I was in town (Huntsville, Alabama) because I was judging a playwright competition and I got there early. Being the Saturday before Halloween, the site of the competition, Lowe Mill Arts Center, was doing trick-or-treat for the kids. I enjoyed seeing all the costumes, but geeze Louise it was crowded. It seemed like every parent in Huntsville had brought their rugrats out that day.
Huntsville, before NASA moved in at the end of World War Two, was a cotton town. It had several large cotton mills, one of which was the Lowe Mill. The latter has been repurposed and is today a vibrant and thriving Arts venue. It has theaters, it has numerous businesses (all selling arts products and services), and a ton of kiosks operated by local artisans. Every Saturday it’s Arts on parade at Lowe Mill. It’s so cool to bask in all that creative juju in an industrial setting. Magical.
There’s this little restaurant located inside Lowe Mill, Pofta Buna International. Owned by a nice lady from Romania, the food is to DIE for (pardon the pun). Authentic Romanian and Hungarian dishes you can’t get anywhere else. I make it a point to dine there every time I visit Lowe Mill, but I find I can’t order any item on the menu now other than the “Dracula.”
A crepe-y concoction worthy of bearing the name of the master of vampires, this dish ironically comes seasoned with garlic sauce. If you are ever in the area, do yourself a favor and hit up Pofta Buna. You won’t be sorry.
By the way, they were all decorated for Halloween, too.