Connecting

Hello there, remember me??  it’s been a long (strange) two weeks since we’ve gotten together.   Not that I’ve been sitting around munching bon bon’s and vintage wine (not a good pairing, by the way unless the vintage wine is port and….. but I digress).  Far from it…but you deserve a quick update for heaven’s sake

A week ago today was the 51^st annual U.S. Oyster Festival in St. Mary’s County and the 38^th annual National Oyster Cookoff.  Being the Rotary coordinator of that Cook Off, it is always a busy time leading up to the event.  That kind of kept me busy with LMI’s and then helping out on the day of the cook off itself.   It actually went very well this year, and the grand champion winning dish was a Miso Mayo Oyster Gratin prepared and presented by chef Hidemi Walsh

Of course all nine recipes were outstanding and can be found in our cookbook. 

On the “shucking” side, Honor Allen, last year’s winner repeated and will be once again heading for Galway, Ireland to compete in the International Oyster Opening Championships next September.  His shucking plus penalty point time was the lowest recorded in recent history for our festival.

Above Photos courtesy of Reid Silverman

He is an engaging character and makes heavy use of Facebook, so if you would like to follow him, do so.  He did a great job while there this year. 

We also benefited from a new emcee, the gentleman who is the Director of Seafood Marketing for the Maryland Department of Agriculture, who prepared a press release for us, that is a great overview of the festival. You can check it out here

*****

So that was one draw on my time and with apologies, another was we now have a new house pet we are dealing with.

It sits in the corner and hums…. No that’s giving it credit, much louder than that, like a small generator, it somehow sucks oxygen out of the air, and shoves it into that green (50 foot) tube off to the left, which is connected to (sorry…..) my nose.  24/7. It was prescribed to alleviate my shortness of breath issues.  Helps some.  Upon leaving the digs, I am one of those people you see with that bottle slung over the shoulder in a bag.   Yippee..   I’ll try not to dwell on that, we all have our little tribulations to deal with…  “Hi’, I’m Brittney, and I’ll be staring at you tonight”  

Okay, we have to get home from our trip.   Remember that?

The next morning after our lovely dinner at Kellogg Center we had to face reality and head toward our coast.  Our goal was Morgantown, West (by God) Virginia.  So we started out toward

Eventually leaving Michigan and into  

with it's (infamous)

Those glowering skies did give us a little shower at a rest area

But it eventually cleared and we passed interesting stuff...

And the shrine to our Holy Sport

And eventually found WBGVA

I don’t know what it is about that state, whether laws are more lenient or what, but it seems (to me) that very soon after you see the former sign, you always see one of these

But finally we got to the home of the mountaineers (who just put on a miserable display of football).

Based on a recommendation of a good friend who was familiar with the place, we secured a dinner reservation, but it will take another post to do that.   This is getting long enough.

MFO is leaving tomorrow for a conference on protecting collections from water rise.

Not sure if she’ll have to be

DFD