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West Virginia
When I started my retirement travels in 2009, I wanted a way to share it with family and friends as it was happening. Hence, "My Travel Journal". However I realized I wouldn't always be on a trip and wondered what to do with the blog in between times. My daughter pointed out, wisely, that travels can also include trips to the kitchen to try a new recipe, trips to visit family, trips to my neighborhood Starbucks, or a fun day trip with a friend. You're welcome to join me on any of these journeys! I've set up individual pages for each of my major trips (see tabs above).

Also, I have an Etsy shop where my current needlework resides. The last pieces I posted here were in 2013! So if you'd like to see what I have accomplished recently, go to (and I apologize for having to copy and paste):

www.etsy.com/shop/thedollhouseneedle

I recently added an "Italian Word a Day" thingie which shows up at the bottom of every page. You see the word and can click to hear it pronounced. I've been enjoying it and I think my accent is improving as time goes by.

November 21, 2009

A Great Saturday in Huntington

Days like today make me more and more hopeful that Huntington will eventually become a wonderful city again.  I don't know that I'll still be here (and by that I mean I may have moved to be closer to my kids) but I do think it's going to happen and that makes me happy.  It was such a delightful city when we first moved here and it's been awful to see it just die away to almost nothing.

Today was the big wrap-up to the whole Jamie's Kitchen thing.  I don't think it was their event, actually, but it was in conjunction with the whole concept of healthy eating, using local products, etc.  It was a Food Festival with 30 vendors selling things to eat.  Some of these were local restaurants, some were local or nearby farmers - goat cheese products, bison meat, grass fed beef farm, and I'd say probably about as far away as they got was Lewisburg, WV.  There was a lady who was selling a stuffed pepper type casserole made with bison meat (which was very tasty, by the way) and I was excited to learn from her that not only does she sell her meat locally at several markets, but that at one of those markets, they also sell locally produced lamb and beef.  I'm going to have to check that out.  I told her that I always end up jealous of my sister who lives in Massachusetts and buys all sorts of locally-grown foods and here we are with all this around us and this is the first I've ever heard of it.  She said that's what most of the visitors to her booth were saying and one of the other vendors told me the same thing, explaining that he's in the Charleston area but is thinking he may look into selling some of his products at a couple of Huntington stores.  So all of that was good news.

And, Rascal Flatts, who are apparently a very popular country music group put on a concert at the restored Keith Albee Theater while all this was going on.  Seating was limited, of course - it's not a big theater - and I read in the paper that they had sold out yesterday when tickets went on sale in one half hour!   And it turns out that when the concert started, they broadcast it to a large screen TV set up at one end of the Food Fest block which was a real nice touch I thought.  I don't care for country music all that much but what a treat for the people who do.



I posted a picture on an earlier blog showing the Jamie's Kitchen sign - and now it's been unveiled as Huntington's Kitchen.  A woman inside from Ebenezer Outreach told me it will be Jamie's Kitchen at Huntington, which means it will still be tied into his food revolution program - classes and education will be from his recipes and book.



I waited a little too long to take these - everything was shaded.  But these are a few of the vendors.  And you can just see the big screen down at the end.



So, here's Rascal Flatts and a wee little one feelin' the beat!

And I guess my other big news so far this weekend is that I got my Brunelleschi poster hung!  It turned out to be a fairly major undertaking which didn't surprise me too much.  But I got it accomplished and am pretty pleased with the results.  And the other picture is of a frame I bought at Big Lots of all places and I love it.  It's the "floating" type where you sandwich the photo between two pieces of glass and I don't know if it's because of the photo or the floating or a combination of both, but when I got it put together and found this spot for it, I loved the way it looked - I mean really loved it - and I couldn't figure out why until it finally dawned on me that it's very 3-D looking now.  That doesn't really show in this photo, but I took a picture anyway.
























So I guess that's all for Saturday, November 21.  After all that sampling and looking at local, healthy food, I've decided I'd better eat at Hillbilly Hotdogs tonight so they don't feel left out.  They're always a vendor at events at Pullman Square, but my guess would be their menu didn't qualify for this one!  But I always say, there's a time and a place for everything and it is now time for me to go get a hotdog...

6 comments:

January said...

Hooray for Huntington! I hope this momentum sticks, because WV does have an insane amount of farmers to never be able to find fresh, local food.
Your dome print looks great in that window! Good job getting it hung by yourself.
I can't wait to read about your Thanksgiving adventures...oh wait! I'll be in your Thanksgiving adventures! See you soon.

Christopher said...

I'll say it again, the dome poster looks really good there! ANd I like your "easel" type frame too, from Big Lots.
I think you need to write an editorial letter to the Huntington paper in a week or two, about the rebirth of Huntington, all the recent stuff, the momentum that needs to be maintained to keep it going... speaking from the position of a long time resident, excited to see things turning the corner, etc...
Glad it was such a nice day!

Mary Lynne said...

January - you're right - you will be in my Thanksgiving adventures and be prepared to have your kitchen creations immortalized on the world-wide web! I'm bringing my camera. :)

Chris - don't think I'm probably the editorial type, but as all this stuff has been happening I've been kind of wishing I could figure out a way to make my blog more public - like if someone did a search for Huntington, WV. There should be some way to do key words for searches, but I can't seem to find it...

Mary Lynne said...

January - you're right - you will be in my Thanksgiving adventures and be prepared to have your kitchen creations immortalized on the world-wide web! I'm bringing my camera. :)

Chris - don't think I'm probably the editorial type, but as all this stuff has been happening I've been kind of wishing I could figure out a way to make my blog more public - like if someone did a search for Huntington, WV. There should be some way to do key words for searches, but I can't seem to find it...

Unknown said...

I, too, think your dome poster looks great hanging there and seeing it makes me think that your concept of using both those hall windows for books, art, whatever will work really well. Being rather behind on comments, would also like to add that the pot roast looks yummy (haven't made my first of the year yet but will soon)and what is the plate it's on? Is that a new set of dishes? Whatever, I like it as much as the pot roast. And even if you aren't an editorial type, to write a praising one shouldn't be much different than writing your blog so I agree with Chris that you should do so because you do make Huntington sound enticing. I was under the impression that the more times a word is mention the better the odds that it will come up in a search engine -- maybe one of your blog postings could be the line Huntington, a nice place to live repeat a gazillion times. :)xo

Mary Lynne said...

Nope - I got the dishes back when I was living on Scenic Lane...I'd say "so you've eaten off them" but the way we seem to travel and eat out when you visit, you very well may not have! :)

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