The Taste of Northside

OMG!

I seriously hate it when my students use text language to communicate, but it is the only way that I can express my excitement at how bad ass the Taste of Northside event was last night! If you weren't there, you missed out.

Things started off a little rocky. I waited in line for 30 minutes at Cornerstone Church (I thought I might burn just walking into the parking lot) to board a charter bus that was to take us to Sontera. The upside was that it gave James a chance to get there. He had TAKS training after school and was a little late in getting there.

Once we were inside Sontera we walked up with out Heb-purchased tickets to redeem a booklet that showed which booths were in what areas. We walked up to the first booth we saw. It was La Madeline and they were serving a itty bitty cup that held one strawberry with some yogurt creme drizzled over it. I reached for one and the attendant behind the booth said, "That'll be 2 tickets". I was perplexed until she pointed at the booklet I had just traded for my ticket. Inside the booklet were 10 booth tickets. Shit! I thought this was a free for all type of thing. I was expecting to graze on all of the scrumptious foods, but it turns out that I was going to have to be more selective in my choices since I only had a few.

James and I cruised around and found an Indian food booth and the guy only made us pay with 1 ticket instead of the customary 2 tickets because we picked up one of his restaurant's pamphlets. From then on the luck was with us. The beer lines were short; my wine lines were long but worth it. We sat around in the 1st area and finished our Indian and listened to a cover band who satisfied our need to hear 'The Day the Music Died' and then went exploring in the other areas. Area 2 was all about fundraising; silent auction, VIP area, and casino style gambling table. Since I was not there for philanthropic reasons I zoomed right past all that shit into the 3rd area.

Area 3 was the wino paradise. There were more alcohol booths than food and the band was rockin. That is not to say that the food booths that were there were not fantastic! We immediately found Houlihan's booth was giving out seared tuna for only one ticket. Now I know what you are thinking, seared tuna at an outdoor booth? but let me just tell you that this was so fantastic that we went back about 3 times and have decided that our Friday night drink sessions need to visit this restaurant.

The weather was perfect and as the sun went down we became more inebriated. The people watching was fantastic. 1 in every 4 women was wearing the same designer so we got a big kick out of that, as well as the 1 in every 5 women that was in need of a bra, but had forgotten it at home. The band's set list varied from Elvis to pop songs like 'Give me the Greenlight' so we were never in need of entertainment.

We are already making plans for all of our buds to come with us next year. I told Brit about it last night and she is definitely in. Since there is no purse search on the way in I think that we can totally sneak in a flask in case our tolerance for wine exceeds our number of tickets and a blanket to lay on the lawn will be a welcomed addition. Hope to see you next year! Wishing you the best year ever...Mel.