My Day at the Great American Food and Music Festival

I have the best kids on the planet. My son-in-law and daughter got Dr. Food and me into the "Great American Food and Music Festival" that was being held at the Gillette Stadium. This meant lots of great food from all over the U.S.


Lets start off with what we stuffed our faces with first. This is Wood Grilled Maine Raised Hangar Steak with Chimichuri. It was from Harding Lee Smith. This dish was fantastic. I now have to travel back to Portland, Maine to go to one of his reastaurants. I wish this blog had taste-o-vision on it.



Next off was a Fried Scallop Po'Boy (Lettuce, Tomatoes, Sweet corn/mango remoulade on Ciabatta). This was from All Star Sandwich Bar in Cambridge, MA. I had a couple of bites of this and decided to move on. It was not my favorite.

This is a Freshly grilled Philly Beefsteak from Jim's Steaks in Philadelphia. Um, I don't think I get the point of eating this. It wasn't my favorite either. Ok, wait! My favorite IS coming up.



Meantime we were drinking Mikes Hard Lemonade. It was about 85 degrees outside and humid. Luckily we were in the VIP lounge where runners went and got you any of the food you wanted.

So, I just need to tell you that we ate this throughout the day and not at one seating. In between we were watching "Ace of Cakes" from Food Network yap while his crew built a cake.



Sorry about tall dudes head in the picture.





This was fun to watch. Duff Goldman is "not my favorite"



Here he is at the "Meet and Greet" and I have to say that he was downright obnoxious to a couple of people that went up for an autograph.



More food. This is the Fried Shrimp BOOM BOOM from Harding Lee Smith. This was one of my very favorites.



And being the good blogger that I am I even took pictures of OTHER peoples food. This is a Caprese (Buffalo Mozzarella, Ripe Tomatoes, Pesto on Parmesan Focaccia) and it was from the All Star Sandwich Bar.



Lousy picture ... sorry. I was sitting there in a food coma when a nice gentleman from Johnson's Boucaniere walked in and handed me a Pork Boudin. This place is from Lafayette, Louisiana. Yum, I had never tasted this before. It was spicy and delicious.



This is "The Grill Room" (Maine Raised Beef Tartare in Savory Cones) and it also was from Harding Lee Smith. I guess I had the most stuff from this place because everything was different enough to want to taste more than one thing. I think the only 2 things I missed from here were House Made Rigatoni with Wild Boar Ragut and Duck Confit, Goat Cheese, Grilled Onion Jam Grilled Cheese on Brioche. Ok, so I couldn't eat EVERYTHING.



Meanwhile, we went up to the VIP lounge in the Gillette stadium to go do some wine tasting. I have to say that by the time I got up there I didn't feel like wine. I was so full that I just wanted to walk around.



This was MY favorite thing of the day. It was from Hells Kitchen in Minneapolis. I wish I lived there just so I could go to this restaurant. Just for the record I was told that he had the name before Gordon Ramsay used it. I bought Mitch Omer's cookbook because this guy is great.



So when Mitch Omer walked into the VIP lounge he was wearing his tag around his neck and it said "Ask Me About Paula Deen". When I asked him why it said that he said because he was signing cookbooks and everyone kept asking him about when Paula Deen was going to be there. So, now that I am like madly in love with this guys food I decide "the hell with Paula Deen" this guy is god of the BBQ and I ask to take my picture with him



I look sweatie and gross because after walking around in 85 degrees and 75% humidity feeling like a stuffed pig from eating so much you would too...ok, shut up... maybe not.



Oh wait. One more thing. Churros. These were by Goldie's Churros from Los Angeles (my home town!). I don't even like Churros but everyone was raving about them so I decided to give it a try. All I can say is the ravers were right. These were fantastic.




And right before we left Paula Deen walked in for a Meet and Greet. What a sweet woman she was. She was as friendly as she seems on TV to the throngs of people that were dying to see her.

I got both Paula Deens and Duff Goldman's autographs. I have never gotten anyones autograph before. Not because I haven't run into famous people but because I never saw the point. What the heck, I was there for the experience of it all. Oh, I also got Paula Deens husband Michael's autograph because he was sitting next to her signing too. I actually did see the episode of them getting married so I figured "What the hay?"





So we had a great time. It was all sorts of fun. The highlight was still my new BFF Mitch.