Life is pretty much back to normal, I’m sure we all feel this. One sign is the return of the annual America’s Food and Beverage Show & Conference that more than fills our convention center. For some forgettable reason, I missed last year’s show, so I just had to attend this past week to see what I could see, and taste, and take home … plenty! (See 24 Sept 2019 post for previous reportage.) Among the many, many commodities from many parts of the world and corners of our nation, several items stood out.

Olive Oil. Lots of purveyors of olive oil offered their goods. I still wonder what my mother purchased 60 years ago at Stamoulis Brothers in Pittsburgh. At that time extra virgin olive oil did not exist; I guess she just got first-pressed. Of course, lots of the lovely oils and even varieties of olives came from Italy and Spain. Then there was the Turkish olive oil. 

This lobster olive oil from Canada caught my eye; apparently olive oil infused with something from the lobster.

I was most interested in the Native American produced olive oil (https://www.sekahills.com/), from California, of course! They’ve got quite a variety of products, give them a look. I support my Greek oils, but I would love to try this very American product.

Native American products.

I always look forward to seeing these items. Usually the bison meat is the centerpiece. The Minnesota wild rice caught my eye. It is such an amazing natural food, unlike anything else.

Salmon and salmon products from Washington State, the Lummi Seafood Market (https://www.lummiseafoodmarket.com/) were the centerpiece of the booth.

Honey. One of the first booths I passed was Queen of America, honey from Florida (https://queenofamerica.com/). Honey is such another great natural food. Local honey is supposed to be the best as the bees harvest pollen from local plants, the stuff that makes us sneeze. Other distributors came from different parts of the world.

I could not take my eyes off this cute little truck advertising BonBeeHoney

(https://honeybunchies.com/). Their delicious, all natural Honey Bar, not a protein bar, was featured on Shark Tank. I tried it and it’s really delicious snack.

Coffee and tea. Came from many places in many shapes and forms. Twigs Naturals brought a variety of herbal teas and more from Trinidad. https://twigsnaturals.com/the-process/

Tea was only one of the products BeeMax for Turkey showed https://beemax.us/. They also had honey as might be expected.

Move over Juan Valdez who promoted Colombian coffee on tv for many years! This lovely lady in colorful clothing is now selling this delicious product!

I could not resist a taste of Conker Coffee Liquor, distilled in Dorset from beans from Brazil and Ethiopia.

Which leads from South America to Africa represented by Ethiopian coffee and teas and more from Senegal and Benin.

There was so much more; I’ll begin again another day to share those. But to close with a observation of clothing. This lady was representing Ghana‘s Organic Products. Her dress is a beautiful presentation of the Adinkra print, Agyindawuru, a symbol of faithfulness, alertness, and dutifulness. It commemorates a dutiful servant of the Asantehene, the king of the Asante.