Candy at the Winter 2017 Fancy Food Show

Nassau Candy had a huge display of their many candies. I took a lot of pictures, but they mysteriously disappeared from my phone and I couldn't find them in the cloud, either. Their website doesn't list their customers, but they carry many name brand confections and other products, so I'm sure you're buying from their customers, especially if you live near a distribution center, as Tea Time does. Take a look at their website for pictures of everything. You might be inspired to try something new.

Ghirardelli featured their caramel chips. Tea Time makes our own caramel, but this beats cutting it up into tiny pieces and rushing to mix them into our cookie dough before they spread!

I don't remember anything about these, except that they were delicious!

Doscher's Old-Fashioned Candy Canes are the best!

Unfortunately they don't make crushed candy canes, but these pieces are a start. A plastic freezer bag and my hammer and I'll have peppermint marshmallows. The French Chews are good, too, although not suited for inclusion in cookies or marshmallows. Also available as bars.  Just eat them. They'll keep you from finishing off the marshmallows as you cut them.

Fun packaging for the holiday season

We still miss Toffee Talk, and thought we'd have to make our own. Then we discovered Enstrom's.

  

Gerrit Verburg was back with my (and the Doctor's) favorites:  Jelly Babies and Licorice Allsorts, plus the rest of their lines. You can find their candies (plus much, much more, including old favorites) at The Candy Store in San Francisco.

Jelly Babies, Licorice Allsorts and Gumbites from Gerrit Verburg

More Licorice Goodies from Gerrit Verburg

Dagoba, a formerly local brand now manufactured by Hershey's (along with Scharffen Berger chocolate) gave me the most amazing press kit of the show.  A cute little shopping bag was filled with three full-size products:  cocoa powder, chocolate drops, and a xocolatl bar! See an update from Beth, our expert on spicy things, here. Angela and I are not fond of anything too hot. I was so amazed by this generosity that I forgot to ask for a press kit from the Scharffen Berger folks at the other end of the counter!

Amano Artisan Chocolate, a Tea Time favorite, had their own booth this year. With some artisan chocolatiers, we have to taste everything to find out which bars we like, but not Amano. We like everything they make.

This is the current selection of Amano bars at Fog City News in San Francisco, where you can find artisan chocolate, greeting cards, and calendars in addition to a great selection of magazines and newspapers, and also load your Clipper Card.

Handmade by Huffkins

I met the folks from Huffkins at the Fancy Food Show, where they were introducing their excellent fruitcake to the United States. This is not your usual doorstop fruitcake. This is cake with fruit, in several different combinations: Apricot & Almond, Cherry & Pecan, Chocolate & Orange, Date & Walnut and Cranberry and Cointreau. My favorite, of course, is the Chocolate & Orange, but really, they're all delicious.

  

Excellent with a cup of tea

Halloween at the StrEat Food Park (2012)

Tea Time likes to eat before the crowd arrives, so we beat it down to the SoMa StrEat Food Park "Truck or Treat" Party before the sun set. A little early for the dance party, but the perfect time to grab a table and nosh down some eats. We made a pit stop at the beverage cart first thing to test out the "pumpkin sangria". It was right next to the beer table which was doing a brisk business. Most people were getting their first "free" beer. (You could snatch a second free beer if you hit up the Lyft staff and got a token.) The sangria was tasty, but didn't have any real pumpkin flavor. There was only citrus fruit in the cup. Angela, however, is inspired by their idea and will attempt to create a true Pumpkin Sangria using homemade pumpkin syrup, and tossing cubes of cooked pumpkin in with some apples and pomegranate seeds. Seasonal deliciousness.

Beverages truck.

$4 "Pumpkin" Sangria.

Drive for Lyft and get mustache $$$.

That's right! There was FREE BEER! 

Picnic your hearts out Halloween freaks!

The weather was a bit drizzly, but there was a nice section of picnic tables covered by a roof. On the sides were smaller areas totally protected from the elements. A+ The music was cranked up for the dance party, but it seemed a bit premature since most people there wanted to talk and eat. As we were leaving it was starting to fill up, so talking would no longer be necessary. Just shake that booty as sign language.

We wandered around, sipping our sangria, looking at what trucks were on the menu. Most of these trucks were new to us at Tea Time, which is pretty impressive considering the amount of OTG eating that we have done since Food Trucks started to really blitz this city. When we got to this truck and perused the picture menu we were stopped in our tracks. The KRAKEN? Sounds so delightfully Johnny Depp! Fried soft shell crab, crisp crunchy seaweed with bacon, And we added an egg? Holy cow, this drippy umami sandwich is worthy of National Sandwich Day for sure! Heck we think it should even make the Thrillist Top 10! (but we think they've already decided) This sandwich is a bit pricey, but it has quite a lot of ingredients. It was worth a try for sure. Next time this truck is around we want to get the loaded waffle fries.

The KRAKEN! You need a fork for the detritus at the end.

The Kraken came from here! Adam's Grub Truck.

While the Kraken was excellent we needed more to make up a dinner. So Angela went to grab these Garlicky Scallion Homefries while JK held down our half of the picnic table. The taste of garlic was strong, we didn't have to worry about Vampires, that's for sure! Our only request would be for more uniformly sized fries. Some were about half a potato while other slices were only 1/3 as big and it was a little awkward to eat the large ones. Fries should not need a knife in our nit-picky plastic fork world.

Garlicky scallion home style fries.

Let's Eat Grill Stop Truck. 

Of course you know Tea Time needs to get some salad! There weren't many on offer at the SOMA StrEat Food Park Halloween night, but this one sounded promising. A Caramelized Fennel and Arugula Salad. Angela is not big on licorice flavors, but caramelized fennel seemed like a tasty idea. This salad had a Lot of Arugula in addition to bits of fresh Valencia orange, and a  sherry vinaigrette dressing. There was not much fennel in our salad. Perhaps expectations were high after the Kraken and Homefries. We think they also serve this salad with quinoa, and that might make all the difference with contrasting flavors and textures.

Arugula, Arugula, well, Arugula.

Fuki served us a very green salad.

Most of these treats came from Let's Eat Grill Stop who were very generous and handed out goodie bags. The other trucks treated us to one piece each (or none).

Trucker Treat!

Most generous candy giver!!

This event was fun. Tea Time could see it was just revving up as the night got deeper and darker, but we had to run to our next event (full social calendar people! We don't share Everything with you). We couldn't stay to dance the night away, but with skee ball, beer, food and space to dance it sounds like Johnny Funcheap should be proud. We hope you do it again next year!

Costume WINNER in our book!

Lots of costumes! A roof out of the rain. All good things.

The party organizer was Mr. Funcheap. Was he the robot?

A note to Johnny Funcheap--Thanks for keeping the event cost free! You only paid money if you wanted to eat, drink or skeeball (which was $1) so if you came full and, well, happy, you could enjoy a great Halloween spectacle without paying a penny. Cool.

Pumpkin Patch ready for the Swap!

I got inspired to make these sweets as my offering for the Food Swap during our trip to LA! While there, we visited Dylan's Candy Bar West and they had some Chocolate Covered Candy Corn. Last year I made my first foray into homemade Candy Corn and it turned out pretty good. This time around I knew how to work out the kinks, so it was much simpler and I got it done quickly which was nice.

I made Pumpkins instead of Candy Corn, both for cuteness and ease of covering in chocolate. JK was kind enough to let me mess around with her tempering machine since I have not mastered tempering by hand (hence the rustic truffles, not shiny ones, that I made for the swap in August).

Here is the recipe I used (Gasp, recipe! I know, but I only made it once before and since I'm swapping I wanted to avoid mistakes. Candy making can be a more exacting science, esp. if thermometers are involved) which may or may not be the same I used last year. Anyhow, thanks to Serious Eats for always being there when I need a recipe (or sandwich).

Here's how my gorgeous sweet pumpkin patch came into being, using simple ingredients and a little time.

Dry ingredients, powdered milk+powdered sugar mixed.

Sweet Stuff, light corn syrup+butter+cane sugar

Letting it bubble, but make sure to stir!

Add your flavor, in this case Vanilla. Last year I made Cinnamon and Peppermint as well.

I add the food coloring while it's still hot in the pan. It's much easier to fold into the candy then!

I dump the still warm candy lump onto the parchment paper. Less mess in the pan later.

PUMPKINS!

I also made some orange balls without their green stem so they could be dipped in chocolate. Then the stem is added on top. I promise they're not "rotten". Just an "heirloom varietal".

Dipping the orange pumpkin balls.

 Yummy finished product to be presented at the Swap Tuesday night. Don't spend $9/lb on your candy corn, get your sugar rush on and share the wealth this Halloween! You've got time to get it done.

Also in this picture--one homemade chocolate covered marshmallow. See JK for more details...