The Black Eyed Pea Festival

As I mentioned before, Joe and Mom entered the Black Eyed Pea Cook off again this year.

Last year Joe made Black Eyed Pea-to Pie

 and mom, who was the reigning grand champion the two previous years, made Black Eyed Chicken Pea-chiladas.

Those delicious reci-peas won Mom first place (but not grand champion) and Joe second place. So they were back at it again this year with a couple more delicious and completely different reci-peas.

Joe made Black Eyed Pea-quitos and Pea-so.

(Black Eyed Pea-stuffed taquitos and black eyed pea-infused Rotel dip. YUM!)

Mom made Black Eyed Burgers.

(Hamburgers with black eyed peas in the meat. Delish!) 

There were only 7 entries this year, which was shocking, and once I tasted all of them, I knew it was anyone's game! Seriously, every recipe was good! I honestly can't say that about any other year. But this year was a close call. The food was judged and then it was time to serve the people while we waited to hear the results. It took a very long time for those results to come in! In the meantime, Hana passed out toothpicks to everyone.

She wore a special outfit I made just for the festival.

Hana wandered over to taste the competition's food.  ;-)

It was okay, though, it was her Ninny after all!

And Geegaw was there!

Snow cones were enjoyed.

Slides were slid down.

Even Hana's new baby named Zebra got to go down the slide.

(She got a new baby doll at the festival and he wears striped clothes so she named him Zebra.)

Faces were painted. 

Tours were given.

(Geegaw and Hana toured the oldest house in Athens that is there at the Arboretum. He told her all about it and she then gave us the tour and told us all about it - and I quote - "This is where they used to sit a hundred years ago. This oak furniture is very fragile..."

Pumpkins were decorated.

Hana showed us she might be able to help the Cowboys out.

And at the end of the day feet were very, very dirty.

(And shoes were worn the entire time!)

And the winner of the cook off? They did not have a grand champion this year, only 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Apparently what took so long was the judges got into a heated argument over a couple of the dishes and had to re-taste. 1st place went to a lady who made Tamale dressing with black eyed peas in it, 2nd place went to mom and 3rd place went to Joe. Great job, guys!