Dear Des Moines,
We’ve had our eyes on you the past few years. We used to think you were kind of boring and sucky and we didn’t think it was cool to hang out with you. That has all changed over time. You are getting cooler and cooler each day.
Sincerely,
Dave and Sarah
1 cup Awesome
Contrary to popular belief, Des Moines, Iowa, is not boring. There is even a blog that is dedicated to proving this! While it’s true that there are more pigs in our state than there are people, it doesn’t change the fact that Iowa and more specifically Des Moines, is getting cooler and cooler.
For the last seven years, Des Moines has held an event called The World Food Festival. Believe it or not, this was the first year that we ever attended…and now we are mad at ourselves that we missed out on the last seven years!!!
The World Food Festival was created to “celebrate Iowa’s unique and diverse culinary traditions.” There were TONS of regional cuisines represented at the festival. Each booth offered $1 tastes and all menu items were under $5.
It was so hard to decide which type of food to try! Our friends, Rob and Ami, adopted a boy from Ethiopia last year and they convinced us to try some Ethiopian food. Sorry about the weird light in the pictures. I wish I could say it was some artistic effect I was going for, but in reality the sun was blinding everyone in line so I just held the camera up and hoped for the best.
We ordered the spicy Wot (Beef stew cooked in Berbere sauce and exotic spices and peppers) and Injera. It was great! Injera is like nothing we have ever had before. It is a spongy, soft flatbread…almost pancake-like. Most people in Ethiopia eat Injera daily. They typically eat food with their hands, so the Injera serves as a “scooper” to get all the food to your mouth.
For our next course of food, we decided to go Greek.
Who doesn’t love a good Gyro?! Nice job Yanni, this Gyro was great!
There was one more booth that caught our eye. BACON WRAPPED DES MOINES! Everything served here was wrapped in bacon.
Now, we all love bacon in our family but nobody loves it more than Marley. This girl loves her bacon!
I was going to get the Sunday Sampler, but it was going to be a long wait. So Marley decided she just wanted the Bacon Explosion (sausage rolled, wrapped in bacon and smoked). Her father has never been more proud in his life…
It is safe to say we will be back next year, and we will probably go on Saturday and Sunday so that we can try more foods.
Congratulations Des Moines, you are cool.
Oh bummer- I wish I had known about this, it would have been worth the drive over! I LOVE injera. We ate a lot of Ethiopian while we were in East Africa- so fun to scoop the various sauces w/the spongey, sour-doughy bread. And I do believe Marley just solidified her Eickelberg roots with that bacon choice (as if she weren’t already an Eickelberg…ha). Way to go, girl!