The Scoop on ‘Banging with a spoon’

In yesterday’s post I showed you a picture of my budding Buddy Rich, as my son has developed a fondness for finding wooden spoons and banging them against whatever he can find.  This particular picture was taken at a camp in Lima, NY that belongs to a German club of which my in-laws are members.

During our summer road trip we went to visit Oma and Opa in sunny Rochester and planned our sojourn around the annual Blossom Festival that they hold on the second Sunday of every June.  It is meant to celebrate the blossoming of summer, but it is really just an excuse to drink some great beer and eat some awesome bratwurst – both fine ideas in my book.

In any event, we arrived in Rochester the Friday afternoon before the festival and had a pretty full week of planned activities.  We had a nice time meeting up with some of my wife’s friends, as well as a bunch of her family that is still local to the area.  The only day we didn’t have plans was Saturday, mostly because after driving 720 miles with a cranky toddler I wasn’t relishing the opportunity to get back into the suburban assault vehicle with him.  So, after taking the opportunity to sleep in a little and enjoy a relaxing morning, we decided to go check out the camp in advance of Sunday’s festival.

The camp is about 45 minutes from where my in-laws live, so the ride was relatively painless, and it gave my in-laws more opportunity to show off little man to their friends who would be busy working the various stands and concessions the next day.  When we showed up Opa promptly took little man from us and made off to make the introductions, leaving us behind as if we were just the FedEx people delivering a package.  Having not had anything to eat in hours my blood sugar was quite low, so  my mother-in-law wrangled some food for my wife and me, since we had been relieved, albeit temporarily, of our parental duties.

After eating and meeting some people who were allegedly at our wedding (that whole day was a blur) we heard this loud banging and a lot of laughter.  Deciding to see what the commotion was all about, we went into the farm house’s kitchen to find our little man swinging away with a spoon to his hearts content against these big stockpots that were recently used to make about 350 pounds of potato salad for the next day’s festivities.  This went on for another fifteen minutes or so until he predictably became bored and moved on to his next adventure.  However, he refused to reliquish the spoon.  I thought we were going to be taking it home with us until he dropped it in the grass a while later and I was forced to take it away from him – tantrum notwithstanding.

All in all it was a fun time and I’m looking forward to going back next year, and not just because the potato salad my mother-in-law makes is the best that I’ve ever had.  I managed the score the recipe from her and for good measure I hit the German butcher on the way out of town and stocked up on bratwurst for the 4th of July.  I can’t think of a better way to celebrate American independence than with a gut busting German food fest. *grin*

While we were there I created a Whrrl story, which you can find right here if you have any interest in checking out the festival.