This year, I had the pleasure of working the Culture Magazine station at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, one of the largest specialty food shows around. Culture was tucked away as part of the World’s Best Cheeses booth, so I was happily nestled amongst some excellent food and people. Luckily, I was able to sample my way around the show as well. Here’s a short list of what tickled my palate over those three gluttonous days:

Cheeses:

• Kunik—Nettle Meadow Farm & Artisan Cheese in New York
• Red Cloud, Aspen Ash—Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy in Colorado
• Goat cheese in marinated extra virgin olive oil—Meredith Dairy in Australia
• Azeitao—from the village of Azeitao in Portugal
• Wavreumont—Fromagerie des Ardennes in Belgium
• Blue Heaven—powdered blue cheese by Rogue Creamery in Oregon
• Hoja Santa—Mozzarella Company in Texas
• Benedictine—Carr Valley Cheese in Wisconsin
• Edun—Red Barn Family Farms in Wisconsin

Things you can eat with cheese, or not:

• Beer Flats by Daelia’s Food Company You might know them because they already make delicious biscuits for cheese.
• Boat Street Pickles’ pickled figs. They pickle other things, too!
• Skillet bacon jam
• Mangé Le Gastronome's fruit vinegars
• California Wine Wafers--delicate wafers that you can pair with wines, but also some creamy triple crèmes, I imagine.
• Wild Thymes chutneys--I loved the onion jalapeno.
• Clearbrook Farms preserves
• O Olive oils, vinegars, and tapenades
• Tishbi Winery wine/fruit jellies and preserves from Israel. These were definitely a gem of the show for me!
• Rick’s Picks pickles. Anything from them.
• Sencha Naturals tea leaf mints. Cute packaging, fresh and minty.
• Foxy’s frozen yogurts--with names like Cheeky, Sneaky, Naughty, and Sassy, you gotta love 'em.
• Steve’s ice cream from Boston, Massachusetts--I tasted the Mexican chili chocolate, strawberry ricotta, and bourbon vanilla, but there is so much more!
• Seth Greenburg’s Authentic New York brownie crunch--particularly the spicy varieties
• Bourbon Barrel Foods' Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, bitters, spice mixes
• Torie & Howard organic hard candies
• Bruce Cost fresh ginger ale--I definitely loved the pomegranate with hibiscus variety!
• City Bakery hot chocolate. They have dark and milk.
• Cosmos Creations--gluten-free, cornmeal puffs