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The Scottish Games Festival review 2009

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Series Three:
September 22, 2009 at 2:32am:



First of all, if you’re looking for the high scores or player stats, you’re out of luck; that’s not why I attended this event. My primary interest was to eat, drink and be merry. And truly, I don’t know enough about the caber toss or the stone put to provide any accurate sports commentary. Besides, I went in the evening, and there weren’t any events going on then anyway.

If you traveled to the River West Festival Park this year via the Tulsa River Park Trail you probably noticed that it was a major pain-in-the-ass trying to get into the event. The explanation that I received was that this was for security reasons. I was among about five or six people that had approached from the West 21st Bridge on bike or foot, and we bottle-necked at a temporary barricade.

“It’s for security reasons,” some guy with a walkie-talkie told us, “so people don’t go wandering into the festival.”

After explaining it was our intention to buy a ticket and spend lots of money here at this festival, this guy replied, “but you don’t have a ticket. The ticket booth is over there…” he said, pointing to the horizon at fuck-knows-what. He turned us away and instructed us to go back to the 23rd Street Bridge, walk around the industrial park, and then hike down South Jackson Avenue until we got back to the other side of the parking lot.

This ridiculous conversation didn’t last much longer because more people showed up and were turned away and the dude was getting flustered. I lost patience and walked my bike around the fence and encouraged him to call Security. As I was walking off toward the festival, I swore my word of oath that I was going to the festival. The organizers of this event might have easily avoided this absurdity and a loss of ticket sales and frustration if they’d just set up two ticket booths on either side of the parking lot; it couldn’t be thatdifficult to manage. I mentioned this to one of them patrolling the event on a golf-cart that evening, but they seriously didn’t seem to give a shit about this opinion. Whatever, enough venting.

Once I got in, it was great! Friday night they had MacBeerFest, and lots of good music all evening. There was a very knowledgeable and kind vendor (Cathy of Scots Corner, from Sarasota, FL.) who made a great package deal on a kilt & sporran and everything else. Immediately after donning the appropriate attire, I began eating and drinking and being merry. After I got a pitcher of Stout and a cigar for later from Archer’s Tobacco Pouchtent, it was time for serious grub.

First up, meat pies: Heritage Meat Pies was the first place I saw/smelled, and even though they were running a little low on some of their menu items, I trusted their recommendation and got a “Steak Cottage Pie”, which is basically like chicken pot pie with steak. Very nice, very tasty, but kind of small; so, the search for haggis began.

Oz Highland Farm: This place was awesome! The proprietor John was a very cool guy to visit with, and the food was damn good. They didn’t actually have traditional haggis, but they did have what they called “Haggis Pups”, which is most of the ingredients of haggis in sausage form served in a roll. Put a little HP sauce on this and, if you’re not afraid to try something different, it will be worth every bite. Later on, I had their “Angus Cheeseburger” and wow, again, I found my happy place. Their turkey legs were really great too.

About this time, the next whiskey tasting was getting started, so I headed back to the tent and grabbed a chair. There was a PowerPoint presentation facilitated by one of the fifteen Whisky Masters in the US (yep, helluva job he’s got there), and we experienced five very distinct single malt whisky’s from five different regions in Scotland. So, after a brief history of how Scotch came to be (you can actually thank the Irish monks for that), we began sampling them, and were provided with a background of each.
1st: Glenkinchie: Not bad, sweet & grassy aroma; apparently it’s good w/lemon on ice.
2nd: The Singleton: Tastes like bourbon; kind of has a toffee/vanilla undertone.
3rd: Cragganmore: Smells sweet, almost like caramelized bananas; I’d buy it.
4th: Talisker: Has a sweet peppery smell and then—whammo! Fresh Band-Aids! This one was not really for me; supposedly it’s really good with seafood though.
5th: Caol Ila: Has a smoky, salty smell and kind of an oily charred finish; it’s interesting, and also good with seafood they said.


After this bit of enlightenment and a cigar, I needed more food.

The Knights of Columbus, Council 9668 from Tulsa, had a Philadelphia Cheesesteak stand which caught my eye. As a former resident of the City of Brotherly Love, I feel it is my duty to scout anyplace outside of Philly that claims to make an authentic cheesesteak. Often, people ask me which place in Philly makes the best cheesesteaks and I have to provide my normal diplomatic response.

So, here’s the deal, you’ll find that almost everywhere in Philly and the burbs, you’re going to be about a stone’s throw away from a pizzeria. Most all of them make cheesesteaks. So after a while it kind of paralleled the nature of meatloaf. Most everybody’s mom makes meatloaf, and sometimes you go have dinner at their house and it’s like, “eh, well thanks for the meal Mrs. Kaczowski....but, no ma’am, I don’t want seconds, I’m full…”.
BUT THEN SOMETIMES, you go to someone’s house and you can smell the food before you open the car door, and you might accidentally commit a small faux pas when you lick the plate and utensils and napkins, and Mrs. Grazziano promises to send a plate home with you.

That’s kind of what it’s like finding a good cheesesteak anywhere you are. The guys at theKnights of Columbus cheesesteak stand did the deed right. Grilled steak & onions, a nice balance of cheese, even the bread was great (although of course it wasn’t Amoroso’s)Unfortunately, they weren’t open Saturday night as well, because I already wanted another one.

At the far East end of the food vendor concourse, I found this vendor called Hamish’s Kitchen which claimed to have real haggis on the menu. Ok, so in my experience, haggis usually comes in the form of heart, liver & lung bits mixed with onion, oatmeal, suet & spices which are boiled in the sheep's stomach and served up hot. MMmm-mm, they don’t waste a thing. But this is not what they served me. Instead, I got a tiny little cake of cooked minced meat and spices. Please don’t get me wrong, it was very good, just not what I was expecting.

As it turns out, haggis may not be imported into the US from the UK following the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy scare in 1989 (“Mad Cow Disease). I suppose you could make it in any country but good luck finding a restaurant that does. Anyway, this little dish from Hamish’s Kitchen was very yummy with some HP sauce, but I probably could’ve eaten two or three of them due to their petite size.

Due to the success last year of having an inaugural night on Friday, the organizers decided to make this a three-day festival and kick it off with the MacBeerFest I mentioned earlier.

Great music this year on both Friday and Saturday night. I thought NEEDFIRE really kicked some ass; I went ahead and bought two of their CD’s. They put on one hell of a show and frequently jumped off the stage and played on the dance floor or around the tables. These guys had an amazing repertoire with the audience.

7 NATIONS was also good. They seemed to do a few more modern interpretations than Celtic selections, but they had great energy and were very talented. I also saw a local group playing named Celtic Cheer. I was wandering all over the place, and I was drawn in to listen to them when I heard them playing some of the more traditional stuff. Also, quite talented, I hung out for a while and enjoyed listening to them.

It’s a good thing they had some good music at the main tent, because most of the vendors seemed to close up shop by 7-8 pm. The festival was scheduled to go until 11pm on Friday & Saturday night, but by 9pm it seemed to be a ghost town everywhere but the music stage. It would have been nice if you could soaked up more of the beer later but the only thing I could find to eat after 10pm was roasted corn and cheesecake-on-a-stick.

For the most part, I thought the 2009 30th Anniversary Oklahoma Scottish Festival went quite well. There were definitely a few opportunities for the organizers, but I certainly look forward to next year.

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