Columbus Day Weekend: Music, Food, Family, Friends

Columbus Day weekend was just a normal two-day weekend for me, but I squeezed in as much fun as possible!

On Saturday afternoon, Joel and I walked over to Davis Square to catch some of HONK! Fest, which we sadly missed last year. (HONK! is a festival of "activist street bands", which often means marching bands with unusual instrumentation, unusual costumes, and a whole lot of energy.) Check out my slideshow for a glimpse of the awesomeness:



Then, we hurried into Providence - and got stuck in massive traffic, of course - to meet up with Joel's parents at one of our favorite Providence restaurants, Red Fez. We were in town to see Joel's brother Dan's old band, Zox, play a reunion show at Lupo's (and Dan's new band, The Stepkids, was one of the opening bands.) It was an early show, and by 11pm, the grumpy staff was shoving us out the door to transition the place into a skeevy nightclub. Gross. The show was pretty fun, although I can't figure out why people up front felt like crowd surfing even to the quiet acoustic numbers. The after party was at Local 121, a restaurant and bar focused on local, sustainable ingredients. We eventually got tired and decided to head back to Boston, but on the way back to the car, we stopped by Haven Brothers Diner (founded in 1893!) for some late night street meat. A diner on wheels, it has a small seating area inside, or you can order at the side of the truck and eat outside. It was chilly; we squeezed inside. The fries were great, but Joel got a strange-colored hot dog that wasn't very good. Homeward bound. Much less traffic on the way back.

On Sunday morning, I headed back to Rhode Island. My cousin David was in from Florida with his wife and kids: two-year-old Joel and six-month-old Anna. I hadn't met either of the babies yet, so my parents and I drove to my aunt and uncle's house in Warwick, RI, where the family was gathered.

My mom with my new cousin Anna

Another Joel!

While spending the afternoon in Rhode Island, I got a text message from my friend Jennie: "We're toying with the idea of having a beer-bottling, homemade ice cream, cedar plank salmon, popover party tonight. Anybody into that idea?" Um, yes.

When we arrived at Jennie's later that night, we were greeted by her adorable dog, Allie, who pees on the floor whenever visitors show up.

First on the menu, not a part of the enticing text message, were fried green tomatoes. Yum! Jennie and her boyfriend Travis are both from the South, so they know what they're doing when it comes to fried green tomatoes.

Jennie recently acquired a popover pan and ice cream machine from a moving sale, hence the dinner theme. Next up, popovers!

And salmon for the main course.

We finished up the meal with some homemade pear ginger sorbet that Jennie made in her new ice cream machine. Delicious.

Spnork? Knifoon? Forspife?

We watched a bit of the beer bottling process (Jennie and Travis made an IPA) before we had to head home. Alas, some of us did not have Columbus Day off.