We had Bosnian, Pakistani, Lebanese, Greek, Australian, Vietnamese and American food.
One of my favorite festivals of the year is Festival of the Arts the first full weekend in June. It is a three day celebration of arts, be it dance, music, performance, writing, visual, or in the kitchen. In the past, I would go all three days, but with the boy, we were lucky to have a family date last night for a few hours.
We started the night with the band Ejector Seat while enjoying chicken kabobs, pavlova, vegetarian spring rolls and vegetable stir fried noodles. Pavlova is a meringue shell filled with blueberries, strawberries and topped with whipped creme, a favorite of mine since I started going to Festival. Another favorite, the vegetarian noodles were good but NOTHING compared to the spring rolls - delicate wrappers filled with cucumber, carrot, lettuce, mint, tofu and noodles with hoisin dipping sauce.
After a trip through the artist tent and sharing a tandoori chicken tikka, we took a seat at the Calder stage to enjoy a performance by Hark Up Horns. How to describe? According to the site, "gospel favorites with a big band sound." They played a lively mix of religious and secular music, including Route 66 and Dance with Me.
Will started requesting loudly a hot dog, so when they stage was changing for the next performers, off we went in search of booth 6. Six is next to four, so after grabbing Will a hot dog, we scooted over to the Greek booth for a marinated pork sandwich called souvlaki. The line was behaving at the Lebanese booth, so I got a schwarma, a beef and lamb mix served on a pita with lettuce, onion and cucumber sauce.
We made it back to the Calder stage in time to see the Lifehouse Full Life Mass Choir, featuring Rev. Marvin Sapp. Kind of a big deal, the man has won a ton of Grammies in the gospel category. Such amazing musicians. What miraculous vocalists. And Rev. Sapp is truly a charismatic performer, getting the crowd whipped into a peace and love frenzy in the spirit of the Lord. A sharp contrast to the street corner preachers venomously exercising their free speech rights by telling passersby that God hates us because we are sinners.
The line for the rib tip booth was finally short, so while Will got an ambulance tour while Dave got us some rib tips and a smoked turkey leg. We savored the atmosphere as Will told us his new ambition in life was to be an EMT so he can "help people and drive the ambulance... WOOOOOOOOOO!"
Our last adventure was pausing to take in the band Head while Will played backstage with the band's kids and got a handful of candy from the bucket.
It was a family date pleasing to the palate as well as the ears.
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