This post was written by Hatchet reporters Niamh Cahill-Billings, Raima Roy and Margeaux Biche.
This weekend’s District festivities featured a celebration on H Street, a vegan festival and an entire day’s worth of activities dedicated to bacon.
H Street Festival
Saturday, Sept. 20, H Street between 4th and 14th streets, NE
This year’s H Street Festival returned with its usual overflow of activity, offering everything from live music on multiple stages to pie-eating contests and a two-story bus converted into a bar.
Stages on nearly every corner of the 10-block festival allowed church groups, fashion models and professional dancers to perform simultaneously.
Along with a range of vendors, from the Human Rights Campaign to D.C. Rollergirls, were mobile “art cars” – a new take on the food truck staple that featured art in place of grub.
The festival’s food options were just as diverse as the entertainment, with famed food trucks like The Big Cheese and Dangerously Delicious Pies, a marinara sauce dunk tank and chili, pie and burrito eating contests.
With the opening of new residences and businesses in the area and the upcoming launch of D.C. Streetcar, the H Street neighborhood is undergoing a revival. Gwen Podulka, an employee for festival vendor Spot On Training and soon-to-be H Street resident, said she looks forward to living in the area.
“I’m moving into the neighborhood because I love the change that’s happening,” Podulka said.
Capitol Bacon Fest
Saturday, Sept. 20, Half Street Fairgrounds, 1299 Half St. SE
Candied bacon? Check. Bacon jam? Check. Bacon popcorn? Check, check, check.
These were just three of the 40,000 samples of bacon served Saturday at the Capitol Bacon Festival, a dream come true for D.C. meat lovers.
Festival vendors lined the fairgrounds in Southeast D.C. with samples of everything from sizzling bacon mac and cheese to spicy jalapeno bacon on a stick. Other booths offered up bacon-adorned t-shirts, not to mention a head-to-head bacon eating contest.
At the festival’s “Demonstrations” booth, attendees shook hands with Brandon Brown, the head butcher of D.C. charcuterie Stachowski’s Market, who cooked up bacon concoctions like his famous peanut butter and bacon cookies, a mouth-watering combination of sweet and savory flavors.
When asked how many calories were in his peanut butter and bacon cookies, Brown simply laughed.
“We don’t count calories at Stachowski’s or at this Bacon Festival. You don’t come here if you’re on a diet. You come here if you want to eat well,” Brown said.
D.C. VegFest
Saturday, Sept. 20, The Yards Park, 355 Water St. SE
While the words “vegetarian festival” may evoke mental images of bland wheatgrass shots and PETA videos, D.C. VegFest, an annual festival supporting animal rights and healthy living, had other ideas in mind.
The more than 1,000 like-minded veggie foodies who flocked to the festival at Navy Yard found loaded vegan nachos served on a reusable frisbee from Bread and Brew and vegan triple-chocolate donuts from Vegan Treats.
Other eclectic vegan options included cashew cheese, vegan “chicken” and waffles on donuts, spicy cinnamon chickpeas and whole coconuts for rehydrating during the day.
But the festival wasn’t just about food, with a “barking lot” for attendees’ dogs, a yoga area for children and rows of non-food vegan paraphernalia like artisan soaps adorned with dried rose petals and soy candles with names like “One Love” and “Peyote.”