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| Welcome to Hatch Fenway |
This month's Mass Innovation Nights host,
Hatch Fenway, provided not only a huge space but also great views and a swing set. Despite the huge space, the event was jam-packed. It was quite a crowd. Glad I grabbed a quick sip of green juice from the juice-support provider, Suja, on the way in the door.
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| Suja Providing Juice Support for the Event |
With 11 companies displaying products plus a full Expert Corner, there was a lot to see and taste. Products ranged from fantastic Vietnamese juices to a soup CSA.
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| XOI Juices |
My first stop was for more juice. I tasted two flavors of the Gac juice from
XOI.
Wow! What great tastes! They explained to me that Gac, a fruit I had
not heard of before, has more beta-carotene than carrots and more
lycopene than tomatoes. I really enjoyed both flavors that I tasted, and I signed up for their email list.
Realizing that I wouldn't be able to check out everything, I prioritized and went in search of the four chosen presenters:
Vera Roasting,
Stuffed Cookies,
Banana Samba, and
ShotCakes.
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| Delicious Coffee with Resveratrol |
Imagine the much-publicized health benefits of red wine in a cup of coffee! CoffVee from Vera Roasters is infused with resveratrol, an antioxidant found in the skins of red grapes, which is responsible for the so-called French Paradox. The French eat lots of cheese and butter and other fatty foods and yet have less cardiovascular disease because they get resveratrol from drinking red wine. I had a nice hot cup of CoffVee dark roast and enjoyed the taste as much as many another dark roast blend I've tasted.
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| Sara Serving Awesome Cookies |
Sara's "Stuffed Cookies" are so good that I had a hard time choosing whether to vote for
Sara Ran Away with the Spoon
or XOI Juices. The cookies got my vote, but it was really close. The
mint chocolate chip cookie I tried had a scrumptious peppermint inside.
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| Banana Samba |
Banana Samba is a Brazilian treat made from banana, pure cane sugar, and lime juice, or in the "no sugar added" version just banana and lime juice. I tried the no sugar added version. It's chewy and satisfyingly sweet.
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| Team ShotCakes |
Who could pass up a fresh-baked cupcake with ice cream inside? ShotCakes takes "cake and ice cream" to a new level. I tried a "Birthday Cake" one and I hereby give it my seal of approval.
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| Maca-Nut |
Maca-Nut tasted much like other chocolate peanut butters that I've tasted but with a little more depth and a smoother, more robust mouth feel. The essential ingredient in Maca-Nut is Peruvian maca flavored with 100% cocoa liquor. The only sweetener is unrefined brown Coconut Palm sugar.
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| Raduno Soups |
Raduno Soup CSA is monthly soup service. All soups are made with homemade from scratch stock and fresh ingredients. Because I'm vegetarian, I didn't sample the beef-based soup but I heard other attendees saying "Mmmmmmmm" so I'm guessing it was good.
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| TBD Foods - Best Costume |
TBD Foods caters farm to table dinner parties for small groups. You can even host the dinner party in your home. With so many teams rocking matching T-shirts, it was difficult to choose a Best Costume of MINFoodie10, but I thought team TBD's shirts were the most "foodie" so I hereby award them Best Costume.
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| Vera Roasting's CoffVee Collecting the Well-Deserved Prizes |
The Expert Corner was buzzing all evening. The folks from Toast, a restaurant technology platform, posed for the traditional Experts Looking Expert photo. |
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| Experts Looking Expert |
