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Borrego Springs, CA

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Can a little old lady get a date?

You betcha!  Especially if she visited Yuma today for the Date Festival.  So that’s just what I did.

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Along with hundreds of other people. Disappointed smile  It was packed.  Not my favorite thing, and this was fairly early.  Not early enough though.  I had hoped to take a farm tour or date packaging tour, but all spots were sold out in less than an hour.  Shucks!

Unlike most of the nation, it’s still hot down here (by my standards).  Main street in Yuma was blocked off for the celebration, and vendors set up along the street.  People walked on the hot pavement of the street.  A couple of things perplexed me.  First, I wondered why people would bring their dogs to this venue?  That black dog in the photo was panting like crazy.  Do dogs eat dates?  It was a hot day for a black dog.

Secondly, I wondered what things like tamales and foot long NY Italian sausages had to do with dates?  I guess I’m naïve, but I expected a date festival to be all about dates.  

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I was happy to see there were several date vendors though.  I even bought a pound and a half bag of Medjool dates for $5.  Not fancy ones like these, but I wanted some to use to make my own date bars.  One of my fondest food memories is of the delicious date bars that Ackerman’s Bakery used to make when I was a kid in Chicago.

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I was hoping to find a recipe for those date bars, so I stopped to listen to a date cooking demonstration put on by the teachers (chefs) and students from Arizona Western College.  I did end up with quite a few recipes for dates, but not for the kind of bars I was hoping for.

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The cooking demonstration also included being able to taste what the students made.  Everything’s better with bacon, right?  They were trying to demonstrate how dates can be used in almost any dish.  I thought this was the best part of the whole festival, but I’m not sure if they toasted the sliced French baguette or just let it dry out in the Arizona sun.  Winking smile  I did learn something though, so here’s your date trivia fact for the day:  dates only grow where there are at least 100 days of temperatures at or above 100* per year.  Now that’s hot for a long time!

On my way home, I stopped at a farm stand that opened up this week.  The produce is fresh and quite a bit cheaper than the grocery stores.  Among other things, I bought what I thought was a cantaloupe for $1.75.  It appeared to be perfectly ripe with the background to the webbing on the skin a pale yellow color.  Do you know what I mean?  Well, when I got it home, I was shocked to find the flesh of the melon was white to pale green, kind of like a honey dew melon.  Honey dews, to my knowledge, have a smooth rind with no webbing.  So I have no idea what kind of melon this is.  Anyone got any idea?  Whatever it is, chunks of it are going into my lunch bucket for the next three days at work.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

29 comments:

  1. Looks like a great day around the dates...hope your recipes you got turn out good when you use them.
    I agree, too hot for dogs!

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  2. Took me a minute to shift gears, but I got the right kind of dates now:) Glad you found a date or two!

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  3. Thought you were lookin for a companion date :). I certainly wouldn't reccomend our above spammer as a possible date!! If I were you I would be happy that he is boycotting American women!! Lol, I have been 'hit by this guy a couple of times now. I was so excited to finally get a spam...... I thought maybe I was finally getting to the ranks of you great bloggers. The date bars will be far better!!!

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  4. I'm getting sick and tired of the spammer! What is he hoping to accomplish?

    I have never cared for dates, as in the kind you eat, but would sure love to have a real date with a handsome hunk. He wouldn't even have to be all that handsome :-)

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  5. I agree with you about people bringing their dogs to festivals on hot days. I feel so sorry for the dogs.
    You will have to attend the lettuce festival. We did that a few years ago. It was a lot of fun, but there were vendors there that had absolutely nothing to do with lettuce also.

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    1. where is the lettuce festival held? I know I could look it up. . .but it's easier to just ask you. . .LOL!

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  6. Oh yum. . .I love dates too. . .mixed with cream cheese and stuffed into celery. They are so pricey that I was shocked in Hawaii to be stepping on them on all the sidewalks. . .guess they are abundant there.

    I understand you questioning what tamales and sausages have to do with a date festival. . .we felt the same at the last shrimp festival we went to. As a matter of fact. . .the last two festivals we attended were such duds, we're not sure we'll attend too many more. . .although I would LOVE to attend the garlic festival in Gilroy CA. . .

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  7. You spent five bucks? Talk about a cheap date... :cP

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  8. We have never figured out why pet owners bring their pets to these functions even in strollers... We look forward to our time in Yuma. One of the places we will visit is Martha's Garden Date Farm. www.marthasgardens.com I freeze dates too. One of my likes with dates is to dip them in Peanut butter. mmmmm

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  9. My grandmother made some kind of cake or candy with dates every Christmas. I didn't care for it but I was a kid and there were a lot of things I wouldn't eat. She always made a mince meat pie for my dad. I don't think I ever tried that either.

    I have read about people getting a date milk shake when they traveled West.

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  10. Thanks for the info, I'm now up to DATE on my DATE trivia.

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  11. People need to send this fool to the spam file.
    And I don't know what people are thinking when they bring their poor dogs to these events. I have seen them stepped on and like you said panting away.

    OK now I am glad you found all those recipes and hope you find one you like.

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  12. I love dates. I did not realized it had to be that hot to grow them. A friend's mom would make "date roll" for christmas. I liked it more than any of her kids- good memories. You probably got a Galia melon. I think it is what you get when you cross a honeydew with a cantaloupe.

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  13. Not a fan of dates but I do agree with you about the dogs--I can never understand why people take dogs (and black ones at that) to those kind of events. Do they think the dog is enjoying itself???

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  14. I was hoping looking at your pictures would warm me up a little bit - it is chilly here in central Texas!
    Seems like we see people with dogs at all the festivals/farmers markets we go to.

    For a while I was getting 300-400 spam A DAY on our blog. I started deleting them every day and they slowed down to almost nothing for a while. Of course, they have started up again but blogger catches 99% of them.

    Enjoy your sunshine and warm weather.

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  15. I think Catherine, Jo Beth and Grace are correct.

    The Galia melon, also known as Sarda in Southeast Asia, is a type of F1 hybrid melon originating from a cross between the green flesh melon cultivar "Ha-Ogen" and the netted rind melon cultivar "Krimka". Developed in Israel at the Ne´ve Yaar Research Center of the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO) by the melon breeder Dr. Zvi Karchi[1] and released in 1973, Galia melon was named after the first name of Karchi's daughter that means "God's wave" in Hebrew.

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  16. The crowds would run me off. The older I get the less patience I have to deal with them. And people who bring their dogs are just plain stupid. The animals are NOT having a good time. I'm not much of a date eater, but my Mom made a date filled cookie that I liked. Jim doesn't really like them either which makes it easy not to worry about finding any recipes for us. Good luck finding your bar recipe though.

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  17. I just knew a hot tamale like you wouldn't have any trouble finding a date!

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  18. LOL at your title.I love dates. I could eat them by the handful. Bummer that you couldn't get in on any of the tours. I always used to love the "festivals" for various things when they first started. We had the garlic festival and the apple festival and the mulberry festival. They were wonderful and then they got too big and too crowded and had way too many things that had nothing to do with the title of the festival.. Glad the cooking part was nice. The farm stand sounds great and the info on that melon is interesting.

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  19. You had me rushing through the pictures looking for the dark, handsome man. I love the idea of festivals but usually find them too crowded to be fun. I do love dates though and would have been interested in the cooking demonstration. Thanks for sharing.

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  20. I read,the above comments about a spammer, but didn't understand who it was, but non the less, I enjoyed reading about your festival and the "hot dog"!

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  21. Always one to find something different to do - that's our Judy.

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  22. 5 bucks? Wow, such a deal. I love the Medjool dates, in all kinds of recipes. My son stuffs dates with blue cheese and wraps them in bacon. We're talking good, here! Have fun.

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  23. I don't know if I've ever had a date (of the edible variety). Hummmm. Oh, well.

    I came into Quartzsite from the east, along highway 95, so I didn't pass by you. Since we are within whistling distance, though, I hope we meet up while we're both in this area. If I'm heading toward Yuma I'll let you know. I've stayed at the Imperial Dam LTVA past years - I love staying there because of the wild burros. Just love them. :)

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  24. My Mom makes a great date filled cookie:)
    I bet that hot pavement was awful on the dogs feet...poor thing. Takes all kinds of people...at least the dogs wasn't locked up in a hot car:(

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  25. We use to have an Ackerman's in Elgin, IL...big department store..Would that have been the same as you?..I am not fond of dates, but I do like date salad..we had it every Thanksgiving...It's delicious!

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  26. Not only hot for the dogs panting and in the sun.. but their paw pads can be seriously burned on the blacktop! All one has to do is hold a temp sensor faced at hot blacktop paving and see how dangerously it is for their pads... Dare those folks to walk barefoot... that is what they are forcing their pets to do. ARGGHHH

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  27. I tend to agree with the comments that point out that a Festival is probably not the proper place to bring your dog. I also agree that dogs should not be subjected to VERY hot air temperatures or pavement.

    Having said that, the high temperature in Yuma the day that Judy was at the Festival was 82. Not VERY hot, certainly not a health threat to the dog unless it was doing a lot of running. I don't know how hot the sidewalk/pavement temperature might have been but I doubt that it was too hot to walk barefooted. Dogs pant to keep cool and mine will be panting while we are walking in temperatures far below 80 - rest assured she is not in any distress simply because she is panting.

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