Grilled Figs take over the Wine Tasting

My Knitting blog is quickly becoming my Farmers Market and Wine Tasting blog but I believe I can have it all here in this little journal of mine. I may not write about everything I do but I write about some of the best stuff.

This last Friday at Barnsdall is the perfect example. This week, I went with my dear friend, Eric, who happens to be the person who introduced me to Silverlake Wine in the first place. We'd been talking about coming to this tasting for months so I was really glad to be able to share it with him. He's also the person who's most directly responsible for my fig habit. He loves them as much as I do and we found the most awesome fig seller at the Farmers Market together. lovelovelove

Over the course of the last year, he's regaled me with many tales of how wonderful grilled figs with honey and mint are. I've merely drooled and nodded and dreamed of the day I would have them for myself. Well that day was last Friday.

I got there first and set up the blanket and awesome picnic backpack I finally remembered I had.

This was a Christmas gift a couple of years ago and, as much as I utterly loved it, I never really picnic-ed often enough (ever) to remember it existed and USE it. I finally have a reason so I pulled it down off the shelf and look at how perfect it is!

And check out the blanket underneath... it's a rag quilt my mom made and not a week goes by that I don't get a compliment on it from random strangers. My craftiness is SO genetic.

And note the glorious hunk of brie and the garlic/herb crackers. The only thing you're not seeing in the pic is a little jar of fig paste. Put all three of these things together and you are experiencing one of my favorite foods ever. It. is. heaven. (the grapes are awesome, too)

So, I've got my food out, I've got my wine and Eric arrives to add his bounty to our meal. Yes... there they are.

Our Feast

And can I just tell you... those grilled figs were right up there next to the brie in heavenlyness. You better believe I'm going to be starting to grill my own figs every chance I get. Amazing....

So we're settled in and I'll give you a taste of what it's like there.

On the left is what it looks like from the blanket at the beginning of the evening. Beautiful lawn, setting up and people just arriving. On the right is a shot taken at the height of the evening when I've stood up and taken just a few steps to the left of where our blanket is and standing on a stair. And this is only a small section of the crowd.


These shots are taken having walked straight out from where we're sitting and turning around and shooting back. The blanket is just behind those people walking in the center. And on the right, after the party's started.

Now, there are a lot of great people who come out for it. I've met a couple including some lovely folks who have sat near us before. This week, they brought some friends and with those friends came my most favoritest ever person I've met at the tasting. His name is Troy.

Aaaaaaaawyeah, Troy is da man. He just looooooooved my backpack and no matter how many times his parents came and got him and tried to distract him with anything else, he just came crawling back to the backpack and tried to get in. It was awesome and we had many smiles at each other.

The other cool thing about this week is that I remembered to bring my lace scarf! I needed to get more pictures of it and thought this might be the perfect atmosphere to capture it's beauty. I'm not sure whether I succeeded but we had a whole lotta fun trying.

Here is the scarf posing with the picnic and then wrapped around my neck so there'd be at least one picture of me and I could prove I was there.

Eric being very game and posing with the scarf and then my trying to drape the scarf over the nearby foliage so it could look all sexy.

And then my favorite... The Scarf on Frank Lloyd Wright. Pretty cool.

Stay tuned... this next week brings us new faces joining the tasting and maybe I'll get some pictures of the wine this time. It's such an integral part of the night. (The Pinot Gris went perfectly with the figs...)