NY Food & Wine Festival

What a lucky girl am I? My great friend, Emmie, was in town on Friday for a work-related trip to the NY Food & Wine Festival. As a dedicated friend, I accompanied her to the grand tasting on Friday. With notebook in one hand and my glass in another, we entered Pier 54 on the west side for a few hours of tasting and learning, and tasting and tasting...

Here was one I liked. Or did I just like taking pictures of the bottles? I can't remember:

And another:

I discovered a new Australian "verde" wine that reminded me of fresh green apples, so maybe we'll be seeing more of that out there.

Emmie was a great teacher, explaining more about how the distribution levels, the variance by state, and then just some helpful wine info along the way. NYC is still a mom & pop wine store state, so it was interesting to hear the different perspectives on the recent law to open up sales to the Targets and Costcos of the world (it didn't pass).

This is a really bad picture of Fabio and Jeff, both from Top Chef NY. Really looking forward to pregnant Padma on the next season.

The event actually goes on all weekend, but I never bought formal tickets to any other events. On Saturday, it was a sunny but windy day and we went back down to the Meatpacking to enjoy espresso at the illy coffee display in the heart of all the food activity. It is actually a shipping container that opens up to form seating areas, and an area for free hot drinks. And there is always a lot to look at down here. From the warmth of my own apartment, I caught up on Eater blog, which reported out interviews with chefs who stopped by the Standard Hotel lobby.

Big changes ahead, so hoping that I can continue to post a few days a week. Yes, after quite a few months, I'll be heading back to the work world. Have a few more posts from my out-and-about activities last week, so look for those soon!