Upon my arrival I did some shopping to really work up my appetite. I got a new tofu bunny shirt..."do you like my tofu bunnies?" and a splendid silk skirt. Try saying that 3 times fast. Then I went into the madness. Tons of people were there as per usual and the seating was very limited in the ONE dining tent they had set-up. There were masses if people huddling around every single inch of shade possible downing various forms of tofu. Personally I would have liked to see the tent that was erected for the cooking demonstration be used as more seating for the eating. The organizers of this event know it draws more and more people each year...so why not take that into consideration? Just curious.
After doing a once over of the food vendors I headed straight to my favorite...the Church of Perfect Liberty Tofu Tostadas. Perfect as usual. Then somehow I found myself at the Downtown News information booth professing my love (again) for the newspaper when I happened to meet Jon Regardie, editor at large. We've exchanged e-mails in the past and it was nice to finally meet him and his beautiful wife, Julia, in person. I then embarked upon a food vendor that was nearby that had BBQ Tofu. I was all set to get the BBQ tofu until I got closer and read the menu...apparently their Tofu Pad Thai was a "must try." I thought, "OK, why not get this pad thai and compare it to the other I had earlier." Hands down the 2nd one was the best, I'm glad I went with their recommendation. Afterwards I took another trip to the Church of Perfect Liberty and followed it up with a little slice of heaven known as Serious Coffee Chip ice Cream from Woo City. Oh. My. God.
The funny thing is, usually when I tell people that I've gone to the Tofu Festival I get all sorts of weird faces that resemble "ewww" but Sunday evening I had 2 people express interest in joining me next year. And a note for the meat eaters....I saw plenty of chicken (the real kind) so don't be so quick to assume there's "nothing" for you to eat.
x
I stumbled upon this site as I was in the process of doing some online research. Discussion of tofu always seems to make people blanche. It is so adaptable to so many dishes, that I would be very interested in going to the type of event you described.
Posted by: thebizofknowledge | August 16, 2006 at 10:17 AM
I'm so sad we missed it! But it's a busy summer. Glad I could relive it with you.
Posted by: Rick | August 16, 2006 at 04:06 PM
Coffee Chip Ice Cream - hmmm - that sounds divine.
Posted by: claudia | August 17, 2006 at 07:38 PM