For anyone with an interest in food, this weekend is packed with treat-filled events like the New Amsterdam Market and the Javits Center’s Fancy Food Show.

Even closer to home, the second annual UnFancy Food Show returns to Brooklyn on Sunday, and the night before, the first annual UnFancy Food BBQ makes its debut.

Last year Sasha Davies and Tom Mylan, both food industry veterans (their combined resume includes Murray’s, Dean & DeLuca, Marlow & Sons, Whole Foods and Artisanal) threw the first UnFancy Food Show as an organic response to the expensive, marketing-driven show at the Javits Center.

“The last time I went to the Fancy Food Show,” says Davies, “I was depressed by the number of processed and pre-made products that were not at all what I consider fancy.” What she didn’t see were all the local, artisanal foods she knew, like Mast Brothers Chocolate and Wheelhouse Pickles and ricotta from Salvatore Bklyn. “Local producers explained that the show was too expensive and that the majority of people shopping at it wanted products that they could get in big volumes and via distributors. So I wondered, with all these food industry people in town, why not bring some focus back on the reason many of us got into the industry in the first place — because we tasted something rad that was made by someone we met and got excited about it?”

To sweeten the deal, she says, “Tom was the genius who knew we needed to add beer and keep it casual, like a cross between a farmers’ market and backyard BBQ.”

This year nearly 20 producers, from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont, where brothers Andy and Mateo Kehler make amazing cow’s milk cheeses, to Cut Brooklyn in Red Hook, where Joel Bukiewizc makes amazing knives (for cutting the farmstead cheese), will be hanging out at the East River Bar in Williamsburg all Sunday afternoon, beers in hand, courtesy of Sixpoint Craft Ales.

Two specials, Hop Obama and Sweet Action, will be on tap for $3 a pint, and the brewers will in in the back garden with the other producers, selling t-shirts and chatting up their loyal fans. On the sidewalk outside, Dave Sclarow, chef de cuisine at the Brooklyn Lunetta, has pledged to bring his portable pizza oven, handmade with Brooklyn Brownstone bricks, and crank out hot, delicious pizzas all afternoon.

Unlike the Javits show, there’ll be no marketers, publicists or pricey tickets — just people who love to make, grow and eat great food — and you can get to know them even better on Saturday night, when BB joins forces with UFFS and Greenpoint’s Champion Coffee, to host a backyard barbecue for the show’s producers.

Smoked, pulled chicken and duck sandwiches by Tom and handmade, Valrhona chocolate cookie and blackberry ice cream sandwiches from Ice Cream Social (with Blue Marble ice cream in the middle) are on the menu, along with veggie sides and special treats provided by your favorite pickle, chocolate and cheesemakers. Sixpoint beer will be on tap and we’ll pour rosé for the wine drinkers.

While the UFFS on Sunday is open to all comers, the BBQ is a Brooklyn Based exclusive, so snatch a ticket — just $30 apiece! — while you can, you Champions of UnFancy!  Sorry! Tickets are sold out. We’ll throw another dinner later this summer though.

UnFancy Food Show, Sunday, June 29 noon-6 pm, $5 suggested donation, East River Bar. See the full list of participants at unfancyfoodshow08.tumblr.com.

Sent by Annaliese.