The Good Food Festival

Disclaimer: the following blog entry is entirely fictional. The writer wishes to inform his readers that the "Good Food Festival" is wholly imaginary, and any resemblance to an actual food festival that takes place annually at the International Centre in Mississauga is quite unfortunate. If the "Good Food Festival" actually existed, this writer would never tell you about it out of a selfish desire to limit the already daunting crowds of people (who again, remember, are merely figments of the writer's imagination.) Read at your own risk.

We paid $12.00 to get in. Before we'd even entered the hall, we were each given a bag containing $14.00 worth of coupons and at least that much free merchandise. This is the kind of place where you expect a phantom narrator to break in over the hubbub and intone "If life were really like that, you wouldn't need your Visa card."
You don't need your Visa card here. Here you need three things: starvation, stamina, and strength.
The starvation is simple. Don't come here full. Come here prepared to gnaw the arsehole out of a dead camel. About the only place you'll ever score more free food is an all-inclusive cruise, which costs easily 200 times the admission to this Festival.
The strength and stamina are important, too. For the floors are concrete and the swag bags can get heavy after a time. This year one vendor was giving out five pound bags of potatoes. Besides all the free loot, all the vendors have their stuff on sale, some of it at astonishing prices. And then there are all the coupons...this year we got nearly a hundred dollars' worth, most of which we will actually redeem at some point.
Every year, an item has caught our attention at this show and instantly entered the Breadner grocery list. Last year's wonder product is called Reynolds Release. You can cook anything on this tinfoil and it won't stick. It's fantastic.
This year brought several items that we will buy, including Ocean Spray Light Grape, Crystal Light Tangerine-Grapefruit, and Swanson Carb-Meter Dinners (these were surprisingly delicious, and we have nine $1.00 off coupons for them).
Then there are the vendors you make a beeline for. Astro was giving out cups of Biobest yogurt. Kozy Shak, a perennial vendor, gives out full size puddings. Nestle was there this year, distributing little cups of Real Dairy ice cream.
Every year, too, there are things to avoid at all costs. The problem is, you don't know you were supposed to avoid these things until you try them. Call me stupid: every year I go around gulping down a bunch of soy products in the vain hope that one of them won't taste like hay-vomit. How in the hell do people drink this shit? I tried a chocolate soy drink once. If you drink it really fast, and it's really cold, and you suppress your gag reflex and ignore the farmy aftertaste, you can almost convince yourself that this was, at one time, something that considered itself to be an ersatz approximation of chocolate milk. Almost.
We are trying to continually improve our diet, eating more vegetables and vegetarian choices. So last year, we noticed one vendor sampling veggie hot dogs. I won't name this company, on the grounds they could sue for slander: these things are, quite simply, disgusting. You'd have to pay me a substantial amount to make me eat one of those things again. And then you'd have to double it to get me not to puke afterwards.
But even the gross things are just part of the fun. Admit it: at one time you've either forced somebody to try something foul or been forced yourself.

At this food festival, there are also demonstrations and culinary cookoffs, but we never bother with these...just steer me to the free stuff, okay?

The Good Food Festival: it's a wonderful thing.

Having whetted our appetite we then proceeded to the Town and Country Buffet, a place known far and wide, recommended to me by a couple of different people at work.
This place wasn't bad at all. Like the festival we'd just left, the Town and Country has a seemingly endless variety. When you have this many dishes on a buffet, some of them are bound to be amazing. And they were: I particularly recommend the roast beef, the crepes, and the fried chicken.
The downside here was the seating arrangements. At any time I expected the manager to come by and ask if he could build another table just over our heads. I had more room eating a meal the last time I was on a plane, for God's sake. The Town and Country could use a little more country.
By the time I finished eating, breathing had become a painful chore. Somehow I don't think I'll be having dinner tonight...