Yesterday, Matt and I went to Cincinnati for the Cincinnati Celtic Music and Cultural Festival. I try to get there every year, and it was great to have Matt come with me this time. He'd never been before, and it was fun showing him around, listening to great music, and meeting some interesting characters. We actually only listened to a couple of bands, then mostly shopped at all the vendors. We did hear this one really cool band, Old Blind Dogs, who are from Scotland and very funny, as well as being killer musicians. We liked them enough to each purchase one of their CD's when it was over. The one I got (their latest, entitled, "The Gab O Mey") has most of the music we heard on it. I look forward to swapping with Matt to hear the one he picked up, which I think was "The World's Room".

As far as interesting characters go, the winner had to be a guy who was selling Sneaky Peat O'riginal BBQ & Hearth Peat. Yes, you saw it correctly, "O'riginal". This guy was quite a trip. He was the ould sod through and through--if he weren't so tall, I'd have thought he was a leprechaun. And the blarney was at no extra charge. He was demonstrating the taste of BBQ'ing with the peat by grilling what I suppose would've been hams if they'd been cured; I guess you'd call them pork shanks(?). Anyway, he cooked the pork on the grill, sliced up bits, sauced them up with a very simple BBQ sauce made mostly of ketchup and butter, then gathered up a bit on a toothpick to give you a sample. Now, here's the interesting part--next to him on the counter was this bottle of Irish whiskey (the brand seemed important to him--it was Kilbeggan, which he explained meant "little church"), and it was fitted with a sprayer of the sort you'd find on a bottle of Formula 409. When he had gathered up the bits of pork on the toothpick, he came at you with the toothpick in one hand and the spray whiskey in the other. As you opened your mouth to receive the pork, he would spray the whiskey into your mouth along with it. The taste was delicious, although I'm not sure if it was the pork itself or the whiskey or the combination of the two. Just to make sure which it was, we went back for seconds. :^) We also had the obligatory Harp (well, Matt did and I had a sip of his--after all, I was driving), and split a deep-fried, battered Milky Way, which, according to one of the members of OBD, originated in Scotland in his hometown. I highly recommend it--it was heavenly! We only got rained on once, while we were eating lunch, which was another obligatory Celtic festival food, Irish stew in a bread bowl.(Wow! I must be hungry or something--I promise we did more than just eat!)

I almost forgot--we left Lexington early in order to get there in time to attend the Catholic Mass and the "Kirkin' of the Tartans", which was the name for the Protestant Scottish version of the church service. It was very cool, with a roll call of the clans, in which you would stand as your clan name was called out. Since "Warford" is sassenach, or English, I stood for my mother's maiden name, Scott. Matt, of course, stood for clan Donald, being a McDonald and all.

We ended up back in Lexington about 7PM, having had a full day, and lot of fun. If anyone is interested in such things, I highly recommend this festival. It takes place on the last weekend of September every year--maybe I'll see you there next year!

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