Havre de Grace Seafood Festival - 8/10/08

Bear with me - I never do trip reports on here. I drool over others'! This'll be short and sweet (not like my posts):

We had a beautiful day in Maryland,


even though it looked like this on the way down from South Jersey into Delaware:


Food was plentiful, but I didn't eat all that much, really.


We both had a cup of this Cream of Crab soup. I thought it was very good. It was $5.00, but that didn't surprise me. It didn't have TONS of crab in it, but they were big pieces, and it had a nice kick and a pretty good consistency.


Then, a bit later after exploring the beautiful little Concord Point Lighthouse and the Susquehanna Flats...

(Brian took the following picture of the Fresnel lens and river with his new camera)

And I took this one as the sun came out again. Yes, it really is that shallow there.


We worked up an appetite walking along the Promenade, climbing the little lighthouse and just walking around the area in general, and I knew that although it was a seafood festival, I HAD to have Pit Beef.
Now, this may look dry, but you can trust me when I say it was not. I still remember the flavor and to me, since I don't get to Maryland often enough, I just love Pit Beef, I do! It was not big, but I didn't expect it to really be. It was $5.00. I ate this sandwich quickly...


Brian had a platter (if you want to call it that) of crabcake sandwich, a few fries, and a few hushpuppies. $9. Following is first a picture I took with my camera phone, and then his picture of it. Could not tell you what was in that sandwich besides crab, whether it had filler and what kind or whatever. I really for some reason don't eat crabcakes. But it was photogenic, that platter.



He had dessert; I didn't. He had blackberry sorbet. It tasted alright, but I thought it melted way too fast!


People were eating things like this in abundance:


Really, that's basically what it was all about.

What more did it NEED? Fantastic!!!

Harriet,
After all the nice things you have said to me about my Trip Reports over the years, it gives me great pleasure to return the compliment. Good job on your first report. I really like the look of that Crabcake Sandwich !! It may have some filler, but that's acceptable so long as the crab-flavor stands out !!

Is there any 'acceptable' condiment that is normally put on a Pit Beef Sandwich?? Or is it dipped like the French Dip versions?? It looked pretty good to me !

Congratulations again on reaching a Roadfood Milestone with your first report!

Harriet,

You did a fantastic job with your first trip report-

Expertly done- like an old pro- and no I'm not implying that you're old- but I definetely enjoyed it- I do miss a good pit beef sandwich and I'm glad you got to enjoy one.

I was there.
Great synopsis.
I usually go for a litle horse raddish on the pit beef.
As a side note, there are 2 great used bookstores in town, on the main street. My favorite is Courtyard Books. I have noticed that book hunting seems to go well with roadfood pursuit

Wonderful job - great scenery and food pics - now that you've gotten your feet wet I hope we'll see more!

Phil
I found my first copy of the ROADFOOD book (1978 edition) on a bargain book table at a Philadelphia Bookstore while on a visit to the city in 1984. I think it was $1 ! That was my first contact with the Stern's Guides !
Love checking out the 'Clearance Tables' at Bookstores!

Harriet, both the pit beef and crabcake sandwiches look pretty terrific, as well as the soup. (And if you hadn't said that was a cell phone picture I'd have never known it.) Looks like a great day all around--nice work!

Splendid! Love your water pictures as well...I'm in the Midwest so I don't get to see much of that. Fresh crab like that must taste amazing!

Very nice report. Thanks!

I'll have to get down to next year's fair, but in the meantime, your landscape shots makes we want to do a daytrip down there soon.

Nice job...looks like you sure had plenty to eat...even that sorbet that melted too fast looks good...thanks for sharing!!!

What a fine day-trip report. I hope to get to a Maryland seafood festival some day (the wife is from MD).

quote:

written by Harriet1954

Could not tell you what was in that sandwich besides crab, whether it had filler and what kind or whatever.

This sign:


...indicates that there was no filler. Is that where you got the crab cakes?

Don1954

Great report! I sure do miss those Maryland crabs!

great pictures, and a great report on this festival, the cream of crab soup, crab cakes, and the tray of crabs look excellent. thanks for the report, and pics.

Thanks, you guys. Your encouragement and nice words really mean a lot to me. I'm not kidding. For MiamiDon, since we split up when it came to getting our food, for the most part, and we met at a picnic table under the trees to eat, I believe it was this place that Brian got the crabcake sandwich:


I thought the sign was a real cute example of how not to use grammar and spelling, and had to take this picture. I obviously took this a litle while after he ate his platter. I love taking pictures of stuff like this.

I'm just sorry I didn't take more pictures, but Brian did and he also took lots of video footage. What he did with this footage was amazing, as it was mostly of the Skipjack Martha Lewis, along with some other boats, and he added for the music Phil Ochs' "Pleasures of the Harbor", and put it all on DVD. I can tell you that it did bring some tears to my eyes when I watched how this was put together and presented.

Regarding food closeups, I'm really hoping that my new camera phone can take as good ones as the one I just retired. I did take some of some hamburgers at a sort-of fast food place, and might put them someplace in the "Hamburgers" area. They came out pretty good, but not the professional look I was going for! The ones for the Seafood Festival were taken with my recently-retired one, as I just got the new one August 15. It has more megapixels, but I have to mess with the sharpness after I upload them. Then again this monitor will be shot in fairly short time; it's ancient! Mostly everything's too dark.

harriet1954-
The problem with doing such a great job on a trip report like this is that we will be expecting them more often!

The photos are beautiful, especially that blackberry sorbet. Thanks for the report!

I am having so much fun following you around on your day trips-thanks for sharing, harriet!

""Clapping hands here"......
Great photos for a cell phone.....
I always wondered what "pit beef" was... And now I know...
I thought it was similar to NE Beef, but looking at it,
its not.
Hmmm....."licking screen here, trying to taste"... Ick..
No.. thats not beef. I think it was a skeeter I smushed.
Anyway.....
You are a virgin anymore... tee hee!

Girl, I don't even know how I can follow that one up.

See, the thing is, I've gone on many roadtrips since I don't know when, done this sort of thing for years and years, but never really documented it incorporating the food aspect enough.

And unfortunately, when you have a schedule as tight and crazy as mine (and I'm tired ALL the time unless I'm caffeined up), you just have to live vicariously through others. In addition, my ex boyfriend Bill felt like he was being dragged to places, although he sure loved to eat. God bless the poor guy; I hope he's happy sleeping in front of the TV wherever he is.

Life's a lot better now!

harriet1954 -

Wow - everything looks great. The food delicious
and the scenery delightful.