A Taste of Excellence

Today's blog-worthy event was the Wegmans' Taste of Excellence event. About a month ago I received an invitation to this happening, and thought it sounded interesting so I called for my reservation. The event was simply promoted as an opportunity to sample about 70 different frozen or refrigerated foods from various vendors, with some wine tasting thrown in for good measure. The event was free so off we went hoping to get enough food to call it dinner. 

Having no idea what to expect as we drove to the Wegmans Conference Center in Chili, we were excited by the number of other cars arriving for this event. Upon walking into the Conference Center we had to turn in our invitation card, which served as our entry form for the drawing for a freezer to be given away. We were also given a Wegmans re-usable shopping bag (99 cent value) with coupons, a note pad and pen included. We then turned the corner into the large conference hall and were amazed with the large area filled with vendors giving out samples of their food. Oh, where to start?! We moved around sampling things that looked good to us. We ate (or drank) summer sausage, cheese (at least 3 different kinds), meatballs, ravioli, popcorn shrimp, pomegranate juice, garden burgers,

hummus, ice-cream, cookies, turkey wraps, ham wraps, OJ, yogurt, chimichangas, eclairs, tortilinins (sp?), hot dogs, veggies, sherbet, pizza, pannini, chip dip, hash browns, etc. I'm sure I missed some things, but that is all I can remember. Oh, and we washed it all down with a couple of sample sized cups of Reisling wine - on a school night!! The event was well-attended, but never so crowded that I got frustrated. There were chefs doing demos at each end of the room, but we did not sit down for their presentations. We saw a few people we knew (Corey, see Ms. Vanham's photo below. She said, "Hi!"). 

On the  way out I asked about the history of the event and was told that this was the 4th or 5th time that Wegmans has hosted this event, but the first year it has been on the west side of the city. Jim estimates that there may have been 500 people there, which was a comfortable size for the space and the number of vendor stations (about 70). It was a fun evening and I still need to go through all the coupons and booklets that were given out to see what we got. We brought home a few sample sizes of string cheese, yogurt and milk so we will enjoy those in the next couple of

 days. I will probably never get another invitation because of the large number of people from which Wegmans can invite, so I am happy we got to go this time. And, if you are wondering, we had more than enough to eat! We got full before we sampled everything we might have like to try. 

I must have had a 24 hour cold, because I feel much better now than I did last night when I went to bed. Hopefully, I'll be back to 100 % in the next day or two. 

We only had 34 trick or treaters last night - which must be a new low for us. Jim had to

 take a couple pounds of candy into work with him this morning. Anybody have a good Halloween story to share? Leave me a comment, if you do. 

Tomorrow is Friday and as usual, we are looking forward to our weekend plans, which I will share in tomorrow's entry. 

November 1st-Wow, time flies when you are having fun. I've put a poll question in the upper left hand corner of the blog about your Christmas shopping. Go ahead and make me feel bad by telling me how much you have already done. Or maybe I'll find out that I am not alone as I have not even started yet!

Hope all is well.