I just returned from the Fancy Food Show, and wanted to share with you some photos and impressions.

First off, I would like to say that I was quite impressed with the high turn out. I wasn’t able to attend last year’s show as to have a point of comparison, but it sure looked pretty good to me. I must admit that I hesitated a bit before registering, after hearing from friends and colleagues who have traveled long distances to attend trade shows recently, to sadly find that half of the booths were vacant and the show was reduced to only a fraction of what it had been in previous years. Not at all the case here. Looks like Jim Spencer, Bill Lynch, and the rest of the team at NASFT pulled it off, and did an excellent job navigating the challenging economy.

We spotted a few very savory items and stumbled upon cool new trends. While the smartest people formed a line at the Spanish pavilion to taste the finest Jamon Iberico Alimentado a Bellotas, we were having a feast at the Pig’s Nic booth, all for ourselves (Gaston spent some time tasting and talking with the owner, as he thought the product line up was pretty good and original). I personally have a fascination for all things ethnic and so walking around the halls and finding some of the most exotic meals you can imagine (care to try some olive oil chocolates and candies? so good) and the finest brands from all across the world kinda made me feel like a kid in a candy store. I really enjoyed the diversity and wealth of international options. This, along with the vision and hope of encouraging experimentation, driving costs of food down, and making it more available and affordable were the major forces that motivated us to create Book Of Cooks.

Gaston and I were both born and raised in Argentina, so we were happy and proud to see the Guayaki’s booth actually being pretty solicited. Although I am not completely sure I buy all of the rep’s talking points about Yerba Mate. As the sales pitch goes, it is almost being described as a miracle tonic. Believe me, if it was a miraclous drink, Argentinians, Paraguayans, Uruguayans and Brazilians should live for hundreds of years since the mate is drank so heavily that it is sometimes even used as a meal substitute when there is no food to put on the table. But there is no question that it has lots of very good properties, and I am happy to see that Guayaki is getting the word out, while helping local economies in Paraguay.

At the cooking contest, we watched some excellent performances by students of Columbus Culinary Institute’s Chef Daineal Donovan and Professional Culinary Institute’s Mial Parker. And one of the highlights was the TweetUp at the InterContinental after the show, organized by Nicole and Ken from Vermont based People Making Good (the Ben & Jerry’s of sustainable and healthy food promotion). They were able to bring together a group of talented entrepreneurs in the areas of social media, like Lisa Adams Walter!, food blogs, and food manufacturing, such as Melanie’s Fine Foods, Awaken Savor, Nirmala’s Kitchen, Sweet Riot, Catalyst Tea.

I posted more photos from the show on our Facebook Page.

It’s been a long journey since we first brainstormed the idea of creating a food marketplace of the people, by the people, and for the people. Book Of Cooks (The People’s Restaurant) is almost a reality now, and I wanted to take a moment to thank every one of you who contributed with ideas, suggestions, all nighters thinking, researching, writing, designing or coding. A lot of work by developers, designers, copywriters and media producers went behind this first release, and a lot more work lays ahead. I want to thank particularly, Nikos, Manish, Vipin, Adri, Kat, Daniel, Satyam, Nicki, Neha, Ramphool, Jeff, Lee, Ryan, Josh, Steuart, the Lantern team, Christian, Les, Adam, and everyone who contributed in any way, shape or form to the Book Of Cooks’ beta. Thank you for your support!

Hey there! We’ll be writing posts here on occasion to keep you guys up on new developments and announcements as we approach our launch date (can’t believe we are so close!). We would also like to use this blog to share some links and articles that we stumble on from time to time, and that we think you might like. If you are not yet familiar with Book of Cooks please visit the About Us section on our website. If you have a couple of minutes, you can also watch our Video Tour, which we are posting below – hope you enjoy it. If you’d like to stay in touch with us as much as we want to stay in touch with you (a lot), you can follow us on Twitter of visit our Facebook Page. And of course, feel free to email me directly if you have any questions or comments. This is our website beta (first) release, and everything pretty much is under revision. Your problem reports, ideas, and questions are very welcome and will help us provide you guys with a better user experience. In fact, we have set up a section of our user forum where you can leave us Feed Back. Thank you for stopping by!! We look forward to staying in touch.