EAT Vancouver

Every year, foodies from all over Vancouver gather at the most coveted event of the year: EAT Vancouver. This is a food and beverage expo that features 200 exhibitors and celebrity chefs from around the country. For $14 a person (you even get $2 off when you donate a canned good for the soup kitchen) it gets you tons of food samples and goodies to take home.

For events like this, you must choose wisely who to go with. You want to go with someone who shares your enthusiasm for all things edible and willingly wedge in with shovelling old ladies fighting for samples of chili whiskey chocolates. It is a madhouse, where foodies get herded like
cattle from one line to another.

After careful selection, I asked my friend Cara to accompany me. She is cool, funky and a foodie just like me. And most important of all, she is tall and can see over people's heads to see where all the best sample are!!

We milled around for 3 hours, watched Anna Olson make lemon squares and agreed that the best new find is Patisserie Lebeau's frozen waffles. They are delicious and just like how you get them at their bakery on Waffle Sundays.

They say the best part of eating is sharing. I mean, do I really care to taste the difference between chum and spring salmon, or see how good the truffled tapenade is? Yes, But who cares if you cannot compare notes on which salmon you prefer, or how to use the tapenade in a recipe?? There is a special bond between foodies. I find that we are the type of people who have a joie de vivre about us. We like to travel, try new things and can understand perfectly well why one would drive half an hour to buy the perfect baguette to go with the steamed mussels. And get completely excited to pay for the chance to stand in line for hours to receive food samples that you probably would pass by if it is being freely handed out on the street.