A supermarket festival

I couldn't not go to Auckland's Wine & Food Festival. So I went. It cost me $20 to get in and was a bit like paying to go to an outdoor supermarket. That's because it was sponsored by Foodtown - one of the supermarket chains in New Zealand - and was held outdoors.

So what's new in the crisp world? Tzatziki. Call me a wet weekend at a food festival but if I fancy yogurt and cucumber then I might have just that - separately. Crisps optional, on the side, and preferably plain. Just so you know for next time.

Well okay, there's also best-sellers prosciutto and brie crisps too. That's posh smoky bacon and cheese to me and you. Vegetarians get the green light though, as the prosciutto is cleverly simulated by flavourings. Let's just hope they didn't mix them up with the Parma ham flavourings, which wouldn't do at all.

What else? A ready-meal delight of butter chicken with rice which made numerous appearances in small plastic cups, mountainous cubes of cheese from all types of milk-giving animals (mainly cows and sheep really - the odd goat thrown in for fetta measure) and there was a baker who I later spied turning prawn kebabs in the adjoining tent.

On the plus side - some amazingly huge (note wine glass for helpful proportionate guide) hulks of roman bread called casareccio, made by an Italian restaurant called Aquamatta, who'd somehow managed to bypass the Foodtown connection and snuck in through the back gate. Each loaf was the size of a pillow, though try plumping it up and you'll break your hand - its crust is as rough as a rock. Apparently after a couple of days, it makes great bruschetta and breadcrumbs. The Italians never being ones to waste a crumb of bread.

And there was Freedom Farms who pioneered the production of free-range bacon in New Zealand. Lots of freshly fried bacon bites to be had - though they should have teamed up with Aquamatta's loaves if you ask me.

The best thing I ate - hot-house cherry tomatoes on sticks. Orange-red mouthfuls of tangy sweetness that tasted like food. And you can't beat a stick for its functional woody simplicity. Especially when it's handed to you on a plate.