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!!

What's on the calendar this weekend?

It's been a really hot week here so I'm thinking we need to find something super refreshing to do this weekend.

The Banana Split Festival in Wilmington Ohio seems to fit that bill! The Banana Split was born in Wilmington in 1907. Come one, come all to hear great music, check out some awesome cars and crafts , play games, and, get this, Make-Your-Own-Banana-Split!!! Yep, a build-it-yourself booth!! Count me in!!

If you can take the heat, head on down to New Orleans to the Creole Tomato Festival at the French Market. As with all New Orleans' events, there's a parade! There will be singing dancing tomatoes, music you just can't help but dance to and so much more! Life-sized tomatoes will be handing out tomato-shaped fans and chefs can bid at an auction for the first tomatoes of the season. Oh yeah, there will be lots of cooking demonstrations on just how to turn these beautiful red globes into gastric delights.

Maybe your belly is crying out for true festival-style food, you know, fried stuff. In that case, head off to Potterville, Michigan to the 11th Annual Gizzard Fest. (Don't laugh until you've tried it!) Events there include a gizzard eating contest and a hot chick/rooster call, among the standard parade, tractor show and music.

Whatever you choose to do over the weekend - ENJOY

AND STAY COOL !!!!!

What's on the calendar this weekend?

In my search for interesting food events happening this week, I found plenty of blueberry festivals and watermelon gatherings around the country, a potato festival in South Dakota complete with the standard mashed potato wrestling matches, a hot dog festival in Indiana and lots of wine festivals everywhere. Then I found the two I thought were most interesting and definitely at opposite ends of the food spectrum - a hearth-baked bread event and a hot sauce gathering!!


The air around Skowhegan, Maine must be smelling sooooo good this weekend. The Kneeding Conference gets things started on July 29th and 30th, aiming to revive the practice of locally crafted bread from seed to loaf. Farmers, novice and professional bakers and earth oven enthusiasts are gathering to explore the art and science of growing and milling grains and baking artisan breads.

Then, from 9-3 on Saturday, the public is invited to the Artisan Bread Fair to discover, taste and buy all kinds of artisan breads and related baked goods and foods. The 31st happens to be the Eve of Lamas Day which is quite significant to the event. Lamas Day is the ancient mystical feast day, halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox, when we celebrate the season's first grain harvest and revel in the miracle of real bread from Earth to hearth. (Okay, so I'm giving a wide berth to the term "we".) Anyway, sounds like a good excuse to east some fresh-baked, savory bread to me!

Enough of that old-fashioned homey feeling, let's jump into the fire!

Saturday and Sunday (7/31-8/1) present us with the Weekend of Fire 2010 in Fairfield, Ohio (just north of Cincinnati). Billed as the "Largest Fiery Foods Show in the Midwest," this event features 75 booths of hot sauces, bbq sauces, salsas, marinades, mustards, jerkys, peppers and more, as well as no less than 7 eating contests (complete with trophies) and a cooking class, to boot!So, you think you have an asbestos coated belly? Then check these challenges out:

Bugsicle Eating Contest - 10 minutes to get to the bug inside a Hot Lix Insect Sucker (No, you don't need to eat the bug!); Hot Horseradish Eating Contest - Contestants will be given an equal amount of horseradish spread on 10 slices of bratwurst - first one done, wins!; Peanut Butter and Jelly Eating Contest - Of course, this isn't the normal PB&J - it's HOT peanut butter and HOT jelly!! Hot Ice Cream Eating Contest (both days) - Can you get brain freeze before your belly bursts into flame from the flavoring? Hot Cracker Eating Contest featuring Texas Fire Crackers - Can you yell "fire extinguisher, please?" Hot Lix will sponsor yet another contest with the Hot Lolly Contest - definitely not for children! Finally, the famous Defcon "Death Match" Hot Wing Eating Contest - Need we say more?

Not into competition heat? Why not try the Jungle Jim's Cooking School class that will teach you to make your own hot sauce and 6 other dishes using various hot seasonings. Yes, you will get to eat such dishes as Spicy Grilled Shittakes, Soul Slaw, Shrimp & Tasso with Five Pepper Jelly and more. Beer will be served and the class fee includes admission to the show.

Whatever you choose to do this weekend, enjoy!!