not so Fabulous Food Show…

My friend informed me of this show about a year ago and said I had to check it out.  So with The Kitchen Whisperer being a new entity I was stoked for this!  Last night I was like a little kid on Christmas eve waiting for the first sign of the break of dawn.  That first glimpse of sun meant I then could get out of bed and go see what presents Santa brought me.  I was that excited!

So Mr. Fantabulous and I loaded up the car, snacks in tow for him – side bar: yes, he knew we were going to a FOOD SHOW and that he would have food there to eat but apparently 3 hours in the car without snacks is illegal or something.  Anyway, I grab a pillow and blanket for him and commenced on the 3 hour trek to Cleveland in 30 degree weather and snow showers.  As I got closer to the I-X Center I could feel the butterflies start to wiggle more in my tummy and my mind go a million miles a minute… What would I see?  Who would I meet?  How could my company benefit from this?  What new things could I learn?  Hopes to meet Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, etc..And yes…  FREE SAMPLES ALL DAY!

We get there and I pulled a Rocky and ran up the steps 🙂  We walk in and I’m like “Um… huh???  Why do I see giant carved wooden lawn figures and where’s the food stuff?”  About a third of the way in I see the entrance and as we get closer I get more excited… and that’s where the excitement level peaked.  As we walked in further it just… it just… it just wasn’t anything close to what I had expected, imagined or hoped it would be.  There was no razzle dazzle; nothing special.  Honestly, it felt like going to a giant flea market where the local vendors sold their homegoods.  Not knocking anyone trying to make a living in this economy but there was just way too much hype over something pretty generic.

But since we had traveled over 3 hours to get there we figured we might as well make the best of it.  We sampled a few things… um.. I guess BBQ sauce and Mustard are the new in thing?  Yeah.. not feelin’ it.  There were a few displays that had gorgeous desserts and cakes.  These cakes were more like works of art than food.  What some people can do with fondant is amazing.

It took us about 1.5 hours to walk through the entire venue and then we both stood there staring at one another with the ‘so what now?’ face.  We ended up leaving with growling tummies and much disappointment.  We ended up going to this little Italian restaurant a few miles from the venue, Santo’s Italian Restaurant which had homemade pasta and great stromboli’s.

So while I won’t be re-visting this event anytime in the near future I still enjoyed my day as I got to spend it with my hubby.