Thursday Kitchen: Festival Favorites

I was really ready for that beer and hot dog after my own double header at the yoga studio (two and a half hours of standing in a 100 degree room). My cousins were eating peanuts, sipping lemonade, gulping on beer, and chewing on corn dogs. You could hear vendors belting out their wares... Cotton candy! Ice cold drinks! Cracker Jacks! You have a number of options for other goodies... I saw some funnel cakes, plastic miniature caps filled with Dip n' Dots (wonder if people who liked ice cream and couscous got together to come up with that one), and nachos.

It just reminds me of the foods in which we only indulge on special occasions because they're available in certain places. At the movies, for example, it's the only time I drink Cherry Coke. It's too sweet for me to drink regularly, but with a small popcorn (I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how some people actually survive the large tub of popcorn) it works in a once-in-a-while kind of way. My brothers always get one of those blue frozen sugar drinks... it's not a Slurpee... it's a Freezee? Or something like that. I also try to get Raisinets at the movies sometimes... without the proper setting, I'm with Roz ("I'd like to meet the idiot who came up with these... take a grape, shrivel it up into a disgusting little wart, and then cover it with perfectly good chocolate...").


With the Storytelling Festival around the corner, I think of people who take their lunches in Colonial Williamsburg. When else would you bother going into the taverns to try something called The Ploughman's Lunch, Peanut soup, and Syllabubs (well, okay... around the holidays, I guess Anya and I were known to have one or two for breakfast...)? I think my pen pal and I tend to go for The Cheese Shop's offerings where you can get interesting fresh sandwiches, tabbouleh salad, couscous salad, carrot salad, etc.

My favorite event of the year, The Fall Festival, is also coming up. There's often hot and cold cider... which just makes me so happy... it means Fall has begun once those smells and tastes of cinnamon, apple, and cloves rise up. One of the best indulgences is fresh kettle corn. It's popcorn sweetened in a large, outdoor bowl that's heated over a large fire... not that weird, preservative-y garbage from the grocery store. There's sweetened peanuts or spicy peanuts, too. You can also find caramel apples, but that's something I prefer to eat in the privacy of my own home (so messy!).

Starbucks is only a happy place in winter... when you get order really fun things like an Egg Nog latte, Peppermint Mocha or Peppermint Hot Chocolate, and, my favorite, a Gingerbread Breve. I think about caroling with Tristan and the old gang with a hot, steaming cup of one of these offerings or a mug of homemade Wassail. There is no other time of the year when these drinks make any sense... which makes them all the more tempting when they are finally available as we spend more time rushing outdoors to shop, visit family, go to special events, etc.

When school lets out and summer starts, I try to find a moment to go get an Italian Ice. The best combination is the classic Cherry Ice with a hot, soft pretzel... I'm just realizing that I missed out on that this summer. I'll have to make a point to go sometime soon before the weather gets any cooler. The Virginia Peninsula is manifesting seasons again! We haven't had a distinct fall or spring since I was a little girl. But this year, we definitely had a spring season... so, fingers crossed for autumn!

Any one place, one occasion specials that I've left out?

(Images from http://farm1.static.flickr.com, www.ionlitio.com, www.dianasdesserts.com, www.grit.com, http://a7.vox.com, and www.tranzillis.com.)