pumpkin time again

once again, it was date night. this time, we headed over to whole foods to try out their big salad buffet and hot bar. it was towards the end of the evening and we just didn't care for the selections-some looked like they had been out to long and others just didn't interest us. we knew about the little bar over by the produce section and we decided to try it out. they have a limited menu and you sit at a bar and watch them cook your meal. you can even purchase meats or fish and have them cook it fresh for you. we opted for the menu. darry had the fish and chips and i had a pulled chicken sandwich. the fish is freshly battered and fried and it was an extremely generous portion, well cooked and worth waiting for. the chips, potatoes, were a little disappointing-very dark and not at all crispy. my sandwich was made from freshly pulled chicken simmered in a light sauce and served on freshly baked bread with a tomato-cucumber salad. the meal was good; the portions were generous and prices were reasonable. we will go back, the service was friendly and the menu changes seasonally.

up at the farmers market, it was easy to find the apples. we chose some mutsu, macoun and arkansas blacks.

smileys of ridgetop always has beautiful eggplants.

we were after pumpkins and there were many to choose from.

i like the warty ones and apparently so does every one else-there were a lot of them. they are called galeux d' eysines.

beautiful mums, a sure sign of fall

more pumpkins

i love to look at all the different kinds lined up for sale.

these green ones reminded us of geese, too much time spent playing with food...

indian corn, not this year-those hooligans have planted squirrel corn all over my yard!!!

if you love fall, check out the music and molasses photos on the view from the demo garden, happy fall!

farewell to the state fair

going to the fair has been a tennessee thing for me. we didn't do much of this when i was growing up. now we did have carnivals to go to from time to time and there was the boardwalk at the beach, but not many chances to attend a state fair.

we haven't gone to the fair the last few years. there wasn't any one reason, the kids weren't big on the rides and it was getting a bit pricey for the quality. then there was the crowd that it was attracting-not your wholesome heartwarming sort but one that was a bit on the scary side. this year we volunteered to work the master gardeners display for the final saturday night of the fair (we are members and lots of us took shifts in the booth) and we decided to make it a sort of date night; a dinner of fair fare and walk around the displays and carnival area.

just in case you thought we might escape the rain for one night, think again. we dodged rain drops as we walked around the concession area.

fair food is a breed of it's own but this is just wrong...

a big color picture didn't help to entice us. this was a popular photo site. we had to wait our turn to take the picture with the big sundaes.

going to carnivals in new jersey always guaranteed sausages for dinner. we knew right away that we would be having sausage sandwiches at the fair once we saw them for sale. i went for the italian (of course) and darry went with the polish.

here they are adding more to the grill

after the sandwiches, we worked our shift and then we headed out into the night for dessert-soft serve ice cream. while we indulged in ice cream, we walked around and looked at all of the displays.

lots of blue ribbons here

i think we'll skip this dessert; somebody must have forgotten that cheesecakes need refrigeration.

best of show for some lucky teenager

it's labeled pies but all we saw in here were cakes

we saw some beautiful cakes at the fair, nashville has lots of talent so watch out charm city cakes!

we always look at the live stock. darry wanted to watch the show but i was still eating ice cream and the smell worked against that!

chickens are fun to watch but they smell worse than the cattle!

i think this guy was watching us watch him

we saw some real whoppers, these things weighed over 200 pounds

there were so many entries for produce

this one stopped us, how DO you judge hay?

after walking around the exhibits, we headed over to the carnival area.

too bad the city has given the fair the boot, they say it is just too expensive and the fair grounds need too much work; providing a new facility just isn't an option. well if the fair was as good as this one every year, maybe things would be different. the crowd there was much better-not at all scary and the atmosphere was reminiscent of days gone by; good wholesome fun and greasy food, what every fair should be!