Buffalo Wings

This afternoon we travelled to the town of Buffalo, New York State, where David is working for a couple of days.

One of the things that Buffalo is famous for is chicken wings in (hot) Buffalo sauce, which are very popular all over the USA.  We walked along the road from our hotel to the Anchor Bar, which claims to have invented this 'delicacy' in 1964.

The Anchor Bar originally opened in 1935.  Once the wings had been invented it became very popular and it is now large and very quirky in its decoration..

Not exactly diet food!  We were glad of the walk back to the hotel, even though in the dark, to start to walk it off!!

Water Lilies

Some more photos from our visit to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Garden on Sunday, this time featuring the varieties of water lilies growing there..

Just beautiful!

Lotus at Kenilworth Park

These extraordinary wetland gardens on the edge of Washington DC - alongside the Anacostia River - have 45 man-made ponds, over 100 years old, filled with tropical and hardy water lilies, lotus and other aquatic plants.

I have never seen lotus flowers in such quantities and at present they are at the peak of their flowering season.  

We took so many photos that I will just share some of the pictures today and save the water lilies, dragonflies and wetlands boardwalk photos for another day.

There are many different varieties of lotus, including the Sacred Lotus....

There are blooms at every stage of flowering from tight bud to seed pod.

  

Some of the larger flowers have been thrown around a little by recent wind and rainstorms but are still very beautiful.

Thank you, Maggie, for reminding us of this special garden during its flowering season, after seeing it again on your friend's blog!

Christmas in July

There was something a little surreal about stepping off the very hot street in Occoquan yesterday and into the chilly, air conditioned splendour of the Golden Goose - a Christmas shop.

There are many different themes to their decorated trees - cats, dogs, food, travel, music... and a seemingly endless variety of ornaments large and small.

This set of traditional blown glass ornaments was packaged in a gift box ready to be given to a newly married couple for their first tree.

Will have to visit again a bit later in the year I think!

Belgian Lunch!

Today is the birthday of my friend Claire, who also volunteers at the Bargain Loft.

We drove to Occoquan for lunch and a little shopping.

We chose a small Belgian restaurant for lunch - for the good reason that Claire is Belgian by birth, although she has now lived in the USA for some thirty years.

The restaurant had a nice outside terrace, but with the temperature well into the 30's we decided to eat indoors.

Traditional Belgian mussels and frites!

Cajun Experience

This was the restaurant where we stopped for lunch on Saturday on our walk around Leesburg.

Specialising in the Southern cuisine of Louisiana, there were many dishes on the menu that we had heard of but never tried.  

Above are Crawfish Pies, which were very good.

These 'Boudin Balls' were a deep fried savoury ball of meat and rice or cornmeal, a little like haggis!

This plate (which we shared, as with all of them!) was Chicken Jambalaya with fried Catfish fillet and a cornmeal muffin.

We were more than full by this stage and had probably undone all the benefit of the big walk around Leesburg.  Dessert was included in the meal so along came these Beignets (fritters) with a generous dusting (drift) of icing sugar.

It may seem as if we ate our way through the entire menu but there were a number of things that we didn't try...Fried Gator; Fried Pickles; Fried Okra...

Vintage Dresses

We have had quite a large donation of vintage baby and girls dresses at the Bargain Loft.  

None of them appear to be man-made materials so we are assuming that they date from the 1920's/1930's or even earlier.

These are just a few of them that have been put out for sale.  

They are all beautifully presented as a volunteer took the whole collection home when they were donated, hand washed and ironed them.  Quite a labour of love!

Some of them have shop labels but the majority are beautiful hand-made, with smocking, tiny pin-tucks and fine lace.

Most, like this one, have a generous hem to be let down as the little girl grows.

This is one of my favourites - made in the lightest voile.

This one seemed to need a frilly blouse underneath but there was nothing in the collection that fitted the bill.

This was the only winter outfit, beautifully made with the jacket lined with the dress fabric, but all the dress buttons missing, unfortunately.