20040814

foodfest

when i was a kid, we would go to the porter county fair in indiana. it was a small one, with maybe a dozen rides and a handful of food vendors. corndogs, cotton candy, slushees and popcorn. (there had to be popcorn because valpo was the home of orville redenbacher.) this week tony and i took a friend and went to the cuyahoga county fair. this is huge in comparison to my childhood memories! lots more rides, lots more commercial booths and so much more food. some of the things we saw, in addition to the usual suspects: fried pierogies with sour cream and grilled onions; italian sausage with peppers and onions; corndogs dipped and fried to order; steak-on-a-stick; porkloin sandwiches; turkey legs; pizza and stromboli; these strings of potato chips that were yummy; real lemonade; chicken paprikash; brats with sauerkraut; fudge; caramel apples; blooming onions; french waffles (what we used to call rosette cookies); funnel cakes; elephant ears; deepfried snickers bars, twinkies and oreos; birch beer; ribs and pulled pork sandwiches; nachos and something called a walking taco; fried swiss cheese; candied almonds, peanuts and cashews; roasted corn; kettle corn; deep fried vegetables; softserve ice cream; soft pretzels with mustard; cabbage and noodles. i am sure there was more, but that's all that comes to mind. the best thing out of those that i actually ate were the pierogies, and the worst was the twinkie...it was WAY scary.

after we ate we went to see the 4-H barns. first the canning, baking and farming barns. now i realize that i have years of experience as a baker and chef, but this stuff looked AWFUL! i vowed on the spot to enter stuff in next years competition. the canning in particular looked so lame. i really think i could win at least one blue ribbon for my green beans and carrots, if nothing else. there were some baseball-bat-sized zucchini and some beautiful heirloom tomatoes, as well as golden raspberries and gorgeous squashes.

our next stop was visit to the farm animals. there were bunnies, guinea pigs, horses, cows, pigs (including a sow suckling 5 piglets at once--yeouch!), chickens, geese, ducks, pigeons, goats, emus, cavies, alpacas, squirrels, possum and raccoons. these last few surprised me, but i think they were there more for show than for any competition. it was fun to see all of them. they had bags of award winning wool from the sheep-shearing contest held the day before. it was wonderfully soft and still rich with lanolin. many of the animals are for sale, but tony refused to buy me a chicken or a rabbit. this despite a promise of coq au vin or braised rabbit with prunes.

which brings me to the other big news of the week. at age 91, julia child has passed on. this woman was a giant in the culinary revolution that swept our country at the end of the twentieth century. her influence over me was enormous. as a child, i remember our family arranging our saturdays so we could be home to watch her program on pbs in the afternoon. then we would go into the kitchen and, using her cookbook, prepare what she had just made on tv. i remember french onion soup, roast duck a l'orange, cheese souffle, hollandaise and mayonnaise. she got me interested in cooking at an early age and it's an interest that has held. this is one of the first times in my adult life that i have NOT made my living from cooking for others. i have alot to thank this woman for. more than any other single person (outside my ma), she brought me into the world of food and cooking. let's all raise a glass of really good champagne and toast this lady. i know she is in cuisiniers heaven along with auguste escoffier, fernand point, james beard and brillat-savarin. all hail julia!
|
Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com