2010 Metro Cooking & Entertaining Show – Part 1

Back in November, I attended the Metropolitan Cooking & Entertaining Show as a member of the Press.*  It was nothing short of a culinary carnival and I was in total foodie heaven.  The main lesson I learned was that for the 2011 show I will make sure to attend both days – there is just that much ground to cover.  I was caught up in going booth to booth and asking questions of the vendors, sampling items and, oh – BUYING everything. I’m telling you, it was glooorious!  I came away with tons of great foodie finds.

Williamson House Red BBQ Sauce.

Y’all. The folks at this booth had a BBQ Sauce FOUNTAIN. Literally, a fountain. There were assorted dippers that visitors were able to sample the sauce with and I was hooked from the first bite.  Of course I had to take some home and I bought a bottle of the Traditional Red Sauce.  It’s a sweet, tomato-based sauce and, so far, I’ve used it in burgers and patty melts and they’ve been a huge hit; my kids have been asking me to make them over and over.  This sauce is definitely going to be my secret go-to ingredient for ribs, chicken and burgers. I’m going to stock up for the summer grilling season.

I realize that I sound like a crazy BBQ-sauce evangelist. Moving on.

Island Treasures Gourmet Rum Cake

So, I have to admit that with my Trinidadian-Guyanese-Bajan background, I was a tad skeptical as I approached the booth manned by two blonde-haired Southern ladies from Virginia.  Turns out, the joke was on me because their rum cakes were divine.  I sampled the Coconut and the Vanilla and ended up buying both because I couldn’t decide between the two.  They also have Raspberry, Chocolate, Banana and Cinnamon Streusel.  We ate the Coconut one that same week and stored the Vanilla one and enjoyed it with Christmas dinner.  These cakes are moist and flavorful and reminiscent of my days spent in the Caribbean.

*I was given complimentary admission to the show to cover it for the blog.