Best $20 I've Spent All Year

Yesterday Ruth, Erin and I went to The Food Show in Auckland. It. Was. Awesome. I had never seen so much variety of delicious food before! Like seriously. It beats even hotel buffets. Well, it's a lot cheaper, that's why. =)
I paid $20 for it, and at first I thought that was quite a lot considering all we get were free samples and you still had to buy the food. I just thought it was another experience to put under my belt in Auckland. If there weren't much to shout about, I just won't go next year. *shrug*

So we went in, bright and early, at 10 am when the doors opened. Boy, where there a LOT of food and wine! It was amazingly delicious. The first bite of sausage I had was pure heaven. And then the wine. And then the tea. And then the chocolates. And within the first hour, I was already a pretty happy girl. We went to watch the Donna Hay No Time To Cook cook show and it made me want to cook! (and have kids to cook for). By the 2nd hour I had already figured my $20 was worth it.
Then Ruth said "Ok, shall we move on to the next hall?". There was another hall? Here's a picture of the floor plan. It turned out, Hall One was the smallest hall out of 3! Oh, boy. I think that moment of realisation completely made my week!
So we ventured into hall 2, arms linked, with Ruth as our Navigator and Captain of our Plan of Attack. And the first stall I saw in Hall 2 was this. 42 Below Vodka. Ah...$20 very very well spent. *giggles with glee*And so it went on. There were biscuits with the widest selection of dips and pesto you can think of. Cheese from all over the world. Goat cheese too. NZ Natural ice cream, absolutely FREE. Big, generous chunks of Rocky Road chocolate. More wine. More vodka and irish cream. Most delicious hot chocolate ever. Even more smoking hot sausages. Barbecued lamb. Amazingly tasty Indian cuisine. Superb pasta. Even mussels!
There's no saying how happy I was. =) I was absolutely stuffed. With free samples! I was floating by the end of it. Probably from all the alcohol. But really, I have made a promise to myself to do The Food Show again next year. And the year after if I am still here.
At 5.15, when we finally decided we cannot stuff anything more down our throats, we finally left the show. And we left as 3 very very happy, very very blissful girls.

*grins big and wide*

For more photos, click here.