Pork, Peanut, and Pine Festival

J., A., and I were out of town for the majority of the weekend for a wedding (in which A. fulfilled all of her flower girl duties with aplomb, we are so proud). On the way home Sunday, we decided to be crazy and take a pretty significant detour so that we could stop by the annual Pork, Peanut, and Pine Festival at Chippokes Plantation State Park in Surry. We just weren't ready for the fun to be over, I guess.

For 38 years, the festival has been put on to celebrate the Southeastern VA region's natural resources. When you first come across it, the combination of pork, peanut, and pine sounds a little strange but after a little while it starts to make perfect sense. It turns out there is nothing quite like eating a BBQ sandwich after a handful of freshly-roasted peanuts while the sun glints on the carved wood crafts in the nearby booths. It all works together.

Besides the three main attractions, we also visited blacksmith and turner demonstrations, examined some antique farm equipment, made friends at a petting zoo, and danced to the Hard Knox bluegrass band.  We toured the antebellum mansion that gives the park its name and found some handmade art to take home. And maybe the highlight of it all, we had our very first taste of peanut pie.

It was a really fun end to a special weekend. I think the PP&P festival might become a family tradition.

Lemonada (and other Greek Fest goodies)

The Norfolk Greek Festival holds a special place in mine and James's hearts -- during his first visit home with me at the end of freshman year of college, I took him to Greek Fest and plied him with food in hopes of creating a positive association with my hometown (I think it worked). Since then, we've done our best to hit it up every year that we can, and last weekend, we took Anouk for the very first time.

Anouk enjoyed her first Greek Fest very much, especially the eating part of it (which, honestly, is most of it). Every single thing she ate, she loved, from dolmades to gyros to calamari. In fact, she enjoyed everything so much that we spent the rest of the weekend looking up Greek recipes we could make for her at home. Most of what we found looked pretty labor intensive but this simple recipe for Greek lemonade was so intriguing (and turned out to be so delicious) that I knew from the first sip that it was a keeper.

Lemonada

5-6 lemons
1 cup sugar (or to taste)
2 cups water (or to taste)
1 tsp orange blossom water (we got ours at Azars, in Ghent, but it's also available online)
3-4 mint sprigs

The secret that makes this lemonade taste so good seems to be in the juicing technique, which incorporates more of the oils and the rind than normal juicing procedures. Cut 5-6 large lemons into the thinnest slices possible. Place in a bowl, and pour 1/2 cup of the sugar over top. Let sit for 5 minutes, then use your hands to squish and squeeze the lemon slices. Strain the juice through a sieve into a pitcher. Repeat this process, using the rest of the lemons and sugar, until you can't get any more juice out of the lemons. (For us, 5-6 large lemons yielded about 2 cups of juice). The lemon pulp and peels should look pretty shredded by the time you're done.

Add water and additional sugar to taste (we added about 2 cups of water, but didn't add any more sugar). Add the orange blossom water to the lemonade, stir well. Crush 2-3 mint leaves, add to a glass with ice, and pour the lemonade over it. Garnish with an additional sprig of mint and some lemon slices.

This is the best lemonade I've ever had -- the orange blossom water adds a nice floral note and the mint spices everything up and makes it even more refreshing, somehow. Next time I make it, I'm toying with the idea of adding sparkling water for fizz. I also think it would be just swell with a jot of vodka in it, too. But that is an entry for another blog entirely.

Some more pictures from our Greek Fest experience:

^^ The line for the loukoumades tent was so long (but they were worth the wait)

^^ Ecstatically enjoying some grape leave rolls

^^ Browsing the agora with mama

^^  Opa!

The Pagoda and Oriental Garden

I feel like the Pagoda is one of the best-kept secrets in Norfolk, which is strange because it's a big honkin' pagoda right in the middle of downtown. Hard to miss. But nobody seems to have heard about it. It's so well-kept that even I forgot about it until we stumbled upon it last Friday night on our way to dinner, and I used to cut class and eat lunch there visit it after school almost on a weekly basis when I was at Maury.

Finding it again was like a breath of fresh air. The garden surrounding the Pagoda is such a restful place. There are koi ponds and fountains and stone gates, water gardens and bamboo, all ringed with willow trees and set at the edge of Freemason Harbor.  We explored every single inch of the one-acre garden and enjoyed every minute.

It was especially fun to sit and people watch -- this one lady sat by a pillar and did the most meticulously beautiful beadwork the whole time we were there (can you see her special magnifying glasses in this pic?) I could have watched her all day.

Baby Anne and I played peekaboo in the willow trees for a good long while. Add in a walk along the pier and a sushi dinner at Kotobuki and you've got pretty much the perfect Friday evening.

Have you visited the Pagoda? Did you know anything about its history before you went?

Nansemond Indian Tribe Pow Wow

Our friend Angela has a knack for finding the most offbeat, most totally amazing things to do in the area (if she had a blog, it would definitely be one to read!) She was the one who told us about the Nansemond Indian Tribe Pow Wow this weekend; on Saturday, James, Baby A. and I drove out to the Lone Star Lakes Lodge in Suffolk to meet Ange and her husband, watch the dancers, listen to traditional songs and stories, and experience a little bit of local Native American culture.

Awesome things about the day: the grand entrance procession, watching the jingle-bell dress dancers, a group of young girls whose dresses glittered and flashed and jangled as they moved in time with the drums, and the big swooping wings of eagle and hawk feathers that seemed to sprout from the backs of every dancer. I have a thing for feathers, and these were definitely striking.

We had the chance to join the dancers on the field at one point, and Angela and I grabbed Baby A. and hauled her out with us. She had a blast standing in the middle of the long twisting line of people and observing, until one very serious male dancer with a full face of black and white paint bent down to smile at her and sent her scurrying to find us in the throng.

In between dances, we ate buffalo wraps and traditional Nansemond bread and strolled through booths of brightly-colored wares. The quote of the day came from a mother of about four preteen boys who descended on a table of spears: "I'm not buying any shooting, stabbing, throwing, or killing utensils, forget about it!"

I think one of the things that surprised me most about the day was learning that the Nansemond tribe (along with five other Virginia tribes) are still fighting to be recognized by the federal government. A bill to recognize these tribes was put up for consideration by the Senate in 2009 but was put on hold. Until it passes, these tribes won't be eligible for the benefits that other federally recognized tribes receive. (To read more about what the bill means for the Nansemond and the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, and Monacan peoples, go here.)

We had a really good day. Thank you, Angela!