Coastal Companion

Your ultimate guide to the coast

Rock Shrimp Festival in St Marys, Georgia

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The 37th Annual Rock Shrimp Festival takes place in St Marys, Georgia, on Saturday, October 3. St. Marys has often been recognized as the “Rock Shrimp Capital,” famous for the hard-shelled shrimp with the sweet lobster-like taste that is prevalent in the Coastal Georgia and Northeast Florida waters.

This year’s Rock Shrimp Festival dinner will feature the usual succulent rock shrimp, boiled shrimp, fish and side dishes. Dinner will be served from 11 am to 5:30 pm on the day of the festival.

Schedule:
7:00 am 1.5 K, 5 K, & 10 K Races

Arts & Crafts and Food

10:00 am Parade

Live Entertainment On The Stage  In The Waterfront Park All Day
Kids Games, Pony Rides, Classic Car, & Tractor Show
Choo Choo Rides For The Kids
Major Fireworks at Night, Biggest In Years
River Cruise @ 7:00 P.M. To Cumberland Island and return to view the Fireworks – $ 20.00 Donation
more info at www.smkiwanis.com

In addition food vendors will be offering their specialties along Osborne Street and the waterfront.

Dinner tickets are now on sale, advance dinner tickets are $9. On the day of the event, the price will be $12. Tickets can be purchased at the Camden County Chamber of Commerce, the St. Marys Welcome Center, Kingsland Welcome Center, and Camden Printing. According to Barbara Mizelle, Co-chair of this year’s festival, advance ticket sales have always been popular with groups and families, but this year have an even greater appeal.

For more information, please call 912-882-4000

St. Marys, Georgia

Beaufort Shrimp Festival 2009

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The 15th Annual Beaufort Shrimp Festival takes place on Friday, October 2 and Saturday, October 3, 2009 at Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park, Beaufort, SC.

This is the perfect place to visit to try samples of Lowcountry dishes featuring shrimp. The festival also features a cooking competition, where prizes are awarded for “best recipe” and “most creative recipe” honors.

The event kicks off with a Friday evening concert in the park where they say you can “dance your shrimp tails off”. Enjoy live entertainment and sample delicious shrimp dishes. Lighted shrimp boats will provide a festive atmosphere to the event.

Saturday’s begins with a 5k Run over Woods Memorial Bridge, and a 5k “Walk through History” in the historic Old Point neighborhood in Beaufort. This is a great way to work up a healthy appetite!

You want to have room for all the shrimp specialties restaurants will serve. This is probably why this event is one of the most popular on the coast. Saturday also include a servers’ race, arts & crafts, live entertainment, the “Popcorn Shrimp Race” for kids and more.

Tickets for food & drink = $1 each which sounds like a great deal.

For more information visit www.beaufortshrimpfestival.com

Beaufort-Shrimp-Festival

Little River Oktoberfest, South Carolina

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Oktoberfest means lots of good food and good fun, and in Little River, South Carolina, they don’t want to wait for the month of October to roll around – they are kicking off their German celebration already in September. The organizers promise lots of Oktoberfest fun with bratwurst, Beer, authentic German music, The Chicken Dance and The Polka!

Little River is located on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, and is mostly known for its deep-sea fishing, charter boats and commercial fishing. Thousands of visitors come to Little River every year for the festivals. Little River is only a short twenty minutes drive from Myrtle Beach and five minutes from North Myrtle Beach.

The 4th Annual Little River Oktoberfest will be held September 12th and 13th in Little River, SC.

Celebrate Oktoberfest from 9AM. to 6PM. featuring authentic German cuisine prepared by Erna Blome, special musical guests providing live German music and dancing throughout the day.

September 12 &13 at the Lowes Grocery Shopping Plaza between Highway 17 and 179.
Starts at 11:00 on Saturday and ends at 7:00
Sunday hours are 11:00 until 5:00.
Admission $3.00
Children under 12 are free.

For more information visit the website

pretzel

City of St. Augustine Celebrating 444 Years of Age

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You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake. When it comes to the city of St Augustine the saying rings true, because on Labor Day Weekend the old city is celebrating its 444th Birthday.

This celebration starts already on Thursday, September 3 and continues through Saturday, September 5. This is one of the best times to visit the Old City.

The celebration commemorates St. Augustine’s standing as the longest continually inhabited city founded by Europeans in what is now the United States – making it the Nation’s Oldest City.

Celebrating Those Who Were Already Here
Thursday, September 3 and Friday, September 4
9:00am – 5:00pm
The celebration kicks off on Thursday September 3rd in the Native American village of Seloy, which is what we call “the Fountain of Youth Archeological Park”.Re-enactors will take over and demonstrate how the natives lived. These inhabitants, the Timucua, lived in the area 500 years prior to the Spanish 1565 settlement. Admission is free.

Landing Reenactment & Celebration of Mass
Saturday, September 5 at 9:30am
Mission Nombre de Dios

At 9.00 am there’s a re-enactment of the landing by the city’s founder, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles. The landing will take place at the Mission of Nombre de Dios, which is the exact landing point of the Spanish colonists in 1565. The landing will be followed, as it was 444 years ago, with a celebration of Mass at an outdoor wooden altar by the water’s edge at the Mission Nombre de Dios.

In the evening it’s time for a Cooking Contest, but this is not your regular contest. Here it’s a matter of cooking the tastiest 16th century style food. You can purchase authentic 16th Century dinners and enjoy period music and dancing. This takes place in the Fountain of Youth Park from 6 pm – 9 pm.

All activities surrounding the St. Augustine 444th Birthday are free and within convenient walking distance from the Visitor Information Center and adjacent parking facility.

For directions and more information on the Visitor Information Center call 904.825.1000 or 800.653.2489, or visit www.staugustinesbirthday.com

staugustine-flagler

POMtiki Smash Cocktail

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So called Tiki cocktails have a light and refreshing tropical flavor and the cocktails are becoming increasingly popular. We have found a recipe for a delicious cocktail that will tantalize taste your buds.

The POMtiki Smash, combines the sweet-tart taste of pomegranate Juice with the tropical flavors of pineapple juice, almond syrup and rum. It’s a perfect summer cocktail, not too sweet and not too tart, just right. We just loved the fresh taste; the POMtiki Smash has become one of our absolute favorite cocktails. It’s easy to make too.

The ingredients are easy to pick up in your local grocery store, except for the orgeat. We used almond syrup instead. I purchased almond syrup online, since we live in a small town. I was very pleased with the almond syrup, I also use it to flavor my coffee. It gives the coffee a smooth almond taste, so it was a great purchase.

Here is the link for the almond syrup

This is one of the cocktail recipes we keep returning to again and again. I hope you like it too.

POMtiki Smash Ingredients:

2 oz. POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice
11/2 oz. rum
1/2 oz. orgeat or almond syrup
2 oz. unsweetened pineapple juice

Garnish: pineapple wedge and mint sprig

Follow these three easy steps:

1. Assemble all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker glass and shake well with ice.
2. Strain into a glass.
3. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and mint sprig.

There you go, enjoy your POMtiki Smash!

POMtiki Smash