Monday, October 29, 2012

Round up yer Lil' Corn Dodgers

Once every 365 days a huge festival happens in Grand Junction Tn., Aka, the middle of No-where. This is the gold standard of Festivals for me and every other festival is judged by it. The Ames Plantation Heritage Festival!

First the Food then the Fun.



Every festival has burgers, hot dogs and some kind of Nacho, but I have to find the Good food. Ames has A CHUCK WAGON! They cook like a real chuck wagon , serve food like a real chuck wagon, look like a real chuck wagon, and they are a real chuck wagon! I tried the beef stew which was flavored by Beef. Yum! Huge hunks of carrots and huge chunks of onions and huge chunks of beef.  Also I had a favorite Corn Dodgers!! Fried corn meal, crispy, fried,  hot...yum! Her Pots are Hug! The strangest part is when we went back for a second plate she was almost out. Did I mention she also made hot dogs, chicken and dumplings, pinto beans and ham and cobbler, well she does.

They had a demonstration on hog butchering, not for the faint of heart!  I don't like anatomy and blood, so it was a bit creepy. However, I got to try the fresh sausage they made out of that HOG and it was tasty; very ,very tasty. there was only one problem they were not selling it so I could not take any home. The nice lady did give me a bunch of samples. I now want to try and make my own sausage too.

I had some Amish ice cream that was just so yummy. Made from cream and turned by an old fashion engine. it was worth the rather long line. It was not really the best thing there- that was the sausage but it was a great cool treat right before I had to leave.

The Fun-

They always plant a field of Cotton so you can pick your own bag right from the brush and then take it over to the Cotton gin and catch your seeds and gather your lint. How cool is that!  this year they had heirloom rust color cotton and Green color cotton and some traditional white cotton. I did gather a whole bag of only green and I got myself some really green cotton. You could have a nice lady spin your lint into string! My brown and green looked cool together.

Logan MasterChef Junior 2 USAI found the blacksmith shop and he made a skewer and he answered all of my questions. it was cool. He had a huge bellow, and a hot coal fire. At the end of the day he let me back into the smith area and I got to make a horse shoe into a fish. I used the bellows. I had a lot of fun with him doing the blacksmithing
Logan Guleff Memphis Tennessee Foodie Cook MasterChef Jr 2Logan Guleff Master Chef Junior Season 2 USA
They had a group of Alpacas which were very very fuzzy! So cute and soft! they had alpaca balls that you put in the dryer to help it dry faster and dewrinkle your clothes. I did not get any but I sure wanted to. 

Here are some other things we got to do and see











Civil war renacting, flint knapping, goat milking, early farm house cooking, the Stencil house, archeological dig, leaf pounding, story telling, music, vintage engines, horse shoeing, bee keeping, candle making, tobacco harvesting, brick making, and just a bunch more- the gold standard of festivals!

See ya next year!
Love the Cabbage,
Leaf

Monday, October 1, 2012

The Burger Olympics

It was all fun and games Sunday at Minglewood hall. The Best Burger of Memphis Challenge, started by a local food blogger, was all crazy burger hats and burger mania. They even had a truck with a TV in it. I so want one of those.  The event has grown to around 15 to 16 tents all serving Burgers.
 



In one of these tents I met local Chef Robbie Cirillo from downtown's Bleu Restaurant. This courageous young chef let me help him plate the burgers for the judges. His pecan smoked bacon, grilled cheese bun creation looked so delicious, I wanted to just eat it up! I am sure he won- even though I have not heard who really did win. Chef Cirillo invited me to come to the restaurant and get a tour of his kitchen and enjoy his cooking. I cant wait to be Bleu at his restaurant. Know what my favorite color is? Blue!!! I know it is gonna be great.

I did try one burger sample from another tent,but sorry to say this it was way over seasoned and just not my favorite. I hope they did better for the judges. 

I did know some of the judges too. Ms Biggs was there, she did the article on me going to the White House. I also saw Mame Shannon from Local Color, a cool show on local events on PBS. 

All the money they raised went to the Memphis Spay and Neuter clinic. Helping animals that did not unfortunately get to try a single burger!

I hope to enter the Challenge next year. It looked like so much fun! 
Look out Robbie cause here I come....

Love the Cabbage,
Leaf