Saturday Recap: A Day at the Country Living Fair

As I took my first bites of a pulled pork barbecue sandwich, I heard the following from a nearby table: "This is the sixth one. Where have we been all this time? And did you see the individual carts? Clearly we weren't prepared. This year's just the practice round for us anyway." Yesterday was day two of Country Living Magazine's annual fair, which has apparently taken place in Columbus for the past six years. Also to be held in Atlanta, GA (October 2013), and Rhinebeck, NY (June 2014), this weekend's fair--or at least day two of it--brought in an amazing array of talent, ingenuity, and diversity, as well as a great deal of personality. Though I know this post won't do the fair much justice (let alone my own experience), here is but a taste of what went down in this section of Columbus.

Back at The Crest: An Anthropological Experience

The Crest Gastropub (Clintonville)

If you haven't been able to tell, I am a huge fan of The Crest. And yesterday's event solidified that fact even more for me, as if it had much further to go. The sun was shining and the weather was near perfect. I made my way up Crestview and stopped at the restaurant to my right, a general crowd already filling up the interior space. After a little over a week planning for yesterday's happy hour with Chef Dustin and Abed, one of the first things I'm told is that a special keg was brought in for us: a "neolithic" beer for anyone who was interested in trying it. (Let's just say there's a pretty good chance of that happening with a group of anthropologists.) Alongside an "anthropology-themed" menu I, and perhaps quite a few of my anthropology colleagues, have practically been drooling over since it was released, it was in that moment that I fully realised just how much of a great time our first happy hour of the year was going to be.

August Beer Dinner at The Crest Gastropub

Barely a connoisseur of wine, I was both intrigued by--and eager to learn from--the proposition of a beer dinner. The dinner, my notes from which I'd like to share below, was prepared at the transparent and philosophically- and intellectually-charged Clintonville staple The Crest Gastropub. Rooted and inspired by the triple bottom line of sustainability ("environmental, economic, social," also defined as "people, planet, profit", [2]), which I also included in my initial review of The Crest, the entire team continues to gradually teach the general public about this approach to cooking, eating, and business management, without complicating the menu or throwing it in their faces. This third beer dinner, paired with beers brewed locally by Seventh Son Brewing Co., was another perfect example of how we can all do our best as we strive for the sustainable, and certainly tasty, ideal.