1st Annual International Day Festival - August 26th 2011

Today at the VA Medical Center in Slisbury NC was the International Day Festival. This was a big get together of the employees and families and designed to show the wide range of cultural backgrounds represented.

The back story on this is that Ronda came home from work one day and said something to the effect of.....I hope you don tmind, but I signed you up for an event. The event was a cooking/food tasting deal where you submitted a dish based on your culture.

The judging in this deal was going to be on best meat or veggie dish and best cultural display.

So the plan was for me to make a dish and come up with some sort of display to go along with it. With that in mind, I took alot of the photos of the bayou that I had taken from an earlier trip this year and had them enlarged. I made a photo board along with some various facts on Louisian and Black Bayou. Included in the display was a cypress knee that Ronda and I have moved along with us for at least the past 15 years from flower bed to flower bed in several different states.

The menu was simple and the presentation even easier.   Ronda loves my moms hot water cornbread. Now that I think about it, everyone loves my moms cornbread. This seems like a simple thing but truthfully you have to do it a few times to get it right. So with the cornbread in mind I figured I needed a main dish to go along with it and one that would fit my bayou theme. I decided on catfish stew. to be honest here, I dont think Ive ever had that before in my live but aftger a google of some good recipies I knew this was the one.

I used my campstove not only as prop , but as a working stove to have the food simmering during the entire event. With the stew simmering, the hot water cornbread served from a duth oven, cypress knee and photos I was off in the running in the first annual event.

I truly thought everyone involved was going to be prepared to feed not only judges but also the attendees. That wasnt the case with most and some only had enough for the judges. I made almost 2 gallons of stew starting at 6 AM this morning and when serving time came it went from something fun to something that closely resembled work. I had one package of 36 bowls and 2 packages of 24 bowls and when I unloaded there was only 6 bowls left so I served alot of stew of cornbread. Several came for seconds so I knew I had a shot at being CHAMP !

I dont want to sound bitter here but Im convinced stew and cornbread trumps yams any day of the week. But, the judges didnt see it that way. So I placed third overall in the food portion.

However, my cultural display won first place so I was pleased that I was awarded a trophy instead of having to choke someone out in order to get one.

Next year will be better - Im doing frog legs and pinto beans.....I wont be denied a clean sweep next time.

My Organic Garden



More from another trip to Burnsville Last Weekend.

Last weekend Bruno and myself went back up to the mountains and stayed in a little cabin on Neils creek which is near the place Ronda and stayed at a couple of weeks before. WHAT AN AWESOME TIME WE HAD !!!

We had a small cabin right on the creek and you just couldnt have had a better spot. We spent the weekend fishing, hiking to and climbing waterfalls, and swimming in the creeks.

Of note, the trails and campgrounds were closed by the forrest service because there had been 6 accounts in one week of bear activity. The night before we arrived, one bear had actually gone into a tent with two little girls and taken the food out. to be fair to the bear, the girls didnt need the food anyway. No one was hurt but the Rangers were all over the place posting notices.

On the first waterfall we hiked to, we were talking about what we would do if we saw a bear and then looked down to see this ....

Thats bear Poo Poo.....and yes..... a bear really does #$% in the woods.......except they tend to do it on the trails.....

We hiked to two seperate falls. The first was a small one and not well traveled but it had a great little swimming hole at the bottom. The first 3 pictures show Bruno jumping off the rock into the water. Ice cold doesent even come close to describing how that water felt.

I didnt want to look like a chicken so climbed up also. But there no way I was jumping.

The second falls we went to were the Roaring Fork Falls. We both decided to climb all the way up about 150 to 200 feet. Its much steeper than it looks in the pictures. This climb was the highlight of the trip and we both are already about talking about going back before it gets too cold to do it.

This is the back porch on the cabin and also the view from the porch. I just cant say enough how nice it was up there. THe creek is literally only 10 feet off the porch so you have the sound of the water right there ! My coffee that morning as the sun was coming up just tasted excellent.

Clairs Cottage - Burnsville Nc

Ronda and went up to Brunsville in the mountains off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had a nice little cottage on a lake. You know me.....I went fishing !

Also made a short drive up the parkway to visit Crabtree falls. It was about a one mile hike down the mountain to get to the bottom. Wasnt bad going down....but coming back up was a killer ! Plus we took the dogs on that little trek.

Fishing on Black Bayou

Back during Spring Break, Brandon and I drove Louisiana to visit my mother and do some fishing on the bayou !

Administrative note to all readers

I havent been able to download pictures in a while. As I make these entries, they arent in the right order for all the trips this summer.

Saint Louis !!!!

Ronda and I went to Saint Louis to visit Trix, Joe, Scooter and Gulliver. We had an awesome time there. We visited the Arch, Budweiser Brewery and the St Louis Zoo. Even managed to get to watch the St Louis Cardinals play baseball !

Just a couple of random photos

I meant to put this into the Fripp Entry ......

This is Brandon trying to catch a shark at Sunset on the tip of the island right up by the house we were staying in.

Ronda , Joe and Christine