Grill Fest 2016

Grill Fest 2016

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for May 15, 2016

On Friday night, Miss Sheri and I hooked up with my good friend, Orlando Mazzolini, and headed to the casino.  We didn't have a very good night gambling, but we did have a heck of a lot of fun together which is A-OK in my book.

We even made some new friends.  Which is nice.

On Saturday, we hooked up with our good friends, Troy and Rhonda Brown, along with a new friend, Renee, and headed to St. Paul to CHS Field for Minnesota Monthly Magazine's Grill Fest 2016.  

Grill Fest is a neat event.  You pay $45 to enter and then visit booths from 90 different exhibitors from various bars, restaurants, breweries, wineries, grill companies, and food companies that want to show you that they know how to make a backyard BBQ something pretty special.  The Big Green Egg grill company was a premium sponsor.

I had no idea that I could turn into a glutton so quickly.  It was a mile long selection of free samples and everything tasted so good!  I tested about 20 different kinds of meat, burgers, salsa, dressings, sauces, and appetizers.  I pretty much had to be rolled out of the joint three hours later.

There were also about 100 different samples of beer and wine.  It seemed like every bar and local brewery had a booth there.  They give you a little glass at the door that you walk around with and everyone pours you a sample.  I tried a lot of them.

These two gentlemen were very nice.  They had recently launched their Colombian Picante business called Uncle Simon's traditions and were at the festival to spread the word about their name.  Their picante spread was pretty good.

CHS Field is a new stadium in St. Paul where our minor league baseball team, the St. Paul Saints, play.  It was a beautiful stadium and a great setting for an event like this.

MMMM.  Spicy Olives.

I kind of felt bad for this pig until I discovered how delicious he was.  It had to be tough to get him to crawl into that rotisserie, though.

I also felt kind of bad for these veggies, but couldn't really figure out why.

Smoke on the Ball Field!  

Deep Purple should write a song about that.

The Big Green Egg grills have a cult following of people who use them to cook all sorts of stuff.  These guys were showing off the pizzas they baked in there.  I was kind of hoping for some ham, but didn't see anybody serving any.  I've always wanted to try Green Eggs and Ham.

I did get to make my own pizza from scratch and grill it.  It kind of tasted like crap, though.  I need to work on my Grill Skills.