^^Our “official” Renfest Portraits. Totally normal. ^^
We totally nerded out this past weekend. It started on Friday with a screening of Lord of the Rings in concert at the Filene Center at Wolftrap. As in full orchestra, choir, soloists — we were pretty much squealing the entire time because holy crap it was amazing (nerding out as I type this). If you are a fan of LOTR then you need to see it in concert because even though I have seen the movie at least 30 times, it was a really different experience.
On Saturday we took advantage of discount tickets and beautiful weather to visit the Maryland Rennaissance Fest. Growing up in Houston, the Texas RenFest was THE thing to do every fall (besides football, of course). The Texas Renfest is still on another level of awesomeness, but the Maryland Renfest is pretty awesome in it’s own right. Turkey legs, fried mac n cheese on a stick, steamed clams washed down with “Bee Sting” cocktails (recipe below), roasted nuts, funnel cake, scotch eggs… Now you know why we love going to renfests so much. Piggies.
We are usually more interested in stuffing our faces than watching any shows but we prefer people-watching over any staged acts. And man, the Renfest never disappoints. Some amazing costumes this year included what we *think* was a “dark elf” — guy dressed in all black, from head to toe, face included and lots of shirtless guys who shouldn’t be shirtless, only wearing leather pants.
As usual, we at a ton, drank a ton, bought a lot of honey from The Bee Folks (echinacea is our fav), contemplated buying an expensive and beautiful hand-crafted wooden mug from Goodly Woods (maybe next year), and picked up some organic catnip along with other spices and oils from the herbalist shop. And of course we had our official portraits taken. Now we have a “king and queen” portrait to add to our collection of gunslingers, victorian family, and prohibition era derelicts.
Afterward we went back to the sis’ place and ate even more food while watching the Longhorns play the most pathetic game of football ever. Sly had a wine headache and passed out for most of the game (lucky him) waking up only to eat MM’s delicious homemade pizza.
Basically we ate/drank for 12 hrs hours straight.
renfest ‘bee sting’ cocktail recipe
This recipe (if it can even be called that) couldn’t be easier — it’s pretty sweet, but not cloyingly so (which I find of drinks that use artificially sweetened liquors)
Ingredients + Directions — mix the following together, preferably in a wooden/leather/pewter beer mug for that Renfest vibe:
3/4 hard cider (the alcoholic kind)
1/4 mead
that’s it!
