So what're you doing this weekend?

The Big Guy and I have our plans sort of set in stone for the weekend. We're going to the Lost, Found and Dearly Departed annual get-together in Harrisburg, PA on Saturday for a full day of blues music and some fantastic food, served throughout the entire day and evening ! I'm already baking my dessert contribution and I believe The Big Guy spent the night dreaming about the fried catfish he'll be savoring !!

Wanta' know what else is happening ?

Folks up in Pinconning, The Cheese Capital of Michigan, are holding the Cheese Town Challenge Festival (Thurs-Sat) featuring cheese cooking demos, a Cheesey parade, the Cheese Town Dad Contest and the Ultimate Mac and Cheese Dinner Contest, along with the usual music and entertainment, sports tourneys and fireworks.

Over in Roslyn, South Dakota, they're holding the International Vinegar Festival 2011 featuring (Get this !!) VINEGAR !! Roslyn is the home of the International Vinegar Museum (I think it may be the only vinegar museum in the world!) They invite us all to come "celebrate the sour powered excitement that is VINEGAR."

There will be a Vinegar Tasting Bar to let you sample "exotic" vinegars and vinegars from around the world will also be available for purchase.

Do you know how to "properly taste" a vinegar?

According to Lawrence, The Vinegar Man, you should swirl the vinegar in the glass and let the aroma "waft" to your nose so you may truly appreciate the individualized scents. Like fine whiskey, it's easier once you get to the 3rd or 4th sample!!

You can also make crafts using vinegar bottles. There will be music, a vinegar parade and crafts as well as lots of food available for purchase.

Back here, along the Mid-Atlantic Coast, we'll be eating lots and lots of chicken!!

The 62nd Delmarva Chicken Festival will take place in Georgetown, Delaware on Friday and Saturday. One of Delmarva's oldest festivals, the event features a Chef's Contest, Chicken Capers like a chicken scratch, egg tossing, spoon races, and more, the 2nd round of the Mountaire Chickin' Pickin' National Championship, and, literally, TONS of food will be available. More than 3 TONS of chicken will be fried up in Delmarva's Giant (10 foot) Fry Pan which has been used every year at the festival since 1950!!

Area chefs will do 2-hour cooking demos, complete with samples. You can watch chicks hatch and learn about the poultry business on Delmarva where the industry employs more than 14,000 people and produces nearly 600 million chickens each year!

***When I lived in Salisbury, the largest city on Maryland's Delmarva Peninsula, I lived only 8 blocks down the street from the Perdue chicken processing plant. Despite all kinds of technological filters and such, we still had a fair number of feathers floating through the air (like dandelion puffs) and we'd have to run our wipers each morning to clear the feathers off the windshield before heading out!

Finally, the folks down in Crewe, Virginia have answered the age-old question of why the chicken crossed the road. He was going to the Virginia Chicken Festival, Southside Virginia's oldest and finest festival !!! Held on Friday (6/17), this event will feature plenty of food - BBQ chicken, chicken nuggets, chicken livers and Robert's Rooster Stew, among others.

So, get those taste-buds primed and head out and stuff yourselves this weekend.

***Don't forget to take Dad along. After all, Sunday is Father's Day!!