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Four things from the All Things Organic trade show and conference, which wrapped up today at McCormick Place:

* You won't find Cloud Top frozen yogurt in stores, nor will you find a Cloud Top store anywhere yet. And that's a bummer.

* Toats Organic Snacks. Is it a cookie? Is it a cracker? Is it a horse biscuit? The answer: all of the above.

* B.R.A.T. Ricemilk. Parents (those whose kids have ever had stomach flu), this is for you.

* And a tea tip from Shashank Goel, owner of Ineeka, a tea company based in Chicago (which just came out with a green tea beer): Most teas contain so-called natural flavors. Beware. "People say, 'Smell this, what a great tea.' That's basically the worst tea you're getting," Goel says. "When you pour the hot water, that's when the aroma should come out."

More on Cloud Top, Toats and B.R.A.T. after the jump.

As expected, attendance at this year's National Restaurant Association show took a hit. The show, which closed Tuesday at McCormick Place, drew 54,000 attendees, a 24 percent drop from 2008, the association said.

A bright spot: The International Wine, Spirits and Beer portion of the show logged a 13 percent increase in attendance.

Some we spoke to said that though the show floor wasn't shoulder to shoulder as in years past, the buyers and restaurant professionals who were there were serious about doing business -- which is what the industry needs.

We're not big caramel fans. If we're in a sweet snack mode, we usually turn to chocolate first.

But there are exactly two caramels out there that one should always save stomach space for: Katherine Anne Confections and Das Caramelini.

We first met Katherine Duncan and her little pillows of goodness back in 2006, when she was slinging Potbelly sandwiches while trying to make a go of the confections business. (She's gone and done it -- her products are in Whole Foods, among other places.)

This week at the All Candy Expo, we met Katie Das (below) and her husband, Dhruba, of Das Foods.

For a decade, the Ukraine native toiled as a food scientist for Kraft and Wrigley before breaking out on her own in 2006. She had been inspired while on a trip to France with her husband; they fell in love with salted caramels given to them at a bed-and-breakfast and the inn's owner shared her recipe, which Das of course couldn't help tweaking.

Funny the career shift -- developing snacks, salad dressings and other foods that require all sorts of funky stabilizers and multisyllabic ingredients you've never heard of, to making caramels made with real butter, real sugar and real cream from local farmers.

It seems the world couldn't get enough of salted caramels last year. And while Das certainly isn't dismissive of trends -- she was at the show to introduce a line of lollipops, including a maple-bacon number -- she says striving for the highest quality trumps the flavor du jour. And that's pretty sweet.

Das caramels are sold at Sam's Wine and Spirits, Provenance, City Olive, the Pleasure Chest (really!) and Chicago's Downtown Farmstand.

We were expecting the creator of Crackheads candy to be some goofball from California in his 40s, wearing a rumpled "Legalize Weed" t-shirt that made him look 23 ... or something like that.

We weren't expecting John Osmanski.

Osmanski, 28, is the earnest if a tad talkative mastermind behind Crackheads. We chatted with him today at the All Candy Expo at McCormick Place, where he was showing off his latest product, Crackheads2.

Crackheads are chocolate-covered espresso beans. Crackheads2 are Crackheads with added caffeine. And for the record, Osmanski is not making light of drug abuse.

He says the name of the candy comes from a term he used while a student at the Milwaukee School of Engineering to refer to his parents, professors, friends and anyone else around him who drank coffee incessantly. They were ridiculously helpless when they didn't get their daily caffeine fix -- crackheads.

In the beginning (and by that, we're talking 2007) he made batches of the candy by hand using a double boiler. The business has grown quickly and considerably since then.

Osmanski, who is now in law school part-time, has caught some flack for the name -- angry e-mails mostly. He responds with a form lettter.

"We're not trying to make fun of any drug usage," he says. "We're poking fun at people drinking coffee all the time."

So you know: The candy is sold under the less offensive name, Jitterbeans, depending on the store.

Greetings from Candyland!

Hot on the heels of the massive National Restaurant Association show at McCormick Place is the smaller but eminently sweeter All Candy Expo, which opened today and ends Thursday.

Stay tuned for what we found (besides this gentleman who calls himself "Reinhold") as we went sniffing for the new, the funky and the fabulous in confectionery. Hint: coconut, ginger, salty/sweet, organic, savory.

The National Restaurant Association show is all about networking and pressing the flesh if you're a restaurant operator.

Same thing if you're a suburban mom and marketing exec turned culinary student just looking for an in.

Claudia Biespiel, who is studying to be a chef at the College of DuPage, was in the audience Saturday at the Culinary Pavilion watching chef Rick Bayless demonstrate how to make grilled steak with a chipotle tomatillo salsa. When it came time for the Q&A, Biespiel had a carpe diem moment.

"Do you accept stages at your restaurants?," she asked Bayless.

With nary a pause, Bayless answered, "Yes, we do. You can contact [chef de cuisine] Brian Enyart at the restaurant."

(The next question, from another woman: "What's a stage?" Bayless, again, on the ball: "If you have to ask that, you're probably not going to have one." Big laughs from the audience. Bayless quickly and very nicely answered her question - it's an unpaid stint in a kitchen.)

We caught up with Biespiel after the demo.

"I adore Mexican food. I really like Bayless," she said.

She said she was going to call Enyart today. You go, girl.

Who among us overachieving home bakers hasn't dreamed of chucking their day job (provided it isn't, uh, baking) to open a bakery?

Lisa Spinner wasn't one of those dreamers. Nine years ago, she was an undercover investigator for the Office of the Cook County State's Attorney who, while on maternity leave, happened to bake some banana bread (using, as always, her grandmother's recipe) for a party for her daughter, Hannah. And a friend happened to really dig the bread and told Spinner she should make a business out of it. And that's what Spinner did.

True story. As told to us Sunday by Spinner's husband and PR guy, Pete, at the National Restaurant Assocation Show at McCormick Place. We almost passed up the Spinners' booth (it's easy to do when the Coca-Colas of the show floor take over five times the square footage). We're glad we didn't.

Hannah Banana Bread is based in Glencoe, but the breads are baked at a North Side facility near Irving Park and Rockwell. The Spinners offer four flavors of banana bread, as well as coffee cake, pumpkin bread and soon, gluten-free banana bread.

When Lisa Spinner first started out, she hawked the bread at small coffee shops in the 'burbs. Today, Hannah Banana products are in Whole Foods and Costcos nationwide. It'll be on QVC this fall. And, the golden ticket -- it made O Magazine's The O List in October.

But watching the Spinners hand out samples Sunday, carefully choosing the prettiest pieces while talking enthusiastically about the bread, it was clear that being in the specialty foods business is all-consuming and no cakewalk, no matter what Oprah says.

The bread's inspiration, by the way, is 8 and is "very conscious of the fact that something is named after her," Lisa Spinner said.

Hannah should be proud. Cakey and fragrant, it's just the sort of thing dreams are built on.

It was a crystal clear, sunny weekend in Chicago. Or so we gathered. We spend it within the massive confines of McCormick Place for the National Restaurant Association's annual show.

Sore feet aside, there are worse ways to spend a weekend. The NRA show is where chefs, restaurateurs, buyers, sellers, producers and importers collide to talk dining trends and show off the latest in food, drink and gear.

So much to see, so much to sample. Some odds and ends:

Hand sanitizer stations were everywhere. Every 50 paces or so. Water, on the other hand, was elusive to the point of maddening. S-T photographer John Kim, my companion on opening day, had this theory: No water equals more stomach space for tasting samples.

The Peppadew booth was manned (womaned?) by young ladies in tight blank tank tops and miniskirts. Perhaps they took a wrong turn en route to the Auto Show?

Roy Choi (below), chef of L.A.'s Kogi Korean BBQ truck, told me, "This is the most beautiful city I've seen in my life. And I've been to Milan, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul... ." (It was Choi's first visit to Chicago and the show.) This remark does not mean we are getting a Kogi truck. "You don't have a street food culture," Choi said. Boo hoo.

Choi, on his first night here, ate at Uno's and Sunda, the new Billy Dec hotspot. Of Sunda, he shrugged, "Alright." He asked for recommendations. We offered up La Pasadita, Hot Doug's, Publican. An attendee with a New York badge standing next to us piped in Urban Belly.

Offal-mad San Francisco chef Chris Cosentino was selling these tees for 20 bucks after his unbelievably cool pig's head demo (tee modeled by NRA marketing manager and chief blogger Derrek Hull):

We heart Cosentino.

This, by the way, is what Cosentino made Sunday. Looks like a ham, right? It is so not a ham. It is all the meat FROM A PIG'S HEAD. Dudes in the audience were visibly thrilled. (You'll read more about this in an upcoming Food section.)

The National Restaurant Association's annual trade show hits town Saturday, which always makes for an exciting, dizzying, busy couple of days. This year, however, we are literally busting at the seams with anticipation. Forget celebrity chefs ... the Kogi Korean BBQ Truck is coming!

Make that, three key people behind the Los Angeles sensation-on-wheels -- owners Mark Manguera, his wife Caroline and chef Roy Choi. Choi will be cooking his now-famous kimchi quesadillas in the Korean Pavilion.

If you've been living under a rock and don't know what we're talking about, you should be ashamed. Ok, kidding. But do your homework here and here.

We caught up with Choi, 39, this week as he prepped for yet another day (and night) on the streets. We wondered if his appearance at the NRA show signals an expansion into our fair city. Not quite yet, he says.