The Auckland Food Show - Irish Style

If you've never been to a food show, you've missed a good thing.

Food, wine, cooking demonstrations, all kinds of new products, people jammed into small spaces, divine smells, cookery, utensils, and lots of free samples. A great way to spend an entire day and lots of money.

If you've never done a foodshow with an Irish friend, you've really missed out.

For reasons pertaining to lawsuits, the guilty shall remained unnamed. Let's just call her 'C'.

Here we go:

'Yahhooooo!' C yodelled down the phone line. 'Want to go to the foodshow? I've just found out it's in town, and last year I bought a case of Villa Maria wine for $6.95 a bottle, and this year I want to get three cases for the end of year hygienist's party. We can walk around sampling all the wines and eating the food, did I say I also have to get a case of wine for the girls at work, and we could have a lady's day out just looking around the place.'

She delivered her message without ever pausing for breath.

Spending a day in a food hall with my uber extroverted Irish friend sounded like my kind of fun, and the last time I had taken a risk happened three months ago when I navigated 20 stairs on a pair of crutches. I was ON!

We met in the lobby of the food hall. Immediately, C wanted to know where the wine stalls were.

It was 10:00 a.m. A little early for me.

'Look at that,' she beamed.

Before us lay a treasure trove of gastrononomy and viticultural gleanings. Just inside the door stood the Chilean Wine stand.'Oh, my gosh,' C chortled as if a genie had materialised in front of her. She quickly grabbed a Chilean white wine sample for herself and for me.

She is thoughtful, my Irish Lass.

I sipped, she gulped. She asked for a Sauvignon Blanc sample while I tried the Cabernet. I was still sipping when she poured a jolt of her white into my sample.

'Try this,' she said, just before spinning off to taste the gourmet crackers.

It would probably be good to point out that I am a red wine drinker, and only rarely am I tempted by white. The last enjoyable white I had was a Fletcher Riesling made by Craggy Range Vineyards in the Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. Long finish, crisp, apple flavours on my palate, fantastic. I'm also a big fan of fusion cooking, but I do not mix my wines. I poured the concoction into a spittoon, then shoved my way through four very dressed up women to get to C.

'Where's the Villa Maria stand?' C asked me, shoving the map that showed all display locations into her handbag. I was about to tell her to look at the map when her attention was diverted by the Victorinox display.

'Eek! she shouted over her shoulder as she ran towards it, ' They've got the same can opener that I got here last year.'

'Is that good?' I enquired, catching up to her.

C held up the appliance. She also started waving an empty can of Watties Baked Beans.

'$20 bucks, four-in-one function, and look,' she said, showing me the rim of the bean can. 'Perfectly clean edges. Very safe.'

A dental hygienist, C admits sharp implements and clean edges are very important to her.

She decided against the opener, hoping to find a better deal at another booth.

Like a moth to a flame, she landed at the next wine stand.

She slid me a Merlot sample and claimed a Chardonnay splash for herself. 'Yummm,' she sipped, checking the price list in case she wanted to buy a few dozen cases. 'Could I have another one of these?'

I moved to the Syrah samples.

'I'll try that Sav Blanc you have,' she told the rep, 'and the reds.'

'I thought you didn't like reds,' I reminded her.

'But these are free,' she articulated.

I was afraid she'd soon start slapping the bar and yell out, 'Line 'em up for me and my friends!'

At that point I figured she probably had 800 'friends' in the building.

We made our way to the Electrolux Theatre to watch a cooking demo.

'Last year I found three cases of Villa Maria for cheap,' she lamented. 'I don't understand.'

'Maybe it's because you haven't been to the Villa Maria stand,' I suggested to her disappearing form.

She had gone ahead of me and was in the process of obtaining a good sized cup of passionfruit / vanilla bean natural ice cream when I caught up with her.

'Villa Maria is a really good winery, they'll have their own stand,' I tried to reassure her.

'I don't know,' she slurped.

Inside the cooking theatre, C claimed seats front row and centre. Leaning over to me, she whispered, 'Maybe we'll get samples. When the show is over, we'll run down to the sample tables, and we'll get to eat what Ruth Pretty has cooked.'

'Okay,' I quiessed. I hadn't counted on the hoardes of white haired women pulling plaid trundlers who would turn a three metre walk into a holy grail.

As we were being crushed from behind by the ravening crowd ,'C hissed. 'I don't believe it. We were on the front row, and we still haven't gotten anything yet. We should be first.'

'Tell it to those two women who are hogging the serving dishes at the end of the table,' I said, pushing the sharp end of an umbrella out of my thigh, 'they've had double helpings so far.'

Like an obstetrician going for gold, C thrust her hand through the crowd of women, and delivered a paper plate holding five Le Puy lentils.

'Tasty,' she declared, dropping two of the lentils into my mouth. I feared I was eating someone's leftovers.

'I'm going for the dessert,' she said, obsessing. 'We were on the front row, and we didn't get any food.'

'Dessert' was a wheel of brie cheese topped with glaceed fruit, over which was poured a toffee sauce.

I raced out of the theatre to the Faro Fresh Food stand where the desert was being displayed. The vultures were already circling. Why it takes those old ladies years to walk across the street, but they can get around a food show quicker than Superman, I don't know.

'Excuse me,' C announced to the crowd as she arrived. 'We were on the front row of the cooking demonstration, and we are getting first dibs on this dessert .'

I braced myself for a riot. The fire in C's icy blue eyes obviously terrifed them. They held off.

Two mouthfuls of fruited brie and walnut crackers later, C and I walked away the victors.

Between that cooking demo and the next, we consumed bread and olive oil, Dukkah, macadamia nuts, espresso coffee, Indian curry, Swiss sausages, New Zealand made cheese, black, green and red olives, and we sniffed spices and tasted flavorings. And, without saying, many, many wine samples.

Finally, we hauled ourselves into the food theatre again to watch Ray McVinnie, a New Zealand chef, do his magic.

And magic it was.

First of all, I have to say, Ray McVinnie is sex on a stick. Tall, slender, dark haired and horn rimmed specs, dulcet toned and talented, he is funny, direct, and a no nonsense cook. His mise is definitely en place. '

'Simplicity,' he said. 'It's about the food.'

Grrrrrr, Vinnie. You Big Yummie.

Because he writes for Cuisine Magazine, and they wanted to give away subscriptions, Ray said he'd give one away for every intelligent question that was asked. There were some good questions about heat, sanitation and braising.

Once more, C had navigated us into the front row to watch his demonstration, but she wasn't taking any chances. 'Don't wait until the end of the show to go to the sample table. As soon as it gets close to ending, jump up and get to that food!'

I am short, fat, and have a limited arm span. I had recently been freed from a cast because my foot had been broken. I was guarding it the way Sauron guarded his kingdom. C is tall, willowy, long limbed, strong of foot, and fearless. Why, I wondered, was she sending me into battle with an army of greedy guts like ourselves?

'Any more questions?' McVinnie asked as he stirred the final cream into his olive and mushroom sauce.

C's hand popped into the air. 'I heard that if you fry your chips in certain meat fats, it gives off a toxic fume, and it could make you sick. Is that true?'

Ray looked into the middle distance as though the question pained him.

Really,' he said, 'I don't care. I'm about the food, about moderation, about simplicity. If you're afraid it will hurt you, don't eat it.'

Very sensible if you ask me. I wanted to ask him if I could lick his utensils.

I asked a question,' C whispered to me, 'and I didn't get a magazine subscription.'

I didn't point out that the operative word was 'intelligent'.

C is bright but gullible, especially when it comes to reality shows that point out the dangers of living.

At the end of the show, I was the first one in line for the chow, but I was at the wrong end of the table. The goodies were served three feet beyond my reach and the same two women who had been hogging the food after show one, snarfled at the end of the table.

'You'll have to kill them,' I said to C, who was at that moment, shoving a young child behind her.

I wondered if I could crawl under the table, grab two plates from the other side, and make a dash for it.

Finally, the servers took pity on us and passed us some food samples. My beef dish was well worth waiting for. I tasted the Taylor's 80 Acres Shiraz Viogner blend that was being served with it, and nearly swooned.

Two hours later, C had still not found the Villa Maria stand. I, on the other hand, had found the Taylor's stand, and was holding two bottles of the 80 Acres. My feet were killing me, and I had let enough time lapse between wine samples to be a sober driver.

I had to leave.

Reluctantly, C came with me. As we walked out the gates, she turned to me and said, 'If you hear of any other shows, let me know, and we'll go together. And by the way, if you or I win anything from this show, we'll share it.'

You bet we will, girlie, we'll both count on it.