Thursday thoughts – Bacon + Bourbon + Festival = Fun!

Hello, hello!

So, this past Saturday, we went to an inaugural Bacon, Bourbon, and Beach Music Fest.

Seriously. Bacon AND bourbon. Count us in!

The tickets weren’t exactly cheap – $50/each with bourbon tastings – but you got 10 1/2-ounce tastings of bourbon plus a half-pound of bacon and access to the bacon condiment bar where you could dress it up, if you wanted.

That’s actually a lot of bourbon.

Tickets were $35/each without the bourbon and with those, you could head over to the beer village and do some beer tasting over there. I think they got 10 tastings, too.

inside the bourbon tasting tent

There were quite a few bourbons represented.  I think they had 26 different kinds!

The bourbon stations were in the middle of the tent and we just circled around decided what we wanted to taste.

Sorry about the blurry shot. I was trying to snap pictures before people walked in the way all the while holding our quilt, my water bottle, and my bourbon glass.

Some of the bourbons poured included: Bulleit, Bowman Brothers (a Virginia distillery), Buffalo Trace (not my favorite – I thought it was a little boring), Jack Daniels (of course), Woodford Reserve, and Jefferson’s.

I also tasted the Bird Dog Peach bourbon and man, was that surprisingly good! Not overwhelming at all and not at all like cough syrup (looking at you, Bird Dog Blackberry).

You could also do wine tastings or even get wine by the glass or bottle but they only had Rex Goliath.

I was actually surprised that they didn’t have any Virginia wine.  I mean, it IS Virginia. But, I wasn’t on the wine selection committee.

We got our bacon tickets when we entered the park and they promised us they weren’t going to run out of bacon so we didn’t have to run right over to the bacon tent.

We did some bourbon tastings, wandered around a bit, checked out the brew village, drank some water, tasted some more bourbon, and then we went for the bacon.

The lines looked long but they were actually moving pretty quickly.

the bacon master!

We could actually chose crispy or not so crispy!  I was pleased that they covered all the bacon bases. 🙂

In the bacon condiment bar, the longest line was for the bacon taco/nacho fixins’ but neither of us wanted that. My sailor headed for the seasonings and I went straight for the dessert bar. 🙂 #sorrynotsorry

They had chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, cinnamon sugar, oreos, and graham crackers.

In my opinion, hot fudge sauce would have been better but I can understand why they didn’t have it.

And, I honestly can’t remember the last time I ate an Oreo. Probably why I thought it was delicious. Or maybe I was swayed by the bourbon? Nah.

It was a Beach Music fest so of course there was live music!

They had 2 stages, one by the river and one in the brew village.

Of course, we headed down to the one by the river, found ourselves a spot in the shade, and sat down and enjoyed our bacon and listened to some pretty cool music.

Not beach music, which to me means Beach Boys, etc but we were cool with that.  One of the bands was playing old school R&B and soul – Stevie Wonder, Etta James, etc. Our kind of music!

We really had a great time and I learned that I’m kind of picky about my bourbons. Who knew?!

We’ll definitely be adding this to our “social calendar” for next year. 🙂

We played it safe and had Thing 2 drive us to the Fest and then, she came and picked us up when we were done. #designateddriver

Hopefully, this lady had a ride, too.

clearly, she’s exempt from the “no sitting” request

Talk to me: Do you enjoy food and drink festivals? What’s the best one you’ve ever been to?

Before this one, I would have had to say either the Gilroy Garlic Festival (Gilroy, CA) or the Artichoke Festival in Castroville, CA for food. We’ve been to a couple of wine festivals and those were all fun. Because there’s wine. Duh. 🙂

– jennifer

Weekend things: all dressed up and having fun!

Hello!

Happy Monday!

(wait, what?)

Hope you had a great weekend!

We did – which is why I regret to inform you that I shall not be sharing food prep with you today.

Because I didn’t do any.

In fact, I’m lucky I actually got dinner made yesterday rather than relying on take-out.

(psst…it was so easy, even a slightly hung over, definitely exhausted person could do it. 🙂  Crockpot Indian Chicken and Chickpeas – delicious!)

Anywho, Saturday was the Khaki Ball – the annual celebration of the new Chief Petty Officers. It’s called the Khaki Ball because, in the Navy, when you go from E-6 to E-7 (Chief Petty Officer), you change uniforms and wear khakis. It’s a pretty big deal in a sailor’s career (I don’t think it’s AS big a deal in the other services but it’s still impressive, no matter how you look at it) and definitely worth celebrating. Not everyone can become a Chief.

It’s not ‘ball gown’ formal but it is a cocktail affair so I broke out my LBD.

(honestly, it’s the only one of my cocktail dresses that still fits. Darn that CrossFit and my back muscles!) 😉

My sailor was a little slow with getting me the location/hotel information so we were unable to secure a room where the Ball was held in Portsmouth.

So, we stayed at a hotel on the Norfolk side of the water.

We were going to take the ferry across the water but there was a water taxi sitting there (seriously, a water taxi!) and we decided to see how much he charged. We had a bit of time to wait for the ferry and there were quite a few people who were standing around the ferry stop.

Well, that man took one look at us and said he wouldn’t charge us a thing to take us across the water. No kidding!

Turns out he was retired military and he was more than happy to give a fellow servicemember, and his gussied up wife, a ride. 🙂

And it was a really nice ride.

(And, in case you didn’t know, that’s a really big deal for me to say. I get seasick just THINKING about a boat. Seriously, swings can do me in – don’t even THINK about sticking me on a merry-go-round. Barf city.)

Of course, we couldn’t just ride without paying so we tipped him quite well for his services.

(And no, it wasn’t $.20.)

We spent some of the cocktail/social hour before the actual ceremony started outside watching the water traffic.  It was such a nice evening even though it was overcast.

thought this tree was pretty interesting, all peel-y bark and stuff.

There was lots of food and drink and fun!

There was camaraderie and love.

There was definitely some dancing. 🙂

But first, let me take a selfie.

The next morning, we found a cute little (and very busy!) diner about a quarter of a mile from the hotel.

Took a bit for breakfast to make it to our table but when it did, it was pretty darn delicious!

I couldn’t decide if I wanted pancakes or not and was still thinking when she came to take our order. So, I decided on the spinach and feta egg white omelet with home fries and wheat toast. Had to have some bacon, too!

om nom nom!

We got home around noon, unpacked, got dinner in the crockpot, and settled in for some football.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t make it past 8pm. #toooldforpartying

Talk to me: pancakes, french toast, or waffles? bacon or sausage?

– jennifer

Thursday thoughts – a “day date” recap :)

Hello, hello!

In case you missed it, my birthday was Monday.

You’re welcome for the day off. 😉

Of course, that meant I got to do whatever I wanted all weekend long.

Hell, who am I kidding? That’s how it goes all the time. 😉

So, my sailor and I had a “day date” and we went antiquing!

No, I didn’t force him – don’t even give me that “poor guy” business.

It’s something we actually both enjoy doing.

Anyway, we went to some pretty fancy antique stores!

 

I can’t even imagine how much that mirror costs – or even WEIGHS! – and I think it’s a little odd that they hung it on the outside of the building but seeing the reflection of the trees was pretty cool.

There’s no way we could have afforded anything in that store, by the way. Seriously, like Beverly Hills prices. We’re used to those antique stores where you find random old stuff crammed into boxes, stuffed under tables, too much stuff to see in one trip, and you have to crawl around parts of the store just to see it all!

 

There was some really awesome stuff in this store but once I saw this, all I could think about was this…

 

Baby carriage, circa 1800s. Only about $2000. Sure, why not?

And then, we found our kind of store….

 

Complete with paper protectors and Ziggy Christmas cards!

 

Of course, we had to take a sustenance break. #omnomnom

cold stone creamery FTW!

 

Then, we hit the mother-lode!

I’ve been searching for a butter dish for a while now.

I’m not a fan of the ones you can find in stores now – they’re too predictable and boring – and our dish set was cobbled together from a discontinued set so I could never find one to go with it or even one that spoke to me.

I don’t want boring glass or white or normal. I want fun, classy, interesting!

And I found one!

 

And then I found another!!!

 

Now I have one for every day and one for fancy!

I’m so excited!!

By this time, it was dinner and we headed to the 80/20 Burger bar for dinner.

This place is near my CrossFit box (how I heard about it) and the menu looked pretty intriguing so I figured we needed to check it out.

We started with some house fries – garlic, rosemary, and parmesan.

 

They were decent but really, there was ZERO garlic and do you see any rosemary? Yeah, me neither.

For dinner, I ordered the “Heritage” – a bison burger with caramelized onions, thick cut bacon, and gruyere cheese. I got the herb lemon broccoli as a side to counter those fries. #balance

 

The most flavorful thing on the plate was the pickle.

I mean, it was good but it was boring.

I’m sorry, how do you make a fancy bacon cheeseburger BORING?!

And the broccoli was just steamed. Maybe a smidge of lemon but definitely no herb.

My sailor’s food was equally as boring.

It’s as if the chef was put on “seasoning restriction.”  So much so that he even had to remove the salty deliciousness from the bacon.

I’m not kidding!

How do you make bacon taste boring?!?!?!?!

But, even with that ending, we had a stellar day. I’m pretty sure we won’t be going back to that restaurant but I KNOW we’ll be heading back to some of those antique stores. There’s still so much more to see!

Talk to me: Do you like antiquing? Do you use a butter dish? Have you ever had a surprisingly boring burger?

– jennifer