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Best of Show: Winter Fancy Food 06
January 22, 2006 | 29 Comments
This time each year the NASFT Winter Fancy Food ambles into San Francisco and takes over both massive halls of the Moscone Center. I kid you not - there is mile after mile of artisan cheeses, chocolates, teas, crackers, cookies, jams, jellies, spices, juices, wines, beers, wound tightly up and down a hive of aisles. This is all the stuff you will eventually see in places like Dean & Deluca, Whole Foods Markets, and Williams-Sonoma. I walked and talked my way from 10 a.m. this morning until 5 p.m. and still had an aisle or two to go when they flashed the lights for last call.
Trends: Last year drinkable chocolate was everywhere. Same with fruit pastes, and tea booths. (You can read last year's write up here). This year new trends were evident. While I expected to see a lot of whole-grain-type products, I actually didn't see many. Superfood-related products on the other hand were everywhere - pomegranates, acai, green tea, herbal infusions. Lot's of great fair-trade products as well as producers flashing the certified organic label.
Here are the products that cut through all the noise. The ones that really jumped out at me - my own personal "Best in Show"...For those of you who won't make it to San Francisco this week in many cases you can order products direct from producer websites or find them in higher-end markets.
Palapa Azul flavors
Palapa Azul is a line of ice cream, popsicles, and sorbets inspired by the flavors of Mexico. The sorbets and ice creams are new and shine with all natural ingredients, no artificial flavors or colors, and they come rBST free. The sorbet is available in mango, hibiscus flower, and coconut flavors. Ice cream is available in Mexican chocolate, cajeta, elote (sweet corn), and flan flavors. Look for their products at Whole Foods (I've also seen the frozen fruit bars, paletas, at Rainbow Grocery in SF), as well as some Costco locals. I loved the hibiscus flower sorbet - richly flavored, smooth texture, and perfectly refreshing.
There were a paralyzing number of green tea products around - green tea beverages in particular. I really enjoyed this UrbanZen Infused Whole Leaf Green Tea with Green Apple Juice. Many of the infused drinks on the market are totally overpowering - not the case here. The apple is pronounced on a lightly sweet backdrop, a drink I can actually imagine drinking a full, tall, cold glass of.
Bee Raw 4-pack
Favorite packaging? Zeke Freeman's Bee Raw Honey is absolutely stunning. He wasn't sampling today, so I'll report back later on how it tastes. He is selling beautiful 4-packs of seasonal fruit varietal honeys.
Some of the best oils to be found were at the Kitty Keller booth. If you want to taste what real, beautiful, unrefined nut oils are supposed to taste and smell like, talk to her about the J. Leblanc oils that she imports from the southernmost village of Burgundy. Small-batch, handcrafted, and made to order, they range in color from a rich gold to a deep chestnut brown. Almond oil, Argan oil, pumpkinseed oil, grilled pine nut oil, and walnut oil are few of the oils available. Wayne is going to write more about the oils at the show coming up, but you have to keep your eyes peeled for these in particular.
If a sparkling, fizzy, green tea soda-type beverage is your speed, look for Steaz Green Tea Soda. It is organic, corn syrup-free, and available in a range of flavors. The green tea-infused base of this product provides the foundation, but any tea flavor you might imagine bows to the various ingredients that are added after (in a good way). I think these guys are using the tea base for its healthful properties and then building on that. Sweeter than say, a GuS soda, and much, much less sweet than typical mainstream sodas, these are worth a sample. I enjoyed their vine-ripened Concord grape flavor. Look for them at Whole Foods Markets and Liberty Richter nation-wide, as well as this big, long list of locations.
Mademoiselle de Margaux's Sarments du Medoc
Best gift idea? Mademoiselle de Margaux's Sarments du Medoc. Delicate chocolate twigs kissed with a hint of fruit. They come in a classy, cornflower blue flip-top box - the twigs nestled in side-by-side. I love their inspired-by-nature shapes and subtle flavoring. Flavors available are straight-forward and decidedly un-trendy, they including dark chocolate, orange, lemon, mint, raspberry, coffee, toffee, and hazelnut praline. Let me know if you've seen these available in the U.S. - they are apparently available in quite a few places...
Take a look around - it's tough to find good, organic peanut products. This is part of the reason I was excited to see the Peanut Better line at the GreenFest earlier this year. Peanut Better is a line of twelve naturally flavored organic peanut butters. I like the savory flavors in particular and you can use them in many of the same ways you use standard peanut butter - in noodle salads, on sandwiches, peanut butter cookies, spring rolls, etc. The peanuts are all grown in a relatively small growing area around New Mexico and the Texas border (apparently all the organic peanuts in this country are grown here?)...
Remember how much I liked LaLoo's goat's milk ice cream last year? Well, Laura's got a few new flavors for us AND a new line of goat's milk frozen yogurt. The show stopper for me was her Lemon Chevre Chiffon goat's milk ice cream. It is made from the inter-valley marriage of Sonoma farm fresh chevre and Napa Valley Meyer lemons. Just a kiss of sweetness, rich flavor, and cremy-dense texture make this the perfect scoop. Possibly ever.
If you are attending over the next two days be sure to stop by and say 'HI' to my friends Carolina B at the jam-tastic cmbsweets booth, and John and Sondra at The Girl and the Fig (they have a new spiced fig caramel that is ridiculously tasty).
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Your Comments
Fancy Food! Fancy Food! I've been wanting to go to this for years but always managed to miss it. Thanks for the preview and reminder!
Hi Heidi,
Toooooo bad I don't get to make it to the event in two days, but I am just as fascinated as I was when I read your last year's post. While Bee Raw Honey looks stunning, Mademoiselle de Margaux's Sarments du Medoc choclates just blow me away. I MUST find and try them.
Thanks for your ever so informative write-up!
Heidi what a wonderful treat. I love the commentary.
SF is to far to go (I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) but I certainly will check out the local fancy food emporiums and if all else fails - there's ordering on line.
I am so jealous!! I am waiting on a press pass for the International Boston Seafood Show and hope to get good stuff there but this one that you attended looks like a gobstopper!
Thats for the peek inside.
Nika
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http://nikas-culinaria.blogspot.com
Thanks for your marvelous report and the great photos!
I used to go to the FFS in New York at the Javits Center. It was at the show when I discovered my allergy to chocolate. I would taste all the interesting new chocolates, then have a massive migraine on the way home to New Jersey. This happened three years in a row before I figured it out.
Ironically, I make chocolate today. ;)
Do you go to the Natural Foods show as well? That's such a great expo. The creativity of the food designer is highly underrated.
Thanks again! Great job!
All the best,
Deb
What a great post so full of great info as usual. If anyone finds Mademoiselle's chocolates please post. I would love to find them. I had to order the Cloud berries cookbook after your post last month and just received it over the weekend and I love it. Took forever, it came by snail mail. You have mady my collection of cookbooks and magazines increase tremendously and I sure didn't need any help. Thanks Heidi
Heidi - it all sounds so fancy and fabulous. I love your photos and descriptions. Thanks for sharing.
Every looks fabulous! Wish I'd known about this sooner, I would totally have checked it out.
Thanks for the lovely write-up!
-sara
Heidi, thechocolate twigs are available at Blue Apron Foods in Brooklyn, NY.
Blue Apron Foods
814 Union St. at Seventh Avenue,
(718) 230-3180
The chocolate twigs also appeared just last week in my Whole Foods Market in the Chicago area. I'll have to go back and try some after reading about them here.
It surely looks a great place for many many temptations. I wish I could see this! Thanks for sharing! We do not have enough similar events around here!
I wish I could have been there with you. I truly do!
Great post, Heidi!
I look forward to seeing some of these products on the shelves at the gourmet store very soon!
i am very jealous of california being at the cusp of all these food trends. the palapa ice cream looks amazing! thanks for the photos.
peanut better is the only product that i've seen in boston so far - and that was at the annual vegetarian food festival. i remember the rosemary garlic being really yummy.
Beautiful round-up, Heidi! And thanks so much for calling our attention to LaLoo's ice cream - it sounds absolutely drop-dead dreamy! Their website indicates that I should be able to find it at Whole Foods here in Seattle, so I've officially added it to the grocery list! Yum.
Wow -- That sounds sooo yummy -- Wish it were in LA! All the fun stuff happens up there... Glad to hear about the high organic and fair trade presence :)
Ohh heidi,
I LOVE LOVE LOVE J Leblanc Oils - they are sooo fragrant and definitely give your salad and dishes that extra oomph!
the prviews itself fills the tummy.............. wats gonnna happen if it reaches the mouth!!!
Heidi, I wish I could've been there. Did you see the Flor de Sal booth? What did you think of them?
Re: the Bee Raw honey. They must really be in love with themselves... $28 bucks a pound for honey! Let's be real. Our local organic honies sell in the $5 to $6.75 per pound range. Don't forget shipping. I suppose it might appeal to the SUV set...
Makes me want to take a trip to SF this time next year. Wonderful, informative post!
what a fabalous recipe
Chocolate Fountain in Dubai
One of the best fancy food I have discovered was at the Pergolas Restaurant in the newly opened AL Murooj Rotana Hotel wherein they have twirling pot of
chocolate and you can dip any fruit with it and its look like a chocolate fountain and they have also magazine-cover like blueberry cheesecake and strawberry cheesecake which is delecious I have read in their hotel brochure that the cook there have cooked for President Clinton and Phil Collins.
I enjoy contributing to your blogs because from you I know a lot more about San Francisco and their gourmet there, but it's
nice also to share with you my personal experiences about food especially
in the Middle East.
ooh, I'm hungry now! I have discovered a homemade vanilla pudding (from Real Simple magazine) and that's what I'm going to make now. Wish I was anywhere near SF to visit such a great show!
Wow, what a beautiful fun-filled list of items to look forward to (keeping my fingers crossed) seeing on the shelves of Whole Foods, D&D, or any other fancy food place I can stumble upon in NY. Thanks for the excellent tips/roundup and great pictures too! I wasn't around the world of blogging last year at this time, so now I have to go back and read your entry from last year and catch up:)
I love these photos, and it sounds like a fantastic event. Since I am out on the east coast, I think I'll stop by the Summer Fancy Food Show when it comes to NYC this July. Thanks for the inspiration!
That's a great best-of list. I think I'm heading to Whole Foods for some flan ice cream.
What the hell?
I am from Mexico, Monterrey actually, which is one of the most industrialized and overall biggest cities in Mexico, and I haven't heard of "Palapa Azul"... I think I will check that out...
Emilio.
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