My mama was a bag lady. Totally the good kind, but yep, she was a pro. She always carried a huge handbag most places we went. It seemed she carried large ones because she needed so many things. On any given day you could find tweezers, scissors, Kleenex, pens, a snack or two usually in the form of a semi-melted Snickers Bar, pay stubs, her wallet, family photos dotted with particles of the aforementioned melty Snickers, nail clippers, a snap close coin purse (she did NOT like the zippered ones), a ton of loose chocolate covered change (because unlike the ZIPPERED purses she hated, the snap ones pop open), an extra roll of toilet paper (don’t ask), bobby pins, wet ones, a brush and a flashlight. It was all in the bag. At the least, you can say she was prepared for a holocaust. She would have made a great contestant on “Let’s Make a Deal”. Monty would have loved her.
She even carried her big bags to the “all you can eat” buffets. I was mortified the first time I saw her “stash” food. And OH she came prepared. She had ziplocks, napkins, and I’m willing to wager the bottom was packed with ice. She wasn’t discreet about it either! She would make her plate selections, then sit her plate on the buffet as she wrapped extra for later. “Well Missy, they don’t expect you to eat all of this at one time. And it’s just going to go to waste if we don’t enjoy it.” OK. You really couldn’t argue with her logic. She presented a solid business case. Case studies could have been written on her justification technique.
It’s funny to me the things we pick up from our parents that we SWORE on a stack of Bibles we would never do. Enter my bag. Mom would be proud.
This is the bag I carried to the festival. I mean you KNOW you are going to pick up things along the way! They EXPECT you to take their swag right? And take swag we did! Just take a look at all of our goodies!!
A menu from the hotel bar…
Business cards because I need to order these things!
A screen cleaner for my phone and brochures…
Gotta have your room key!
Farm to table seeds!
SMOKED PAPRIKA!! SUPER SCORE!!! Although, from a marketing perspective I do find the relationship between a car and smoke to be quite odd. Not sure this was well thought out, but hey…I got free smoked Paprika out of it!
Dessert for later 😉
You HAVE to have a lanyard wine glass holder!
Koozie to remind me who to call to get us home after all of the festivities 🙂
T-shirts to remember the occasion.
Making sure we know where we are so we don’t miss a thing!
Sample Goo-Goo Clusters. Even in PEANUT BUTTER! Are you even kidding me??? I reckon this is my version of mama’s Snickers. LOL!
More educational reading material…
Browned Butter popcorn. I wanted to lick the bag.
Super awesome magazine. You NEED this!
…and finally, a hint to tomorrow’s recipe post!
Tomorrow we’re going back at it in our own kitchen since the chefs of the 2014 Atlanta Food & Wine Festival are no longer at our disposal to feed us grapes, bon bons and little morsels of heaven. I’ve come back excited and with a ton of new recipes to share. We’ve got this in the bag. 😉
Life is too short to eat ugly food.
The Front Porch Gourmet 