Another year, another festival

With the exception of my first summer in St. Louis (when I wasn’t in the know), I’ve been to the Festival of Nations every year.  In 2010, I wrote about the efforts to “green” the festival.

Last year, we deemed it important enough to attend with a seven-week-old.

I can hardly believe he was ever that small — he looks SO different now!  I don’t remember much of last years event, other than the  fact that using the festival “shuttles,” which were school buses, was rather tricky with a big ol’ stroller.  Biking would have been much easier, but we weren’t biking with him at that point.

Our plan this year was to leave immediately from the festival to head to the garden for the rest of the day, so we drove the car, which is probably the first (and hopefully the last) time I used that form of transportation to get there.

In the background are the Nigerian and Iranian food booths, a couple of our favorites from past years, conveniently right next to each other.  Unfortunately, the Iranian booth did not have baklava this year, but the Nigerian booth had our favorites, African honey beans and honeyed yams.

We also tried a couple of new items from the Thai booth: a curry mushroom puff and sweet, sticky rice roasted in bamboo.

We enjoyed sharing the delicious, unique flavors with Gabriel, who was quite happy to dig in to the spread.  It’s crazy how much a year (or two) can change things — from no baby, to a tiny baby, to a curious, active almost-toddler.

We compromised and used their paper plates with our utensils.

After eating, we wrapped up our trip with a visit to the main stage, and Gabriel made friends with the man sitting next to us and jammed out on his “drum.”