The pools are closing, the kids are back in school and yesterday I saw pumpkins and apple cider at the farmers’ market. It’s officially the end of summer. For me it seems to have gone by in a flash – I’ve been going full throttle all summer on our new business start up – Columbus Food Adventures. We officially launched in July and the summer has been a whirlwind of tours, promotional events, emails and learning how to run a business. So far, it’s been a lot of fun and we are enjoying sharing some of our favorite foods and culinary experiences with adventurous food lovers.
With hindsight a couple of decisions I made in the spring were mistakes – signing up for a CSA and joining a pool. I’ve been too busy to do much cooking or eating at home, and lazy afternoons with a book have been been extremely rare. Each week, I have diligently collected my CSA, felt guilty about the vegetables in the fridge, packed the freezer with fruit and lamented all the things I wish I had time to cook.
As well as the tours, there have been lots of research trips, meals with friends and the launch of another new blog – streeteatscolumbus.com . Columbus is undergoing a street food explosion with new trucks appearing every week. Street food has been a theme for us this summer. One of our favorite new street food vendors is Foodie Cart and we especially love it when they set up outside Mouton for breakfast. Here is Misako preparing one of their creative Japanese crepes.
One of the other things that I haven’t had enough time for this summer is blogging. There have been lots of events and meals that I wanted to post on hungrywoolf that never made it online. One of them was the Food and Wine celebration, a fundraiser for Veggie U at the Culinary Vegetable Institute. I was extremely lucky to be offered a free ticket at the last minute. We had some amazing food, celeb spotted, watched a cooking demo by Jonathan Sawyer, hung out with the fine folks from Jeni’s ice creams, and ate and drank the night away.
Slow Food Columbus out did previous years with two wonderful open air dinners in 2010. The stunning Girasole dinner, kindly hosted by Val Jorgensen was a fundraiser for the Terra Madre delegates. It was an amazing banquet with a long table set between two rows of sunflowers. More photos including lots of food shots here.
The annual ‘Shake the hand that feeds you‘ dinner at the Flying J farm was a more low key event with the Caskey family from Skillet presiding over the grill and campfire. Many of the guests camped overnight and breakfast was almost as good as the dinner itself. (more photos)
This summer the organizers of the popular Goodale Park music series experimented with a series of community potlucks hosted by local blogs and themed to fit with the music. I was involved both with the taco trucks themed pot luck and the hungrywoolf ‘Grown in Ohio‘ potluck. Great music, friends and food.
Other fun food (and even some non-food) related events were a day at the state fair where I ate pig wings and deep fried mashed potatoes; Pecha-Kucha under the stars; Shadowbox’s open air showing of ‘Back to the Garden’ at Schiller Park; the Doo-dah parade (and the adventures of the keg-bike); Roman Holiday al fresco at the Wexner Center; lots of bike rides courtesy of Mr George and Mojito-Madness the brain child of CMH Gourmand.
Mojito madness was a quest for the best mojito in the city which necessitated many hours of drinking and lots of tasty snacks to keep the team motivated. It was hard work, but I was happy to help. In fact, I might just make myself a mojito this afternoon to make a farewell toast to the summer of 2010.
What have been your food highlights this summer?
