It’s about People! 

Potential diners started pouring in early, even though biscuits-makers waited to serve us at 9:00 AM.  Didn’t matter, though.  People “meeted and greeted” to pass the time and shared who the big winners were in years past.

County Commissioner Mark Campen, wife Emily, and their two children wanted a taste of Tupelo Honey’s Peach of a Chicken Biscuit,  even if meant wrapping around three blocks to get one.

Commisioner Mark Campen, wife Emily and their children wait for Tupelo Honey to open their booth.

Alan Benton, owner of Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams, wasn’t waiting for anyone — he was just getting started frying those legendary country ham pieces to a golden brown.

Alan Benton cooks his world-famous country ham

Lisa Duncan, Director of the Dogwood Arts Festival, volunteered at the Southern Living booth where Pickle Biscuits made from the recipe in the April 2014 edition were free for the taking. (Click here for the recipe that they say tastes even better with a little ham and mustard!)

Lisa Duncan, Director of Dogwood Arts Festival, volunteers at Southern Living booth

Communications Director at UT-Battelle David Keim held an empty plate as he searched for his next treat-worthy delight. On a mission.  A biscuit mission.

David Keim on a biscuit mission

And you could get free stuff, too, from people on the street.  Like Papi Joe’s Tennessee Pepper Sauce served in those little cups we use for Communion at church!  When I asked this guy about the cups, he replied, Yes taking a sip of this good stuff is a religious experience!

“It’s a religious experience,” says Papi Joe’s Tennessee Pepper Sauce volunteer.

As it were, our next stop had to be the Lipton Iced Tea booth for something cool to wash it down!

Free tea for me and thee!

It’s about Biscuits!

See, you get to pick 5 biscuits with your $10 ticket.  But sometimes, with long lines and long waits, you just dart in to any booth to feast on what’s handy.  Doesn’t matter.  Everything we tasted was scrumptious! (Did I really eat 5 biscuits on one day? Yep.  Did.)

Winning the award for Best Biscuit Booth, the ladies at Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop couldn’t work fast enough to create the biscuits hundreds of people waited for:  Pork Belly & Pear Moonshine Biscuits. (Click here for our post on how they got their start.)

Preparing Pork Belly & Pear Moonshine Biscuits: Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop

Over at the Applewood Farmhouse booth, a guy with a megaphone conned us into picking up their biscuits in a bowl — kinda like apple/biscuit cobbler, if you ask me.  And a band from Asheville sitting right beside them kept us in a toe-tappin’ mood all through the long-but-worth-it wait.

Flourhead Bakery and the Tomato Head won the People’s Choice Award for their colorful creations — topped with a tomato, of course.

Capitol Grille had quite a following, too.  Here’s a nice-looking Strawberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Biscuit  for your picture, he said to me!

Passing out Capitol Grille’s Strawberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Biscuits with a smile!

Folks in line at the Popeye’s booth just smiled as the crowd asked for more — like one of these biscuit hats to go along with their famous chicken biscuits!  Wouldn’t you be happy wearing a biscuit hat, too?

Passin’ out Popeye’s!

And what about these two guys from Tupelo Honey Cafe workin’ up a sweat?  Well, didn’t I say the lines were long? For good reason.  Word was out that the marinated chicken in their Peach of a Chicken Biscuit was mile high. They couldn’t serve ‘em fast enough.

Piling the chicken high on Tupelo Honey Cafe biscuits

The Plaid Apron filled their biscuits with Paw Paw Fruit. (According to a description we overheard them tell some patrons, it tastes like a cross between a mango and a banana.  Worked for us.)

Plaid Apron employees explain what paw paw fruit is.

Our personal fave — and maybe because it was the last of our five, and we wanted something sweet — was a fluffy light biscuit with a creamy, sweet white sauce topped with a strawberry from Callie’s Charleston Biscuits. What a company!  Biscuits, pimento cheese, cookbooks, and more. (You won’t believe what this company sells, so click here to see — so many biscuits, so little time!)

Callie’s ladies show off cookbooks, products, and great biscuits!

And if you didn’t get your fill of biscuits from the booths, food trucks like this one — Savory & Sweet – offered their own versions.  We thought this Go Big Orange Biscuit had everything going for it locally, but we were just too full to try it! Next time. 

Go Big Orange Biscuit from Savory & Sweet food truck

It’s about Music!

If biscuits feed the body, music fills the soul.  So it was with great anticipation that we gathered ’round for our friend Jimmy Brown Johnson and the Band of Awesome.  They’ve made work (and fun!) of writing songs about biscuits and then standing on this old truck flatbed to deliver big band sound on the streets of Knoxville!  Singing our favorite —  Royal Redneck Wedding — they wowed the crowd again this year. Jimmy brought the Biscuit Fairies (a small band of precious winged children) who dropped red rose petals along Biscuit Boulevard as they joined the band in another original hit.  It all just added to the awesomeness.

If you missed the International Biscuit Festival this year, check out the website for next year’s carbo-loading weekend.  And if you attended this one, let us know what your favorites were.  As Biscuit Boss John Craig said to the cameras, Who doesn’t love a biscuit?

John Craig, Biscuit Boss of International Biscuit Festival

For more information:

International Biscuit Festival: http://www.biscuitfest.com

Jimmy Brown Johnson and the Band of Awesome: Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/jimmy.b.johnson.3?fref=ts

“People, biscuits fill downtown for fifth annual biscuit festival.” (May 18, 2014). Knoxville News-Sentinel.  Retrived from http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2014/may/17/people-biscuits-fill-downtown-for-fifth-annual/

Related blogs:

Click here for ‘The biscuit is America’s croissant’ by Cynthia Moxley, posted on her blog, The Blue Streak.

Vendors mentioned in this post:

Applewood Farmhouse & Farmhouse Grill: http://www.applewoodfarmhouserestaurant.com/

Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams: http://bentonscountryhams2.com/

Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop: http://buttermilk-sky.com/

Callie’s Charleston Biscuits: http://www.calliesbiscuits.com/collections/biscuits/

Capitol Grille Nashville: http://www.capitolgrillenashville.com/homepage.aspx

Lipton Tea: http://www.liptontea.com/

Papi Joe’s Tennessee Pepper Sauce: http://www.papijoes.com/

The Plaid Apron: http://www.theplaidaproncafe.com/

Popeyes: http://popeyes.com/

Southern Living Recipes April 2014: http://www.southernliving.com/food/kitchen-assistant/southern-living-april-2014-recipe-list

The Tomato Head: http://www.thetomatohead.com/

Tupelo Honey Cafe: https://tupelohoneycafe.com/knoxville

As bloggers, it’s only fitting that we look back at our most popular posts (listed below) and remind ourselves of the best places we have seen this year.  So, here are our best — followed by what we hope to see and share with you in 2014.

Most Clicked Posts of 2013

Number Three:

“Puhleeze” butter my biscuits in Knoxville at the International Biscuit Festival  — The lowly biscuit takes center stage at this springtime event receiving national attention.  Combine the one-ticket grazing privilege with booths of local vendors and a food writer’s conference, and you have a Knoxville hit that just keeps on growing!

Erin Donovan, Biscuit Festival Queen

Number Two:

Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop: New sweet shop in Bearden! — Lines are still long for this shop open only since November, and owners have converted one of their cupcake venues to a second shop just for pies!  Oh, my!

Owners Meredith and Scott Layton of Buttermilk Sky Pie Shop

Number One: 

Books and Buttercream at the Great Cake Bake — Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is the beneficiary of this wildly popular fund raiser held each year at UT’s Neyland Stadium. The 2014 event (slated for February 22) has area bakers already thinking of what book-themed cake creations can top those of last year!

Alexander of Alexander’s Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Favorite Places of 2013

From The Bund in Shanghai to The Palouse in Eastern Washington, we’ve been fortunate to have traveled, looked, photographed, and sampled the goods in well-traveled and seldom-traveled places this year: a great life — and we’re grateful for it!  Here are some of our faves.

Looking Ahead to 2014

Although we have no definite plans for travel in the coming year, we have some ideas for what we’d like to see and share with readers.

• More shots of Idaho, perhaps some of the resorts we’ve missed and the coveted farmland of The Palouse in the snow! (Three more trips are in my future, thanks to work with Discovery Education.)
• Visits to places and events in Knoxville.  Since the top three visited posts have focused on our hometown, we “get it.”  So, look for coverage of what’s new and what’s most visited in and around our great city.
• Posts from our Viking River Cruise to Russia.  With the Olympics in Russia this year, look for our take on St. Petersburg and Moscow with points in between.
• Serendipitous posts — who knows where we’ll choose to go or what we’ll see.  But if we can work it in, our Bucket Short List includes Portland, Oregon, and maybe even Alaska.  Stay tuned.

Our wish for you, our readers, is for good health, happiness, and experiences that enrich your life, no matter where you travel!  Thanks to each and every one of you for making us part of your reading pleasure!

Happy New Year!