Welcome to the Food & Wine Festival at National Harbor
held June 6 - 7, 2009 in Washington, D.C.

Held on the banks of the Potomac River, the Food & Wine Festival
featured over 100 exhibitors including restaurants,
vineyards, and gourmet food stores.

Timothy Dean, chef and owner of the award-winning Timothy
Dean Bistro in Maryland, served up his delicious Thai
curry mussels with lemon grass, Thai basil and spring onions. 

Executive Chef Aaron McCloud of Vintage 50 in Leesburg,
Virginia offered a wonderful lobster and English pea parfait topped
with a salad of pickled asparagus.

Fields of Athenry Lamb Sausage was sampled at the Vintage 50
Restaurant & Brew Lounge tent.  At the restaurant, the lamb
sausage is served sandwich-style on a roll with crumbled feta,
olive spread and friend onions. 

With its quirky and colorful home décor and gifts for wine lovers, the
Wineaux Shop, located in Edgewater, Maryland, was by far the most
entertaining booth to visit at the festival.  Trista Neff laughed with 
visitors and chatted about the unusual products on display.   

Ariston Specialties produces, imports and distributes fine Greek
olive oils and Italian vinegars.  The Ariston family has been in
the olive oil business for over 300 years.

Festival attendees sampled a variety of olive oils and
balsamic vinegar at the Ariston Specialties booth. 

With all the ingredients prepped and arranged, the Hand-Stretched
Apple Strudel demonstration is ready to begin.

 Matt Weingarten, Executive Chef of Inside Park at St. Bart’s in
New York City, starts out by welcoming the crowd to the
Westin Demonstration Lounge on the sands of the Potomac River.

Weingarten works on the apple strudel demonstration with Miran
Shim, Pastry Chef of Inside Park at St. Bart’s.  This was just
one of 10 cooking demonstrations happening throughout
the two-day festival.

A visit to the Pepper Schlepper tent was a must for hot sauce lovers. 
Purveyors of pepper products, the Pepper Schlepper people
not only produce their own brand of hot sauces, but also
distribute spicy sauces and condiments from all over the world. 

The 2009 Mar-Del Watermelon Association Queen Jessica
Haden handed out refreshing watermelon to festival
attendees.  It was sunny and 79°F on the 7th – perfect
watermelon weather!

At the end of the dock, festival attendees could relax and get
out of the sun in the Belgian Beer Café and enjoy
Stella Artois, Hoegarrden and Leffe. 

Chef Stanley Dukes of Giant Foods presented a “Healthy Taste of
Summer” on the Viking Culinary Stage on Sunday and demonstrated
Mesquite Grilled Chicken Breast with Mango Salsa and
grilled vegetables. 

Citrus Grilled Shrimp over mixed greens was Chef Stanley Dukes 
second demonstration during his “Healthy Taste of Summer”
presentation on Sunday.

Todd “The Dirt Man” shows off his all natural, 14-spice seasoning,
“Dirt”, with a smile.  According to Todd, Todd’s Original Dirt is good
on all kinds of meat and pretty much anything else you would
put salt and pepper on.

Live music floated in and out of the different demonstrations,
booths and tents throughout the entire festival. The music
ranged from the soulful jazz band pictured here The Jazzy Blu,
to folk singer Matt Jacobs, to the old time, bluegrass music of the
Paint Branch Ramblers.