Taylor's Birthday (Kind of)

Taylor's birthday was in August and thanks to some disappearing mail my parents' gift to him was delayed. Before I tell you what it was I need to set some premises.

Here are a couple things you should know about Taylor:

1. He doesn't like celebrating his birthday.
2. He doesn't like "things."
3. He loves food.

Here are a couple things you should know about my family:

1. We love celebrating birthdays.
2. We love giving gifts.
3. We love food.

When I was in elementary school my mom had the idea to go Hamburger Hopping for dinner one night. That meant we stopped by four or five fast food restaurants where we ordered one meal to share between the five of us. After eating 1/5 of five meals everyone got full and we have a distinct memory of being together.

So, in an effort to resolve the six facts listed above, my mom sent Taylor a list of three BBQ restaurants in Jacksonville along with some money so we could go BBQ Hopping. I know, my mother's a genius.

We only made it to two restaurants before getting full and only one is worth mentioning: Sticky Fingers.

We ordered a hamburger, pulled pork sandwich fusion because it was unusual and some wings that had been grilled because we had never heard of doing wings that way before. It was all delicious. We will totally be back.

Happy birthday, Love!

Island Barbeque Competition

 The best thing I’ve found so far about being in Florida is the variety of events around us. I have a list of areas to check out, places to go and events to attend. The first event I found was an annual BBQ cook-off competition that takes place on Amelia Island. Amelia Island just about 40 miles north of us and it is a quiet area, an island by technicality rather than an island out off the coast, and it is gorgeous. I told Taylor we have to go back when the weather cools and just explore.

As soon as we parked and walked up to the event you could smell the food. I love the smell of BBQ and there were smokers and pits all over.

Yes, this guy does have an alligator head next to his grill because he was cooking it. They weren't selling the meat for a couple more hours so we weren't able to try any, but it sure looked awesome.

After wandering around the tents I was pretty overwhelmed. How do you pick which person to buy meat from? There were so many varieties of meats, styles and people I had no idea. We went with our gut (aka: the team with the longest line) and got a half-rack of ribs and I wanted to try the shrimp hush puppies, because that was the most interesting non-meat item I saw. Plus, the lady selling them was wearing shrimp earrings.

We ate along the coast-edge of the event on a picnic table. The meat was tender and delicious, the sauce was tangy but not overpowering and I got my fingers all messy; the perfect barbeque combination.

And then we went to the beach. How was your weekend?