Disclosure:
I was offered a media pass with the giveaway I ran for this event.
As always, all opinions are my own.
First things first: I will freely admit that it is crappy to go to a Food and WINE show when you can’t drink. Damn unplanned wisdom tooth extraction! I have actually been wanting to branch out a little more in wines and wanted to sample some new brands at this event, but it clearly wasn’t mean to be. I’m also still on soft foods while I heal, so that limited me even further in what I could try.
This year I knew my priorities. I was there when the doors opened for the day and headed straight to the cheese alley. Last year by the time I got there it was so packed that it was nearly impossible to sample anything.
Literally the first thing I said to a vendor at the show was “I’d like to try Nanna’s Undies, please”. This was a Bruny Island cheese, and like the sign says, it does taste like lavender. It’s weird, but not in a bad way.
The next new thing I tried was sheep’s cheese, by GrandvEwe. I went straight for the blue, because I like it strong! This was really, really good. Even better was the Pinot Paste that you sample with the cheese – great combination.
Out of the Ashgrove Tasmanian cheeses above, I went for the Bush Pepper and Wild Wasabi. The pepper was probably the best of the two – nothing wrong with the wasabi. It’s probably because I’ve been having so much wasabi recently it just wasn’t all that unique of a flavour to me.
Once the cheese aisle was done, I spent the next few hours wandering happily around the show.
One of my favourite finds was the Nutworks stand. It was only as I was leaving that I realised they were the same factory I have visited before, up at Yandina near the Ginger Factory. This stand kind of broke my soft foods rule (but I was careful!) and it was worth it. The two varieties they had for sample were honey and dark chocolate. It’s like they were made for me. The honey was really nice, it was more about the flavour of the honey than the sweetness. And you can never go wrong with dark chocolate…
My other favourite find at the show was the Cocoa Elf chocolate brownie stand. If you want to make all other brownies you’ve had in your life taste like mud pies, this place will do that. I tasted the triple chocolate and the orange. Y9u know how when some people try to go all pure in their cocoa and it just tastes bitter and not actually good? These people have the perfect balance. The orange one is flavoured on the outside with orange rind, so you taste the orange first, then bite through to the sweetness.
Where would you have headed first? Have you ever been to any of the Good Food & Wine Shows?
Nana’s undies has to be the worst name for a cheese ever.
But it does stick in your head haha