Googa Mooga

A few weekends ago, Kevin and I and our friend Peter traipsed out to Brooklyn in the drizzling rain to The Great Googa Mooga. Despite its vaguely google-ish sounding name, Googa Mooga is actually a food festival in Prospect Park that takes place over three days with 85 restaurant and food vendors, 100 wine/beer sellers and live music performances. In their own words, an amusement park of food, drink and music.

We headed out for the day on Saturday, and despite the rain joining in for the festivities, didn't let that stop us from stuffing ourselves silly.

Walking into the festival is a bit daunting. With an overwhelming amount of food stands lined up end to end, each filling your nose with a thousand different mouthwatering wafts of deliciousness, it's difficult to know where to start. Considering my compatriots were two "growing" boys, we inevitably made a beeline for the BBQ/pork/meat area, clearly marked by a massive smoke-spewing cast iron pig appropriately named Hamageddon.

Peter and Kevin kicked things off with marbled rye cheddarwurst & carmelized onion sandwiches from Pork Slope, while my nose led me to Fatty 'Cue's barbeque pulled pork.

Don't let the pulled pork's unimpressive looks deceive you, my nose did not lead me astray! The boys also scarfed down smoked bacon spicy-slaw sandwiches, which made the briefest of appearances next to my pulled pork below, but that's all I could manage to snap before every last crumb disappeared.

Having thoroughly gorged ourselves on enough pig-related food to last a lifetime (gross), next it was on to fried chicken from Blue Ribbon. Kevin was the least excited for this leg of the eating journey.

As you can see in the next sequence of photos, the fried chicken literally stunned them into belly-contented silence. No actual words were spoken. Only grunts of approval and continuous munching.

During the fried chicken bonanza, a little stand by the name of Free Bread called out to me. A simple warm & gooey toasted PB&J? Yes, please!

Several napkins and finger licks later, we waddled over to the main stage as the band Matt & Kim came on. If you've ever seen Matt & Kim live (my first time!), then you know, they put on a party not just a show.

Launching into their set, the crowd immediately went wild, jumping and cheering, and before we knew it someone pitched themselves up into the hands of the crowd and the throng turned into a mosh pit. I've never "moshed" before in my life (too afraid of getting dropped and trampled!) and wasn't about to start now, so instead of sharing some thrilling action shot of me being whisked along over the heads of the throbbing crowd, I'll share these strangers doing it instead.

Even Kim got out there!

As the concert wound down, and the moshers dispersed, our uncomfortably full bellies slash food comas set in. But seeing as how we were in Brooklyn, at the equivalent of foodie heaven, fresh off an indie darlings Matt & Kim concert, I couldn't resist giving my best shot at blending in with the hipster locals before heading home. How'd I do?

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Nerdy Life Goals

For someone who doesn't do resolutions, this post sure looks a lot like a list of resolutions. However, it's really more a bunch of longer-term goals and ideas that have been taking up a significant amount of space in my brain lately and refuse to vacate. Ding ding! They must be important to me. To e-ink and e-paper they go!

My Goals:

• Travel more. Whether it's two miles away or 2,000, I want to go/see/experience it.
• Visit my family more often. These days, the norm is seeing them at Thanksgiving, Christmas and 1-2 other times throughout the year. Unacceptable! Frequent flier miles here I come.
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator in my apartment building every day. It's five measly flights, yet shockingly weeze-inducing.
• Blog more often. The process of putting my thoughts to digital paper and sending them out into the ether of the internet universe has become, to my surprise, something I truly enjoy. Carving out the time is the most difficult part.
• Cook/Bake more and try out new recipes. Also something recently discovered that I'm surprised to find I love. Plus, I already have an eager taste-tester waiting in the wings with Kevin!
• Take more pictures. My older and wiser self will look back at them some day and thank me.
• Work on being less of an emotional eater and more on constructively managing anxiety, pressure, and uncertainty (hello stress eating). Embarrassing to admit, but heck, we're all friends here right? If I can't say it to the faceless, anonymous walls of the interwebs, then when can I.

These are the biggies that have been rattling around my head. More to come I'm sure. What are some of YOURS?

Thanks for listening blogosphere!

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