Notes from the Summer 2009 Fancy Food Show
a delicious view from Booth 5319, home of Transatlantic Foods
and the Aux Delices des Bois brand

When you're on the convention floor fielding an endless crowd of visitors to your 10x10 booth, there's not much time to visit the rest of the show. The good thing about the Fancy Food Show is that you don't have to pack a lunch. In the morning you get a jumpstart on miniature paper cups of coffee, and if you're lucky, there's a rugala booth in your line of sight. Yogurt jump-starts any healthy-eating day; we beat the crowds to our old friend's stand. Good thing, because Fage (the standard-bearer Greek yogurt) was wiped out by Day 3 - and their refrigerator cases spanned a good 20 feet of floor space.

Once the floodgates open, there is not a lot of time to eat. Between cooking up Aux Delices des Bois Artisanal Spiced Bacon (ok, we had plenty to offer for breakfast, too - including schmeers of black truffle butter on everyone's bagels), refilling the truffle butter toast samples, and spearing Aux Delices des Bois Pig'Nics with toothpicks, we played host to a steady stream of gourmet store and distributor buyers. Each visitor provided invaluable feedback about our one-of-a-kind goodies. Problem was, we didn't get to visit with everyone (Next time, Bonnie!). Next year, come early to the folks in the outrageously orange shirts.

You get the idea - there's practically no escaping your booth when hunger strikes. So you get to know the products from your neighboring aisles. Each of us took a few minutes to graze, which led to some interesting eating. Unless you really take an hour to walk the show, you are on a steady diet of imbalanced, miniature, quirky meals. Chocolate truffles are luscious, but not recommended as a first course to proscuitto or stuffed olives. Noontime means Hale and Hearty has lines snaking down the aisle, much like its namesake stores. After a cup of soup, you can grab a fistful of dried mango or wasabi bonbons, speed taste a line of barbecue sauces, and drool over exquisite, marshmallow-sized cheeseburgers and crabcakes.

I think I took more visitors than any to David Rio Orca Spice Chai booth, just to get another sample. Our crispy Duck Confit was supposed to be paired with some of the excellent savory jams and sauces down the aisle, but we didn't get a chance to introduce them to each other. Just-add-water cellophane noodle soup reminded us of the great meal service on a recent Cathay Pacific flight, so it tided us over till the closing bell. Lucky for us we were bordered by two sofi Gold winners, who traded daylong snacks of taziki and samosas for strips of our Artisanal Spiced Bacons.

At the close of the show, exhibitors join in a giddy, got-a-flight-to-catch frenzy of breaking down the booth, shrink-wrapping everything in sight, packing up displays and tossing leftover food in the City Harvest bin. Lots of us trade samples with others, in wildly uneven swaps - but hey, we're all foodies, and we're all hungry for new flavors, food categories, and meal ideas. In fact, all of us food producers take away things more valuable than sales leads: a sense of community, new inspiration, and a desperate desire for a protein-heavy salad!