Taking it all in...
A slightly better shot of our space
Cheers to a wonderful experience!
Apologies for the lack of photos from the show. NASFT has very strict photography rules which is all right because we seriously had very little time to roam. In fact, our lunches primarily consisted of potstickers and teriyaki chicken samples from the Day-Lee Foods booth strategically placed directly behind ours. Yum! I, being the "don't-want-to-look-like-a-mooch" aka "chicken-liver-rule-following" type of person, would grab a few samples and then insist on alternating the rest of the trips with Laura. Although what exactly I was afraid of I'm not sure considering there were probably at least 20,000 attendees of which there were certainly no shortage of tall Caucasians and short Asians! Besides, towards the end of the show we were all bartering our leftovers. "Hey! If you give me some onion and coriander fava bean hummus I'll give you some cookies!" or "Yo...can you hook this girl up with some 5-alarm pepper sauce if I give you some shortbread?" My personal favorite? Some random guy I had never seen before asking if I would trade a bottle of wine for a jar of bruschetta topping. Which I did, mind you! Because I'm trusting like that. Just watch. He probably wasn't even an exhibitor and came into possession of the bruschetta topping through unsavory means...
Honestly though, we had a wonderful, career-altering experience at the show. The educational resources provided by NASFT have already helped guide our next steps (homework! homework! homework!), and the networking among specialty food industry members is bar none. Best of all, we've made new friends. And in an industry with goat milk caramels, black pearl rice, cream-filled fresh mozzarella, Goji berry cookies, wasabi foam, apple sauce in squeeze containers, Valrhona chocolate, and a million different types of salsa how can you possibly resist these offers of friendship?
- Discovering that not all plastic food storage bags are the same! Why wasn't "Barrier Bags 101" taught at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago?!
- Putting real faces to industry giants like Harry and David, Williams Sonoma, Food & Wine, and Starbucks.
- Secretly enjoying the expressions on people's faces when they realize after asking that a) I am NOT the girl in our poster and b) she's not even Asian.
- Delighting in the joy of speaking to professional chefs and culinary instructors and suddenly realizing that I actually AM a professional baker!
- Experiencing the show with my business partner of less than 8 months and being amazed at how far we've come since our first business plan draft.
1 comments:
I think out of your 5, my favorite is your number 3. I'm going to add a #6 Enjoying the confused look on peoples faces as my sister and I pointed to our cousin when explaining our connection to the company!
I'm glad you agree that the Onion Coriander Dip was worth bartering for! Mine is already gone!
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