I want to share more about my day with P.Allen Smith but first I need to back up to the day before. My mom is so sweet and offered to come keep my girls so I could do this. Believe me - I know how lucky I am. Since I would have had to leave at 5 a.m. - she suggested I go the night before and spend the night. I was SO excited to have a little mini vacation! I asked a few of my Little Rock friends if they could meet me for dinner. My friend Kandi had an obligation and my friend Hillary had a sick baby but two of my oldest and sweetest friends Leigh Ann and Jamie met me and we had a great time. I grew up with Jamie and I lived with Leigh Ann in college. The neat thing is they are both going to the same church now and their girls are in the same class at church. My worlds are colliding. We had a waiter take this picture and every one he took was super blurry. But I still had to post a fuzzy picture of my fun night.
And then I was in heaven because I was given a great rate to stay at the nicest place in Little Rock - the Capital Hotel. A dream come true! An extremely comfortable bed and I slept through the night for the first time in over a year. What a BLESSING!!!
I just have to say - seriously - have you ever seen hydrangeas this pink? I have an obsession on wanting to plant hydrangea bushes after being at Allen's house. His were everywhere and so beautiful!
So the theme of this day was
SoyBeans - the miracle bean. I have to admit I was kind of like "I don't know what soy is". I left pretty interested in what soy can do. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my state (in case you hadn't guessed) and I had no idea we grew soybeans here or that we were one of the top 10 states in growing soybeans. And it's a billion dollar crop. I'm so excited about the possibilities of what that means for farmers and jobs and the economy of Arkansas. And I might actually like soy.
This was the lunch Allen's chef made for us. Looks pretty good, huh? That was soy bean succotash and tofu topping on the potato. I would probably normally turn up my nose at tofu but it was REALLY good. Who knew????
Allen has a HUGE vegetable garden and he had just planted a row of soybeans.
And then we got to plant our own row.
We got to hear about how soy candles are made. I had actually had a few soy candles and I do have to say they smell better than any others. And they don't smoke and I love that. They also last longer than normal candles. Who knew?
Allen gave us cooking demonstrations for a few soy products.
I need to share this garlic parmesan edamame recipe soon. I could eat this up. I actually had recently bought dried edamame beans for a snack and went nuts over them. Maybe I do like soy.
Harper is allergic to peanuts and so picky about lunch. I bought this last night hoping she could eat Soy PB&J sandwiches. We will see if she likes it.
It was supposed to rain the day we went and they told us it would be muddy and we would need rain boots.
One of the bloggers who went works for a great company called Acumen based in Fayetteville. They have several e-companies and one includes
Country Outfitter. The president of the company (whose
wife was also a blogger) offered to give all the bloggers some boots to wear that day. I was ecstatic because I LOVE cowboy boots. I have some I bought several years ago and I rarely wear them because they hurt my feet. These were SOOOOOOO comfortable and super cute! Don't you love them? Scott was jealous because he has been wanting some boots so we are going to order some from
Country Outfitters soon! (These are Ariat brand.)
All the NWA girls in our boots! Aren't we country chic? :-)
What's your favorite soy product?????
