Rochester Jazz Festival - Are You Hungry?

 Miss J and I took in the Rochester Jazz Festival the other night. We had tickets to Steve Martin's show -- a show that sold out in about 10 minutes! Lucky for me,  Miss J has a cool head and a steady clicking finger and she was able to score us quite good tickets.

So before the show, we strolled around and scoped out the food choices. We have equally coveted tickets to Nora Jones tonight, and due to the competitive parking situation, decided that it would be best to come at dinner time, eat at the festival, and then go to the 8pm show. Here's what we found:

Poutine, thanks to Wikipedia

French fries covered with cheese and hot peppers in a paper dog bowl?

We observed a lot of folks carrying what looked to be dog dishes, filled with something that gave me gas just to think about it: french fries, hot peppers and cheese that had an extremely unnatural color. Is this some Rochesterian version of poutine? Poutine, for the uninitiated is a Canadian "delicacy" made of french fires, brown gravy and cheese curds. I think it's a ghastly idea, but lots and lots of other people think differently.

Lots of choices

Most of the choices were what you would expect if you have experienced Rochester festival food. There was italian sausage, with the obligatory peppers and onions. There were both red and white hots. Fried dough, our answer to funnel cake, was present. I did see crab cakes, and I might be brave enough to go for those. Although I usually disappointed when I try for something "high falutin'" rather than just sticking with the tried and true.

Dinner avec a chair

Some people chose to eat at "Betty's" in the Eastman Theater where the concert was held. I think the have those giant cookies, and box wine for sale in there. But you do get a chair, and that's something.

Curb-stone setters

For the rest of us, the curb would do. It's not about the actual food, afterall. It's about  being part of the crowd, celebrating fantastic music, and celebrating SUMMER! The solstice has passed and now we are on our way to that other season -- I won't even say the word -- but for everyone in Rochester, the clock is tick-tick-ticking. And we must make hay (or hots!) while the sun shines!

St. Rocco's Festival

St. Rocco

If you like to go to festivals, the Rochester area is the place to be. This weekend, Laurie, Pat, Liz, J, and I made the journey out to the St. Rocco's Festival near Holley, NY. There we bumped into friends and family of Pat's. You may not have heard of St. Rocco -- I hadn't. St. Rocco is invoked against cholera, epidemics, knee problems, plague, skin diseases. He is the Patron Saint of bachelors, diseased cattle, dogs, falsely accused people, invalids, Istanbul, surgeons, tile-makers, gravediggers, second-hand dealers, pilgrims and apothecaries. He is typically shown displaying the plague sore on his leg, and with a dog who has a loaf of bread in his mouth.That's because when St. Rocco was stricken ill with plague (which he contracted while nursing the sick), he withdrew to the forest where he lived in a hut. A dog miraculously appeared and fed him bread, and healed him by licking the Saint's wounds. Personally, I think that the dog is the saint in the story, but that's just me.

Fried Dough

The number one attraction for us was the food: shells, meatball subs, eggplant parmigiana, pizza, Italian sausage, hots, french fries and fried dough were offered. I had shells and eggplant. My egg plant was wonderful. That's a dish that is generally too much work for me to want to make it at home, so it is great to get it out. The fried dough was the clear winner, and I went back for seconds!

Liz knows when to quit!

Besides the food, there were games of chance, of course. At this festival, they offered both roulette, and the pull-open tickets. Lizzie hasn't met a game of chance that she doesn't love, I think, and she made quite a killing on the roulette wheel. She wasn't saying how much she actually won, but I think the roulette wheelman's expression in this picture says it all, don't you????

Boccie Ball

We didn't play in the boccie ball tournament -- but only because we didn't know about it in advance. St. Rocco's sports five "permanent" boccie ball lanes, and the tournament was in full steam while we were there. Maybe next year, eh, G's????? I didn't see any female teams -- I think we should shake things up a bit, don't you???

"These little town blues...."

Produce for sale

St. Rocco's also had a "DJ" and he was spinning an eclectic mix that included tunes like "Achey Breaky Heart" and "Twist and Shout". When the G's heard "New York, New York" -- obligatory at any celebration held in the Empire State -- they couldn't hold back. The festival season isn't over yet -- we still have the Clothesline Festival next week -- but it is definitely winding down. Soon it will be winter again and we will all be holed up in our nests, looking forward to Super Bowl weekend. But for now, it's still summer  (at least until the 21st!) and we are having fun!