Vendor Fair

A couple of weeks ago the local Celiac Support group held a vendor fair. It was amazing and huge!! I came away with a ton of information, gluten free samples to last me weeks, and some great ideas for food. The 70+ vendors ranged from things like local restaurants, country-wide grocery chains, local catering, or people just selling their product. Here are a few of my favorite finds...

 Whole Foods - I already shop at Whole Foods for some things. I had noticed that they had a store brand line of gluten free food. I never wanted to try because I wasn't sure how reliable it was. However, here's what I found out. Everything in the Whole Foods gluten free line is processed and packaged in a seperate facility, so it is completely safe. I was so excited to find this out because now I have a whole new line of stuff to try.

Gluten Free Catering/Bakery - There are tons of gluten free catering and bakery companies, especially locally! (Be sure to check their practices though.) I always wondered what I would do for big events (ie. wedding), now I know there are some options around.

Celiaccess - This cute local couple has started a website, celiaccess.com. I think that if people take advantage of this new resource that it could make living a gluten free diet so much easier. You can look up any product on this website and get information about it's status of being gluten free or not. This includes resources on where the information was found and what makes it gluten free or not. Here's the thing though. Products are put on by other people. So, once you find out about a product that you like, put it on celiaccess.

Like I said before, there were tons of samples there. I am not going to go into everything I tried but here are the two things that I found that I liked.

Pamela's Cookies - I tried one of Pamela's mixes before and I really didn't like it, so I was skeptical about trying Pamela's cookies. However, they were delicious. I tried several kinds. My two favorites were the Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chunk and the Mini Ginger Snaps. While I did enjoy these cookies, I am trying to stay away from sugary things (I'm not going to lie though, I really fell off that bandwagon with Halloween, oh well) so I'll probably won't eat them very often.

Bakery on Main Granola - I have always wanted to try this granola, but never had the courage to. It's not like regular granola, there are no oats. I tried 3 different kinds and they were all delicious!! I will definitely be getting them again. My favorite was the Extreme Fruit and Nut. Here's why... I love hazelnuts! So imagine my joy when I pour a handful of granola in my mouth and bite down to have the taste of hazelnut fill my mouth. That moment made me entire week!! So, that was the vendor fair. Definitely worth my entire morning. I can't wait till next year!!