Cook. Eat. Drink. Live. Review. Part II

Thank you for tuning back in for the stunning conclusion of Cook. Eat. Drink. Live. Review.

Yesterday we discussed prepared foods and some of the classes at the show, today we are focusing on pre-packaged food and booze. Also at the end you will get a little rant from me about last minute price dropping and my thoughts for the future of Cook. Eat. Drink. Live.

On the pre-packaged food side of the event, everything I had was really tasty, though didn’t necessarily “rank” as far as I was concerned, there were some cookie people who had a decent product, but by no means great. Stonybrook yoghurt was there, that just confused me, then on the flipside there was Snooty Foods which had some fantastic spreads and dips (their pickles were so/so though), Feed Granola (which I admit, I liked before I cam into the show so I am a bit biased there) who have a great story behind the company which we will hopefully be able to write about and a new flavor called “Bittersweet-ness” which was really tasty. And then there was Pesto with Panache by Lauren. They had four different varieties-Smoked Salmon, Blueberry, Strawberry and Pumpking Chipotle, apparently they are sold frozen, defrosted and served- they were excellent pestos, the blueberry was especially good (and I am not a huge blueberry fan, so that says a lot).

A couple of random folks there as well who fit in nicely: Eats.com, iGourmet.com, some board game people, Oasis Day Spa, a company that deals with linens, a florist, a high-end car rental place or two, Thrillist.com… Nothing I was going to waste too much time on there so we won’t go into it here either. Moving right along.

Now we come to my favorite part of the festivities- drinks with alcohol content. I am not going to review everything I tasted here, because, well, some of the more outstanding ones will be getting their own posts down the line, but I will name a handful of stand outs. Most places were preparing tastes of mixed drinks as well as mini-shots (more like sips) to give you an idea of the taste without getting you wasted.

Some of the stand outs were Mount Gay Rum who showed how versatile their rum was with a Spiced Apple drink (that was delicious and also had carrot juice in it oddly enough) as well as bananas caramelized in their rum on top of a cheese cake. Zyr Vodka had a nice set up and had their table right next to a caviar table (which they, of course, planned ahead on) which paired for a nice tasting. Herb’s Vodka discovered a new drink while they were their, pairing their fennel vodka with Izze’s Grapefruit drink, and their dill vodka bloodmary was pretty fantastic. DH Krahn Gin passed on the typical G&T and had a Basil Martini which sounds really odd and tastes really great.

Then there was beer. Now there were some beers I had there that would definitely rank above others (and you’ll see a write up of one of them later this week) and there were some that are considered to be decent beers (like Sam Addams, though I am not a big fan myself). Then there was Coors Light. I just didn’t get why they were there and, well frankly I felt no reason to stop by their booth. A couple of organic beers and microbrews which were good, though I think most of the beer people should have held out and just moved over to Brewtopia that was 2 doors down.

Of course I was a big fan of the tea folks, I was just a little disappointed that I caught them at 5pm on the second day as they were packing to go. I also thought it was a bit lame that the final event (the cook off) wrapped up at 4:45 and as people streamed back into the main area with all the booths half the people were already closed or closing up shop, packing to go. I would have liked those last 15 minutes to catch a few more folks I had missed. If you are going to say an event goes until 5pm, have it go until 5pm don’t push people to pack up earlier, especially if you are charging folks $200+ a day to be there… Which brings me to my final comments on the event.

This was a pricey event to attend for most people. The two day pass was over $600 (though I believe if you pre-registered it dropped to $400), then, the day of the event prices dropped to under $200 for each day. How do you mess with people like that, especially the people who had already committed themselves to your event. I mean it is a smallgripe from me, I got in on a press pass, but that just seems lousy to have jacked up prices for the people who really want to come and then drop the prices for people who decide tat the last minute. But again, that is a small gripe on my part.

Overall for a first time event I thought it was pretty cool. I would love to see how it matures, but I would suggest more packaged food folks, a little less wine and maybe cut down a bit on all the demos- every hour on the hour was just a bit too much, you couldn’t see everything which was disappointing as there were so many great things to check out.