Fandom Fest Food Faintly Fails

I hadn’t intended to write about the food this weekend, but the fantabulous Jen Christopherson asked, and I obey!

We stayed at The Galt House. Now, when I tell you that, you might think, “Wow! Bet she had some glorious feasts there! They have, like, WAY fancy restaurants at The Galt House!” Substitute the word “expensive” for the word “fancy”, and then guess whether or not I ate at any of them.

Right.

Now, since my room mates, T. Lee Harris and Ginny Fleming, also members of the Southern Indiana Writers and of Hydra Publications, and I are veterans of conventions, we took our own food. Since the GH is accustomed to booze hounds, there was a fridge in the room. Since it’s accustomed to big spenders, there was not a microwave. So we et, but we et cold.

T made and sliced a beautiful beef brisket (delicious cold) and brought a side of the mushrooms and onions she cooked with it (not so nice cold). She also brought a lovely gluten-free pasta salad made with brown rice pasta. She brought some coffee concentrate which we could top off with hot water from my electric kettle.

Ginny brought much tea and coffee bags, so we never had to go without caffeine, chocolate, and, as she said, “Cheeeeeese, Grommit!”

I also brought chocolate and coffee (do you notice a kind of little pattern here? Hmmm?), cheese, chicken stewed with onions and marsala wine, fresh dill pickles, homemade mayonnaise, and ladoo, which I’m posting about today at Fatal Foodies.

The Fest had no Hospitality Suite with free snacks and sodas, which most sf/fantasy conventions have, at least for the panelists, nor did the Convention Center. Our exhibition hall, where we sold our books, was so far from our room, we couldn’t go back to eat during the day, so had to forage in the Convention Center. For a place named YUM!, the food was singularly meh.

T and I did get very nice salads at one little stand, though, at a price we could bear. And there was a café actually IN the exhibition hall that had the Best. Fries. Ever. They must have fried them in lard or something, because they were absolute heaven: pillowy soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, and never got soggy right to the end. I suspect witchcraft was involved.

After all the meat and cheese I had this weekend, I was actually very glad to have cereal and veg all day today. I never thought I would MISS veg, but I’ve reached that point.