Plenty to drool over

I got a bit carried away at the Auckland Food Show today.

http://www.foodshow.co.nz/

I actually bought more; hours after taking this photo I discovered four tubes of vanilla beans in my handbag (paid for, I might add!).

I've never been to the food show before, mainly because I'd always mistakenly assumed it would be hideously crowded and impossible to get to the counters to scoff any samples. It did indeed get crowded, but not in a bad way. And I got to eat plenty of samples.

When I wasn't walking in a zombie-like foodie trance sussing out the hundreds of exhibits, I enjoyed watching other foodies in their own little worlds. Some people seemed more intent on standing around gas-bagging, quaffing lots of wine samples. A few seemed SERIOUS about thoroughly investigating everything.

I even saw one resolutely wheeling a suitcase (no doubt stuffed with foodie finds) after him. Now that's scary.

And then there was the stroller brigade. Despite a couple of close calls, I managed to avoid tripping and sitting on several pushchair bound toddlers along the way.

The food show has a range of really good guest chef presenters and I made a bee-line for Josh Emett, Gordon Ramsay's (Kiwi) right-hand man. The fact Mr E is also handsome had nothing to do with anything of course.

I was surprised to find that the auditorium wasn't full of drooling middle-aged women. In fact there were probably as many men, as women. Not sure what that means.

I had wondered whether Mr E's good looks were something only I'd noticed, a fallacy dispelled when I got chatting to a woman next to me, who immediately commented on how handsome he is. And here's the handsome devil in action:

He cooked two dishes from Ramsay's Melbourne restaurants (we all got recipes):

* Seared yellow fin tuna with daikon, enoki mushrooms and black garlic. This is more of an "impress your friends" dinner party dish. It looked divine!

*Prawn and miso salad. Apparently Josh loves this salad and eats it for lunch all the time. What's good enough for him is good enough for me...once I find time to go out an buy a few of the necessary ingredients (including white miso paste and fresh-frozen soya beans).

So, what did I buy? Apart from the vanilla beans, I bought (clockwise from bottom left in the photo above): beef chorizo sausages, manuka smoked eggs, NZ grown passionfruit syrup, NZ grown chopped walnuts, NZ grown chopped hazlenuts, Jamican meat jerky paste, Kokako organic truffles (not for me, but for one of my clients who's going through a tough time), Kokako gluten free chocolate brownies (all for me - they're goooood), guar beans and four packs of artichoke hearts.

Many of these will provide great inspiration for blogs over the coming days. Perhaps the most unusual thing was the guar beans (a dollar a handful) from the Pacific Islands Trade and Invest stall. Apparently they taste like, well, beans.

I'll cook 'em up tomorrow and tell you all about it.