Sydney Food and Wine Fair 2010

The Sydney Food and Wine Fair is an event which marks the end of the Sydney International Food Festival for another year and is also for a great cause, with proceeds of the event going towards the Aids Trust of Australia. It was a great event last year with high-end restaurants like Quay and Guillaume at Bennelong offering up some of their signature dishes as well as lots of freebies, so I was definitely looking forward to it this year.

In the queue for free Ben and Jerry's ice cream!

It was a hot day so we were so glad to see the colourful Ben and Jerry's van parked inside Hyde Park, with people scooping up some Ben and Jerry's ice cream for the masses. The queue was pretty long but it was worth the wait :)

Strawberry cheesecake Ben and Jerry's ice cream

Ben & Jerry's, Manly

Did someone say free ice cream?

How could I resist the lure of a Scoop-A-Thon at the newly opened Ben & Jerry's at Manly, especially when that day was forecast to be 35ºC! I joined Suze, Yas, The Ninja's body double, Shez, Richard and Rose for some serious ice-cream eating.

We joined the ever present queue and waited for our turn while the Ben & Jerry's people held competitions giving away free cooler bags and other merchandise. While we were in the queue we decided which flavours to get using these handy flavour cards.

We got our ice creams and sat outside the store where they had installed some fresh grass on the pavement, and we tried and tested all the flavours. My favourite was without a doubt the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough aka Peanut Cookie-Burra Dough! The salty peanut butter with the sweet ice cream was the most amazing combination ever! Phish Food (which doesn't contain any fish food) as also a close second with melty marshmallow bits in the chocolate ice cream.

Clockwise from top: Berry Berry Extraordinary, Chocolate Therapy, Lemonade Stand, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Chocolate Macadamia, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Lemonade Stand.