Locally Grown Weekend

Good morning! How was your weekend? The weekend here started with dinner at El Familiar with Matt's parents, a Mexican place right down the street. I had been planning to redeem a Restaurant.com coupon I bought a while back to check out a new Greek place, but when we got there, a sign on the door said it went out of business. It makes me so sad when restaurants close. I wasn't thrilled about switching to Mexican since there are usually few healthy choices, but I spotted a few great shrimp dishes on the menu and went with one of those.

The chipotle shrimp had the perfect amount of spice and was cooked with sweet onions and peppers. It was served with garlicy steamed vegetables and rice, and was definitely a winner. I ate about half before calling it quits, since movie snacks were definitely on the agenda.

After dinner we headed to the movie night at Silverton Farms. They served popcorn with nutritional yeast, which got me unbelievably excited. Never have seen that outside of VT!

We watched the movie, Food Inc., in the greenhouse, which was really neat. The documentary is a film about corporate food production in the U.S., and is really a must-see for any food lover. It was very eye-opening and re-inspired me to buy organic and locally grown foods whenever possible.

We also poked around the farm store and I walked home with a huge, sweet organic cantaloupe. At checkout, the owner told me it was "on the house." Can't get better than that!

Saturday

After a workout, some house cleanup and a few errands on Saturday morning, Matt, Riker and I jumped in the car to head down to Cape May for the first annual Crab and Craft Beer Festival, which featured local foods and brews. Unfortunately traffic was terrible and it took over 3 1/2 hours to get there, so we were all a little cranky when we arrived. And right when we pulled in, it started downpouring.

After such long a drive we weren't about to let some rain stop us, so we braved the storm and walked onto the festival grounds. I ordered scallop ceviche for lunch, which was citrusy and refreshing. For drinks, I had a Goose Island IPA and a Victory Hop Devil. The Hop Devil was oh so good.

Matt tried the new local Tuckahoe Marshallville Wit, which was pretty good. While waiting in line we chatted with one of Tuckahoe's founding partners and learned some interesting info about the brewery and their beers.

The festival was fun, but unfortunately Cape May Brewing didn't show up and we were really disappointed about that. It's in their hometown after all! They also ran out of crab cakes after about two hours, and the craft beers were kicked by around 4:00. Think they better make some adjustments next year! The live music and jugglers made up for it though. :)

Sunday

Yesterday was beautiful here, so around 10:30 we abandoned the Sunday to-do list and went out on the boat with a bunch of our good friends - Dan & Jen, Heather & Kevin, and Cathleen & John.

We grilled on the boat for lunch, and I made a tortellini salad with garden tomatoes, cucumbers and basil, and pesto gouda cheese to share. It took less than 15 minutes to make, including cooking the pasta, and was pretty tasty.

Good friends, good food, sunshine and ocean swimming = one perfect summer day.

Great weekend!