vickie’s suburban adventure, day two: the no food festival

every year for the past, oh i don’t know, five? six? years, my sister and i (and mom, as well, back in the day) have attended the annual good food festival. used to be, we’d trek to whatever convention-centre-esque location was housing the event, and spend a couple of hours browsing booth after booth of food samples. we’d leave more-than-satiated, complimentary bags (which were handed out upon entry) filled to overflowing with free stuff to take home, or super deals we’d scored, and we’d lay out our considerable bounty on my parents’ dining room table at the end of the day to sort and trade, like kids going through their halloween candy.

over the past couple of years, though, the amount of take-home free stuff dwindled a little and the awesome deals became harder to find, but the fest was still a great way to spend a sunday morning. and, really, who doesn’t love a free sample?

cut to GFF 2009...

this morning, we arrived out in the west pole around 9:40am. doors open at 10, and we wanted to get a good spot in line so, despite the persistent drizzle, we trekked out and queued up.

now, a small word about the demographic at the GFF, at least as far as we’ve experienced: it’s a lot of suburban hausfraus and their respective broods, frequently carting along space-clogging buggies, suitcases-with-wheels or the like in which to haul their purchases. you know when you go to costco, and the entire perimeter around a sample table is taken up by obnoxious doughy moms with their obnoxious doughy kids, all obnoxiously clamouring for a dixie cup of iced tea or a napkin with a cracker on it with such a sense of rude entitlement that you’re tempted to tap them on the shoulder to say, “um, it’s just an oreo. calm down...”? imagine hundreds of them.

coincidentally, trix and i wound up behind just such a quartet of women as we waited to be let in. this factoid only matters because we ran into them again later.

at 10am and not a second before, security stepped aside and the flood (well, not so much a flood this year as a moderate tide) of food seekers made a run for the samples.

only... what the frick?

trix and i walked into the enormous hall and were shocked at how empty it looked. about a week ago, YB tried to dig up an exhibitor list – something that, in previous years, was readily available in any number of places – but came up empty. there was no list of participants to be found. this was odd, and she wondered if maybe it was a sign that this year’s festival would be decidedly lacking in the exhibitor department, and the organizers didn’t want the public to be the wiser that, say, ocean spray would no longer have a giant booth. neither would tropicana. forget cozy shack pudding, and don’t bother looking for the folks from dainty rice. long-time anchors were very noticeably absent, and where once booths were packed side-by-side there were now large gaps of space.

as we wandered though, we realized that a lot of the companies that had participated in the fest for years were missing in 2009. in fact, where the event had previously been an opportunity for big companies to shell out tons of freebies and even more good PR for themselves, it seemed to be dominated by smaller, more independent manufacturers this year.

which, one might assume, would be a good thing. giving the “little guy” some time in the spotlight. problem is, the “little guy” probably blew its budget just paying for space at the fest and, thus, has nothing left in the bank to afford sampling.

that’s right, at the 17th annual good food festival, good food that was also FREE good food was decidedly scarce. we used to get cupfuls of food, but this year it was more like capfuls. we used to get free full-size yogurt cups and pudding cups and the like. not this year. worse, a few companies were CHARGING for samples. this is in addition to a $14-per-adult admission fee! (thankfully, we had free tickets. had we actually paid to get in, we would have been in a blind rage by the time we left.) several times, we approached a tray-wielding individual or a table laden with samples, only to see or be told a variation on the following:

“we’re asking that you make a nominal donation. proceeds will go to (insert charity of choice here).”

sorry, what?

you want me to PAY for my free sample? and how do i know my “donation” is actually going where you say it’s going and not into the company coffers?

the GFF’s website says, right on its main page, “hundreds of FREE food and drink samples to taste.” they even CAPITALIZE the word “free.” and i’m not sure if they meant “hundreds” of samples in the cumulative sense of all the individual samples that would be handed out by all the vendors over the course of the weekend, because they certainly couldn’t have meant hundreds of different food items to try, or hundreds of different companies offering samples.

[and let’s not even get into the site’s further claims: “The Festival is all about food and LOTS of it!” really? maybe in 2005, but not today. and there was a cosmetics company hustling its products... what does that have to do with food???]

anyway, trix and i made brisk business of walking through. we sampled maybe, MAYBE, a dozen items each. that’s it.

oh, and remember the annoying women from the line-up at the outset? one of them cut in front of me in the line for a tiny bag of free roasted almonds. i scoffed, and she turned around and said to her friend (who was directly behind us), “hurry up.” then she looked at me and said, “sorry, but you two were chit-chatting away.”

?!

trixie and i had stopped – in a line that was BARELY moving as it was – to glance for a nanosecond at a display at the adjacent booth. but apparently this was FAR too long a moment in the eyes of this obnoxious woman whom i so very badly wanted to put in her place. instead i just kind of stared at her in disbelief, and she moved back behind us... then tried to get all friendly and chatty. i was having none of it. go away hausfrau and take your friends with you.

not surprisingly, we were peeved by the time we made our way back to the car. we were in and out and done in 35 minutes. 35 MINUTES! our complimentary tote bags – which would have carried a ton of free bags/boxes/bottles of stuff in years passed – were virtually empty. a handful of coupons, a single-serving bottle of mott’s clamato (ewwww), and a can of fruit punch. that’s it.

we wondered what the rest of the visitors, especially those who’d paid for admission, were thinking of the event and its decidedly sub-par showing in 2009. i have to believe at least a few them felt as cheated as we did.

we have thusly rechristened it, "the no food festival."

today's casualties: percival, in the upstairs hallway, with a slipper.