had a portfolio tasting at the 7 World Trade Center address where the firm is located. The tasting floor overlooked from the north the pit of Ground Zero, where one could glance out and see the progress of the memorial and other developments there that are at long last replacing the downed towers.
JERKY BOYS
Among the number of specialty food niches one could survey at the International Fancy Food Show at the Javits Center this year I was particularly struck by the expanding varieties of packaged dried meat products – and this was only in the North Pavilion annexed to the main building of the Javits. Certainly I have noted more and more different brands of various beef and other jerkys on offer in the supermarkets, delis and specialty food shops around the city, but the International Fancy Food show, as always, featured varieties I had no prior knowledge of. After sampling a number of these over the time since the show, I can offer an account (by no means exhaustive) of notable products in this area.
USTA FLAVOR OF THE OPEN
Each year when August comes, New Yorkers can count on several annual rituals that mark the waning days of Summer. The movers and shakers who’re determined to wring every last bit of hard-earned relaxation from the season decamp even more fervently to the Hamptons and other points east (and north, for that matter), and this in turn leads to an events calendar in the city drastically pared down from the typical hurly-burly. As September nears, however, the human tide flows back to the metropolitan area, and perhaps the biggest happening signaling this shift is the US Open tennis tournament, the showpiece event of the USTA (United States Tennis Association).
2014 SUMMER FANCY FOOD SHOW TOP 10 DISCOVERIES
A quiet Fancy Food Show, that’s a first for me. I’m also surprised at the number of vendors expected who didn’t show. The economy is still on the ropes around the world and it shows. Too many repetitive products this year but as usual, a number of surprises that you will enjoy.
UPGRADING YOUR SUMMER ENTERTAINING
With Summer upon us our entertaining heads outside to our yards, pool, boats and vacation rentals. Instead of stocking up on your usual refreshments take a chance on some of the new products coming to the marketplace with wider distribution due to the mergers in the spirits, beer and non-alcoholic beverage industry.