It was my first time attending EAT! Vancouver, the World Culinary Travel Expo, but it certainly will not be the last. Held under the dome at BC Place Stadium, the event showcases a wonderful array of food and products, such as knives, cookware, garlic graters and other assorted gadgets.What I enjoyed most was the opportunity to talk with culinary entrepreneurs, people who have started small food-related businesses. People such as Rachna Prasad and her mother, Rekha, who gave their product line the wonderful name of “Gourmantra.” Based in Toronto, the company makes it possible for any kitchen klutz to cook up authentic Indian meals in 30-minutes. I sampled their butter chicken, and it was as tasty as any I’d find in numerous good Indian restaurants. Rachna told me I’d need to purchase at least $30 worth of spices in order to duplicate their recipe from scratch. The box of ingredients retails for less than $4, and it includes the rice. All you add it chicken, and it makes four servings. The women of Gourmantra were only two of many exhibitors with fascinating offerings. For example, I loved the motto of Kitikmeot Foods, based in Nunavut. They promote muskox meat and Arctic char by reminding that “wild is the original organic.” Regetfully, this Inuit company doesn’t have a website at the moment.

I enjoyed chatting with Donna Livelton whose BC Coastal Grilling Planks company markets cedar planks on which to cook succulent salmon. The cedar they use is cleverly salvaged from discards of a Vancouver Island sawmill.

Malgorzata Rose and her husband came to Vancouver all the way from Montana to stir up enthusiasm for culinary vacations to her native Poland. In late July she’ll be taking a group to experience hands-on and demonstration cooking lessons as well as vodka and beer tastings and art and architecture tours.

I had at least six other conversations with a half a dozen other fascinating foodies, as well as nibbling on such tidbits as picked German gooseberries, potato chips seasoned with Himalayan salt, chocolatey almond butter, yellow organic carrots and luscious green walnut and grappa preserves.