food on the fourth

Early Friday afternoon, we loaded up the car and headed south for a much needed get away. Our destination was Fort Smith, Arkansas and our weekend hosts were Heidi's cousin, Sean, and his wife, Jessica.

We arrived just in time for dinner reservations at Landry's New Orleans Cafe where both the food (cajun and blackened combos) and the live music were a great start to the weekend. Early Saturday morning we ventured to the farmer's market where Jessica purchased locally made soap, lip gloss and lots of produce--raspberries, greens, onions, peaches, watermelon, flowers and the best cantaloupe ever!

Sean and Jessica treated us to homemade beignets--a great accompaniment to the fresh fruit-- before we settled in for a rainy day watching the Tour de France and talking about our next meal!

The rain stopped in time for dinner (this time at Rolando's), a walk around the Fort Smith National Historic Site, and Fort Smith's fireworks show.

Sunday morning started with breakfast sandwiches on homemade bagels (with bacon, eggs, cheese, avocado, sunflower sprouts and tomato) and the sun was shining in time for a few hours at the pool with friends. Our All American dinner featured the White House Kitchen Garden Herb Roast Chicken, asparagus, corn on the cob with cilantro lime butter, no-knead bread and was followed by a crumb topped apple pie, a blackberry cobbler (compliments of friends Anne and Justin) and, of course, ice cream! We even got to see a few more fireworks.

Sadly, the weekend had to come to an end but we couldn't leave until we had a bit more of Sean's delicious blueberry jam. Yum! Thanks for a fun (and delicious) weekend, Sean and Jessica--we'd love to return the favor when you make it to KC!