Poke Salat

We decided to go to the Poke Salat Festival this weekend in Arab, Alabama (Arab: "AY-rab"). On the way, we stopped at a U-Pick strawberry farm, but because it's been raining so hard, the ground which is usually very sandy in those fields had just turned into this super-sticky clay. It was so yucky/mucky that we decided to just come back when the ground was dry and pick then.

The state of Alabama has a PDF of U-Pick farms that can be downloaded here. I can't wait to take Shug to pick all kinds of fruit!

This is the sign for Wayne's Bar-B-Que in...I think it was around Cleveland. They had a sign for their homemade fried pies (yum!) so Av and I decided to get one and share it:

This is what a good fried pie looks like!

In Blountsville, we passed a re-enactment that they're holding all weekend:

There were *lots* of cars driving in. We drove in just to see what was going on:

The actual battle wasn't going to happen for another couple of hours, plus I was afraid that it would be too loud for Shug, who even dislikes the sound of the Dyson when I vacuum two rooms away (although he doesn't mind if I put Roomba in another room, so ha(!) that's a pretty good excuse for me letting Roomba do most of the vacuuming!). It would have been fun to see all the different campsites and horses, etc., but we decided to go on. I do wish I had run over for just a minute to this gentleman selling pottery:

The Poke Salat Festival was right in downtown Arab. I didn't see any real art/craft vendors, although one person was selling what looked like homemade candles and there was maybe one other 'nice' tent. It doesn't bill itself as an arts/crafts type of festival though - it's just a good reason for the residents of Arab to get out and visit and go shop downtown:

Now what we did get while there? Um, poke salat, of course (tastes sort-of like cooked spinach)! They were serving it at the L-Rancho Cafe, which was standing-room only!