I am a proud member of the MacGregor clan and an avid attendee of Central Florida’s Scottish Highland Games (CFSHG) festival each year. If you have never been to a highland games you are missing quite a spectacle. Great food, Excellent brew, superb music, top notch athletic competition, high stepping highland dancing and medieval weaponry demonstrations – I ask you – Who could ask for more?
We’re heading out to the festival this weekend to partake in our annual Scottish pilgrimage. If you were following our Twitter feed this summer you would have noticed that we were up in Antigonish, Nova Scotia for the longest running North American Scottish Highland games. It is only fair to say that as “authentic” as that Antigonish festival is the Central Florida Scottish Highland Games is far more enjoyable. It is hard to peg exactly why but we love that CFSHG serves meat pies, has instruments and clan gear for sale, brings in world class Celtic rock bands like Enter the Haggis to rock the center stage and with Dunedin Brewing in house pouring the best ales it is just hard to compete with no matter how un-authentic a “highland games” may seem amidst the flatland of Florida.
Click here for details and hope to see you there. I’ll be in my McGregor kilt with a baby girl strapped to my chest.
As many of you know Kamrin and I have another blog called Finding America TV where we document our love of hitting the open road. We have traveled through 39 US states and 5 states of Canada with our trusty travel trailer Kodi and filmed the whole thing. So when we heard the nomadic Airstream trekking musical duo Hymn 4 Her being interviewed by Julie Norris on Front Porch Radio we knew we had to see them live.
This duo, well trio if you include their full-time roadie their 3 year old daughter Diver, stopped through Orlando last week to play two gigs. Here is some video I shot of their show at the Audubon Park Community Market hosted at Stardust. Since the K’s were out of town I was flying solo but it turned out that Diver ended up being my table mate for the show. Armed with a coloring book, 32 color box of crayons and wearing a set of noise canceling headphones she proved to be well equipped and content to let her folks do their thing.
Hymn for Her also played at Dandelion for urban sketcher Thomas Thorspecken’s art opening. That is his sketch of their performance above. They will be back Jan 17th at the Copper Rocket’s 2nd Anniversary of their Southern Fried Sunday jams. You can catch them in February at Orlando Brewing as well, so hop over to their website for details and to check out the music video they put together as a tribute to their Airstream’s previous owners – pretty cool.
Eating locally is more than just buying food that is at the peak of freshness and not shipped cross country from California, more importantly it is about supporting our local food economy, its community and its unique culture. By doing so it becomes normal to know your producers, to build relationship with the local farmers who supply your free-range eggs and organically grown produce and to know that you are getting the highest quality food for your food dollar. By supporting the “local” farmer’s markets like Audubon Park Community Market you are strengthening the bonds that connect each of us to the land from which our food comes and to the caring hands that provided these food stuffs for our consumption.
Slow Food in an effort to champion this vital connection is sponsoring an Eat Local Week January 25th – 31st. Below is an excerpt from their promotional materials for this event. You can be sure Kamrin and I will be fully supporting this week long event and you can expect to see a few write ups and videos on our site about it. So take a look at the excerpt below and let us know in the comments what you are doing to participate in Eat Local Week. Following an excerpt is a video of the mother of America’s Slow Food movement Alice Waters to give you a bit more insight into what Slow Food is all about.
Details: Sunday, December 20, 2009, 10am-7pm at stardust video and coffee (1842 E. Winter Park Rd).
Ryan Price of Florida Creatives has been telling me to get out to the Grandma Party since it began. Well this year we are finally going to make it. Ryan has posted some videos over at Orlando Scene if you want to see what you’ve been missing today and what you can still enjoy if you get off the couch and get going. Below is just one of the interesting videos Ryan shot at the last Grandma Party.
For the uninitiated this is what you can expect.
Over 40 local arts and crafters, musicians and independent businesses will transform the parking lot in front of Stardust Video and Coffee into a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) extravaganza at the Grandma Party Bazaar. The event will feature work from local fashion designers, bookbinders, painters, knitters, silversmiths, vintage dealers, bakers and print makers, as well as live art, custom songs written and recorded while you wait and more! WPRK 91.5 FM presents live music throughout the day. Local artist Doug Rhodehamel will create something magically spectacular for the event, while Justin Luper will create a large scale sheet-fort installation indoors for tarot readings and a special surprise after dark.
What an exciting time to be a Locavore in Central Florida. It appears that during our baby hiatus the movement has grown real roots. There is no better example of this than at last Sunday’s Farm to Table event at the Enzian.
The excellent people over at Ourlando cooked up this idea of showing a thought provoking film like “Food Fight” (Which was excellent BTW) and paring it with the outstanding locally sourced kitchen creations of Chef Josh Oakley. I want to say a few things about the event but I figure the best place to start is with Lance Turner’s opening words before the “Food Fight” film. So poignant! I love this guy’s passion!
We particularly salivated over the pulled pork sandwich. Turns out the pork came from Jim Wood’s happy pigs at Palmetto Creek Farms. As Kamrin and I are part of the omnivore contingent championing of our local food scene it was refreshing to meet Jim after the movie and see that being a Locavore doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a vegetarian. In addition to ethically raise pork, Kam would like to mention that when she stepped out with our daughter during the film and she talked with Trish at Deep Creek farm. They are out of Deland and offer grass fed and finished beef and lamb.
We were more than happy to wash down our lunch with a Blonde Ale from Orlando Brewing and a glass of delicious herbal tea from Dandelion CommuniTEA cafe. Also sipping on some Austin’s fair trade coffee afterward was a nice pick-me-up after leaving the sleepy darkness of the theater.
It was also great talking to some of the other family farmers among the tents and tables wrapped around the Enzian. We had fun hanging with the Green Flamingo Farms community and talking about small scale sustainable farming. Also loved their homemade business cards made out of the backs of cereal boxes.
Finally got to catch up with the peeps over at Lake Meadow Naturals our source for Cage Free, Free Range, Free Roaming and Locally produced eggs. We picked up a flyer and are sure to get out there with our camera a vlog about it soon. Until then you can check out the video posted on Big Wheel’s site. Oh yeah we talked with Tony from Big Wheel Provisions too. Oh let me mention that I just got their e-mail about their offerings at tonight’s Audubon Park Community market and I can’t wait to pick up some of their lentil soup made with their proprietary local vegetable stock and herbs.
So much more to say. But that’s enough when I have a research paper due this evening. Procrastination how I love and hate you. Grrrrrr.
Oh oh I also want to mention Gus with My Yard Farms. These guys take the typical grass covered lawns and convert them into edible landscapes. Awesome.
Kam and I hit up the Audubon Community Market on Wednesday. Every Wednesday the parking log of Stardust is converted into a farmer’s/vendor’s market. Lots of great locally sourced food and craft. A big hit for us was the Muhamra spread from Big Wheel Provisions. Just a short video to thank Chef Tony for the grub.
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