Canada's Baking and Sweets Show

During the last weekend of September, the second Canada's Baking and Sweets Show was occurring at the International Centre. The show offered classes, competitions, and celebrity appearances.

We were very lucky to have been invited as guests from Delta to attend. Their booth showcased various Touch2O technology faucets. We also got to meet some of the friendly representatives of the company!

Look at how easy it is to use! That faucet is similar to the model we installed!

As we wandered the show floor, we came upon one of the baking competition showcases. These cakes were all entered for the wedding cake category.

A cake that looks like a wedding dress! Very impressive, love how the top looks so realistic.

Bubbles! How do they make those?

This was the winning cake. We have to agree, this cake showed the most variety of skill! The intricate flowers and piping is just mind blowing. Congratulations Beatriz!

The Canadian Living demonstration stage.

Mmm, love Purdy's Chocolates. What a fountain!

The Sweet Candy Creation booth. I don't think I would ever turn down a Ferrero Rocher bouquet.

Mad Batter Bakers had a nice homey booth. Decorated cookies everywhere!

A glitzy cupcake tower from Lavish Cupcakes.

Quite in awe of Tortine & Vanille's cupcake presentation. I think we'll have to make a trip to their shop.

They had push cupcake pops and mini donuts!

Yes, please let us eat cake.

A Christmas display from St. Phillips Bakery - another one we'll have to visit!

The Redpath Sugar booth. Here's Chef Christophe Measson and Chef Logan Prong working a demo.

Redpath Sugar even brought over a few museum items, look at how sugar packets have evolved!

A savoury and sweet tower from Select Bakery.

A churro machine from Pancho's Bakery!

The Food Network SugarStars were there on Friday. Here's a look at their Halloween dessert table. Silver macarons? Purple pumpkins?

Apples and popcorn? Trick or treat!

Another baking competition. This was the themed category - Christmas!

Snoopy!

Sweet Christmas tree.

And the winning cake! Oh my goodness. The time it must have taken to make that carousel. And window scene. And the base is even decorated.

There's a hundred more photos on our facebook page if you'd like to see more!

Installing a new faucet

A publicity representative for Delta Faucet contacted us about testing and reviewing their kitchen faucets with Touch2O technology. By simply touching the faucet, water will begin to flow! The thinking behind this is meant to be out of convenience when your hands are messy from prepping and cooking.

We thought this was pretty neat and agreed to give it a try (our previous faucet was getting old and leaky anyways). Looking through the choices - Delta Trinsic, Delta Pilar, and Delta Addison) - we decided on the Trinsic model in an Arctic Stainless finish. Because of where our kitchen sink is located, we have cabinets above. This posed a problem as the faucet reached fifteen inches high, meaning it would barely fit without hitting our cabinets, we didn't have enough clearance! Kindly, Delta agreed to send us the Trinsic Bar/Prep model for review since it was only thirteen inches tall.

I never knew there were so many factors in picking out a faucet! There are 1 to 4 hole installations and you have to take into consideration if your sink is top mount or under mount. Then of course there are the many features of the faucet itself, like flow rate and if you want a pull-down hose. You can probably tell by reading this that this was our first faucet upgrade experience!

The Trinsic faucet came neatly packaged, all the pieces we needed were supplied. The only things we did need (and luckily had) were a flashlight, adjustable wrenches, and a Phillips screwdriver. Oh, there was one other crucial thing I needed - my dad!

My dad and I both read the instructions, he was probably more excited than I was and had started to piece some of the equipments together. When we were pretty confident that we knew what we had to do, we tackled our first step.

Uninstalling the old faucet.

This was probably the most challenging part. We cleared the storage area under the sink, gave it a good wipe down, and turned off the water in the house. We waited a few minutes for all the water to drain out and my dad crawled under the sink to take a look. With a few twists and pulls, we managed to disengage the old faucet.

We have an under mount sink, but don't worry, the instruction booklet was very clear and gave instructions for both types of sink.

Ta-dah! We touched the faucet to turn on the water and tested for leaks - none! The installation was a success and technically took us under an hour. Well it would have been, it actually took two, but only because the phone rang and hour-long phone conversations ensued. (Live tweets: 1, 2, 3, and 4.) My dad said that it was really easy and told me to make sure I include that in my post. So here it is, the installation was really easy!

Check out the two water streams! There's a little black switch on the pull-down hose that allows you to switch to an aerated mode. I'm calling it the shower mode.

So now we've had over a week of getting used to the Touch20 technology. We have to pull the handle on the right to unlock the water. Leaving the handle in that position allows us to touch the spout or the handle to activate the water flow. It is also indicated by the blue light at the base. At night or in between meals, we lock it at "off" so that nothing (like a fly) will come by and turn on our water!

My mom did have to troubleshoot when she wore rubber gloves - it's not as sensitive, but she claims that it works if you tap the faucet a little harder.

Overall, I have found that it is helpful when you've got your hands full. A quick touch with the wrist or arm and I've got water! The only thing to note, and it could be that we have older pipes, is that I can now hear a jolt when water is activated.

Disclaimer: A publicity representative for Delta Faucet contacted us about their kitchen faucets with Touch2O technology. No incentives were used to produce a positive review. No monetary exchange took place. All opinions are our own.