The Neptune Festival
I look forward to this event/weekend every year. For the last three years I have missed it for some reason or the other. The Neptune Festival is touted as the "festival for locals". It's the local's reward for surviving the beach tourist season. The festival has a huge parade on Saturday morning. After the parade the minions head down to the concrete boardwalk. The boardwalk is loaded down with vendors, displays, and the ubiquitus array of "festival foods". I live for this stuff. It's the only time that I throw caution to the wind and eat willy nilly. I have lost 40 pounds this year being very selective about what I eat, but yesterday was declared, "Junk Food Orgy Day". I kept to the theme to a T. The first thing I made a B-line for was an Italian sausage with peppers and onions. Of course it wasn't finished in this picture because I hadn't squirted 1/2 cup of some plain yellow mustard all over it. Yum. The bread was a bit dry but the sausage was cooked just right on the grill as were the peppers and onions. It was huge and I ate the WHOLE thing. You would have thought that I hadn't eaten in a month of Sundays. I felt so satisfied while my thighs, behind and stomach were groaning at the thought of all that fat being added to them. Who cares...on to the next bad thing! While walking down the board walk on the way to the Italian sausage stand, we spotted a man with a heaping pile of potatoes. As I have said many, many times, I have never met a potato I didn't like. Well, today might have been the exception. The line for the Butterflied Potatoes was very long. I went and sat in the shade of a hotel in the grass and waited while hubby stood in line for about half an hour. When he brought the plate over to me, I was sorely disappointed. The plate pictured here is NOT what we got.!

The potaotes were not cooked completely and they were greasy as all get out. Never-the-less I ate some of them anyway. When I had to shake off the dripping grease toward the bottom of the pile of potatoes, I decided enough was enough and off to the 50 gallon drum trash can they went. What a disappointment! But, alas there was light at the end of the tunnel. I spied another junk food vendor that was a must! It was the Roasted Almond trailer and again I endulged myself. They were coated with an unknown amount of sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. Who cares, they were yummy beyond description. I was so full from eating the sausage sandwich and those nasty greasy potatoes that I had to bring home the almonds and finish them later last night. You would think that after being full that my appetite would be done, but no. As we were walking down the boardwalk checking out all the vendors I smelled a famliar smell and yelled, "Kettle Corn!" I had to have a HUGE bag of it. I carried that bag the rest of the day. Half of the bag is still on the kitchen counter.. All-in-all I had a great day of shopping, eating and lungs fulls of salty sea air. Today is a new day and I have to get back on the "wagon" and eat my penance, one Boca breakfast sausage on a slightly toasted whole wheat mini-bagel with two cups of black oolong tea...sigh...