Saturday we spent the day with Jeff’s mom and aunt in Pittsburg (California, near Concord, which makes me wonder why the settlers couldn’t come up with more original names) at that city’s annual Seafood Festival. The website, unfortunately, leaves a lot to be desired: there’s no map of the festival nor even directions on how to find it (beyond ” Park at Bart [sic] or Pittsburg Unified School District on Loveridge and ride the FREE Shuttle”; thank goodness for GPS navigation systems); three days after the event is over the site still says that entertainment for two stages has yet to be determined and the “LIST OF 2006 FOOD VENDORS IS COMING SOON!”; and the video commercial voiceover highlights the Zinfandel competition and dinner while showing people drinking white wine. Jeff was joking about offering the city some pro bono web design services before next year’s festival.
Website issues—and a lot of traffic and slowdowns on the way there, for no apparent reason—aside, I ended up having a really nice time. It was a gorgeous clear day, once we got there (I was a little worried, though, because it turned out to be 20 degrees warmer and significantly sunnier in Pittsburg than in Daly City, and I’d forgotten to put on sunscreen; fortunately, I didn’t end up burning), we saw a cool sand castle being built, we watched a little of the air show, and we ate some good food (tasty garlic fries, Cajun calamari, and Maryland crabcakes). One of Jeff’s celebrity-crushes—cutie Joey Altman, from local cooking show Bay Cafe—was on-hand to give a cooking presentation from 4-5. We were able to get a lot of photos (though the lighting was unfortunately quite bad under the tent, so they didn’t turn out as well as I’d have liked) as well as an opportunity to taste his grilled salmon and cole slaw sandwiches, and his shrimp and andouille corncakes with avocado corn salsa. Yum.
