Festival Season 2010 started off with a bang! Good weather, delicious food, lots of beer, and great friends!
[2 Disclaimers: Fellow blogger Brian C and I attend a lot of the same events this time of year. Sometimes our perspectives are similar, sometimes not. We are working on a way to combine our blogs, but haven’t figured it out quite yet. Until then, please forgive us for double posting events :-) Also, for those of you on dialup or slow connections, I apologize for the large number of pictures!]
First up was the 8th Annual Southern Hot Wing Festival, benefitting the Ronald McDonald House. Teams construct booths and compete in a wing competition. The barbeque team I am on also has a tent here, along with our friends from Pluck U and Calhoun’s. Due to some early risers, we were able to get all three booths in a row.
I didn’t get down to South Main til almost 2, but seemed to time it just right with the sun coming out. In-booth judging was just about to start, so I grabbed a drink and found my friends. After the judges were finished, it was time to eat! I tried wings that burned for 30 minutes, wings covered in cheese, and wings straight from the grill. There was also a cooler full of crawfish, a Kookamonga Burger, sausages, bacon-wrapped peppers, grilled quail and Korean beef.
The "other" food - boiled crawfish, Kookamonga burger from sponsor Kooky Canuck, grilled bacon-wrapped peppers and quail.
Bands played a variety of music on two stages throughout the day, and there was also a hot wing eating contest that I only caught a bit of as I walked through the festival. And bonus – the weather decided to cooperate (unlike last year) and stayed sunny and warm all afternoon. What a great day and fundraiser.
Hanging out at the Ques Brothers tent with Steve G & Stephanie, catching up with Ford & Max at the Wing Bling tent, posing with the Wing of Fire team.
Sunday brought the 18th Annual Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival, benefitting Porter Leath, to downtown Memphis. This is one of my favorite days, so I try to get there early. I have friends that live in a building overlooking the festival, so I usually use that as my home base and then head to the festival itself. Still not fully recovered from Saturday, I headed to their rooftop first for my yearly tradition of starting the day with a bloody mary!
The festival view from the rooftop, Chad & I enjoy pre-fest bloody marys.
I ventured down right about noon to the line of competition gumbo teams. My dad, sister, and brother had a booth for the second year, so I went to say hello. They were decorated up Nola style and ready to cook. I also got to visit some other friends on teams and taste some of their food :-) But then… it was definitely time for crawfish. I joined some people on the lawn and got to work peeling. They were really good! Nice and warm, with just the right amount of spice.
Dad, Eric, and Aimee show off their gumbo booth, then I visited the Savoir Faire team.
Volunteers work hard to feed hungry festival-goers, my first bucket of crawfish, peeling on the lawn.
Throughout the day, I wandered from my friends’ rooftop, back down to the live music, through the line of gumbo tents, and back again. I had my fill of crawfish, gumbo, seafood chili, and beer! Unfortunately the family did not make the gumbo finals, but that just meant more for all of us to eat. It was absolutely delicious!
Enjoying the day with fellow festival-goer Lydia, friends enjoy my family's gumbo. Check out how good it looks!
I was lucky enough to taste this gumbo as well (it made the finals). Then the winners were announced.
After the festival ended, we finished up the night at Calhoun’s for trivia and (for the guys) a buffet of bar food.
Hanging out at the bar & playing trivia. The boys' buffet.
Time to rest up for the next round of Festivus 2010!
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