Biscuits and Babies

Yesterday was a bad day for Kristin, in which we (mostly me, but also Jeannie) subjected her to a string of indignities and then took pictures.

Indignity #1: I made Kristin wake up really, really early on a Saturday, advising her that I would be at her building at 8 AM so that we could leave for the International Biscuit Festival and be there by 9 AM. It was so early that the staff at her desk were asking each other why she was awake, and I had to explain that I told her 8 AM because I really planned to leave by 9 AM and knew that she wouldn't be ready on time. Sure enough, we left at ten after nine, even though I was there at eight.

She probably would have just bailed on the whole thing, but on Tuesday night I publically accused her of repeatedly ditching me for weekend plans unless we were doing something that she wanted to do, so Kristin was up bright and early yesterday, just to prove me wrong.

I should be a psychologist.

Or a manipulative sociopath.

Kristin got her own jab in, though, by tricking me into agreeing that it would somehow be better if we walked downtown instead of riding in an air-conditioned car like normal people do. I'm not quite sure how this happened, but several minutes later, there we were on Biscuit Boulevard, a temporary street set up alongside Market Square:



We were a half hour early for the biscuit tasting, which gave us time to get our tasting tickets:



(Yee Haw Industries did a really nice job on those and on the festival posters) and scope out the booths before the crowds came. It also gave us time to notice that the International Biscuit Festival is, unfortunately, not an International Spelling Festival:



Some competitors did sweet biscuits, like the UT Culinary Institute's orange glazed vanilla biscuit:



which was good, but not as good as Sapphire's Orange Julius biscuit:



Tea at the Gallery also did a sweet biscuit, a cinnamon scone with creme and raspberry preserves and lemon curd:



and I almost voted for it.

There were also savory biscuits, like (I think) this one:



from the Abundant Life Kitchen:



I think it was savory because we never got to actually taste one, due to Indignity #2: Crowds. Huge crowds pressing and rubbing against you as they fight for biscuit samples in a confined space.

Once the tasting portion of Biscuit Fest started, a few thousand people crowded onto Biscuit Boulevard, which was only a block long. We could barely move, much less reach any tables for a sample, and we ended up squeezing between two booths and escaping the area by sneaking along behind them. On the way, I snagged a blueberry sage biscuit with jalapeno honey from Latitude 35's table, and decided that it was decent but overcomplicated, so I didn't vote for them, either.

Freed from the mass of biscuit-seekers, Kristin and I decided to get some breakfast and go back to the tasting after the crowd had thinned a little. We ate at the Bistro at the Bijou, where Kristin had a fried egg sandwich and I had french toast made with french bread, which cracked me up because all I could think of was the scene in Better Off Dead when Lane's mom makes a french dinner and proudly announces the menu of french bread, french fries, and french dressing.

After breakfast, we went back to Biscuit Boulevard, discovered that the crowds had thinned (and at least one vendor had run out of biscuits and closed), and finished our tasting:



Both of us ended up voting for the cheese and chive biscuit from Callie's Charleston Biscuits and Pimento Cheese, which was so good that I ate mine and then ate Kristin's too.

Full of biscuits (I was more full than Kristin, because she only took one bite of each biscuit and then gave the rest to me) and breakfast, we then walked to the hospital to see Jeannie, who had a baby on Friday.

Then, Indignity #3: We made Kristin touch a human baby.



And we took pictures of her doing it.

It turned out to be a pretty good day for me, but I can't say the same for Kristin.