Taste of Tacoma

I'm really surprised at myself that I didn't write a blog post about this last year. Maybe I thought it was too boring to mention, or maybe it just took me a year to realize I could make this post sorta funny. Who knows. But, the Taste of Tacoma is coming around again, so I thought I should recount my experiences from last year.

My friend Mary and I decided to go for her birthday, which conveniently falls on the same week as The Taste. It's free to get in, and has a lot to offer.

I remember that I just had  to try alligator-on-a-stick. Not being from the south and have never been there, we don't really get a lot of alligator options. That old adage "tastes like chicken" rings true, here. I don't think I would have been able to tell them apart.

We also discovered slushie wine. Yeah, you heard me. That secret powdered chemical that seems to turn alcohol into slushie. Neither one of us like wine, but we got a sample of it (red wine, no less!) and it was delicious. Must be all those added slushie chemicals.

In that same vein, we decided to do the wine tasting. It would cost us some money to get 5 tokens, in which we could pounce around the booths and pick out which wines to taste as if we knew anything about it and enjoyed the taste of it. We went to each booth and basically demanded "Give us your sweetest wine, (wench)!" Nothing was sweet enough for my palette, although they did have that chocolate wine with Almond Roca flavors that I've been seeing in special places. It's good, but I've never bought a bottle. I just keep tasting it everywhere I go, trying to convince my tongue that it's good stuff.

This was the assortment I spent all my tokens on, basically.

I saw a booth where they sold clip-on sun shades for glasses and got all excited because I'm an adult and that's what I get excited about now-a-days. I can't afford to get those specially made magnetic ones, so I opted for these. They look good, but I wouldn't wear them in public (I wear them while driving). Mary found an artist that makes plants and animals (with paint) into letters. We watched her do it for a while and I convinced her that she should get one made with her daughter's name on it. 

Image found on namepaint.com, because I'm too

lame to think to take a picture of the one Mary bought

The whole place had a slight Renaissance Fair vibe. I saw people selling hippie/renaissance clothes, and even feather masks (I almost bought one, I swear). Mary also got a Henna tattoo and promptly smeared it on the way out. I half expected a patron dressed like a Fairy to skip up to me, go "blurrrttt" and drop a small stone into the palm of my hand (actually happened once).

Oddly, it being the Taste of Tacoma and all, I can't remember what I ate for lunch. But it was probably awesome. I'll make sure to have it again this year.