A lot of my experience with food festivals isn’t from the attendee perspective. Looking back, much of it comes from working behind the scenes in capacities that ensure the ticketed folks have a good time. In high school, I played in the jazz band while Taste of Hawaii attendees sampled their way through the best of Pacific Rim cuisine. During my tenure at a creative agency, I churned out avocado smoothies or corralling chefs and foodie personalities at intimate to large scale food events across the country.
But come next week, I am really looking forward to participating in one of the West’s largest food and wine festivals as an attendee. I’ll be puttering around the Grand Tasting on Saturday, 11/18 as part of the culminating activities of the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival happening near the waterfront Downtown.
I’m particularly excited about bites and sips from the more than 60 San Diego based and cross-border restaurants, chefs and wineries. It’s been cloudy and chilly these days, which is uncharacteristic of our perpetually sunny corner of the country, so let’s hope for some status quo rays come next week.
The #SDBayFest as you’ll find on social media has been around for more than 10 years, and this year they’ve got some new events for those of us into the foodie scene, like:
- A screening of the documentary, Fermented
- Whisky + Wagyu at San Diego’s new steakhouse, Born & Raised
- Sushi & Sake
Cult Wines of Napa (which, if you are curious about how to help the community up North affected by the recent wildfires, the regional wine industry has banded together under the CA Wine Strong umbrella.
If you’ll be around America’s Finest City next week, or if you’re local to the area and are looking to indulge for the weekend, join me at the Grand Tasting on Saturday, 11/18. Snag a ticket at the fancy affiliate link the festival organizers provided me*: https://www.squadup.com/events/grand?aff=curious
See you there?
the curious passport 