Another BBC Good Food Show

It seems annual conventions come through the smallish, local convention like clockwork. For example, I've just walked by the 3rd "Tip-Ex" I've seen in my three years living in the UK. 

(For readers unfamiliar, a 'tip' in the UK refers to a dump; where you go to 'tip' your rubbish that's too big or too much for your weekly rubbish collection. The Tip-Ex was an exposition of all the new and fabulous items for the community dump. Therefore, the Expo had diggers and bulldozers, large trash compactors, and the like.)

But I digress...

This Spring I attended my second BBC Good Food Show at our local convention center, and it was a ton of fun! 

Outside the Conference Center

Sadly, Mary Berry didn't attend this year's show, so my friends and I had tickets to see a Michelin-starred, television chef (whose name escapes me) prepare beer soup and a cheese soufflé. The finished food looked good, but the show wasn't nearly as fun as last year's cooking demo with Mary and Paul Hollywood. Oh, well! 

Watching the celebrity chef work his magic

After we watched the chef demo, we walked all around the food stalls, where, among other items, I found lots of yummy charcuterie for Bill to enjoy (he was on a guy's trip to Aberdeen) when he returned home. 

Cured meat bonanza!

The most interesting thing we noticed was the copious small-batch gin distillery stands; each stall was staffed by men with beards and man-buns - I kid you not! I think gin must be the new cool thing now that the craft beer movement has been done to death. Anyway, there were at least 30 different types of gin you could sample and purchase. (Multiply that by at least 3 and you'll know how many carefully coiffed beards and man-buns I had to put up with navigate.)

I purchased a bottle of Daffy's as I had tried that gin once before but didn't want to lug around the heavy bottle for the rest of the day. I bought the bottle on my out of the conference center to go home, now I'm all set for this summer's G and Ts! 

Fancy-pants gin

Thankfully, the bottle image is that of the distiller's wife, and not of a hipster distiller in all his beard and man-bun glory.