Festival Food

Festival food conjures up images of fried candy bars, funnel cakes and meat on a stick. This year at the Kentucky State Fair there’s a new festival food on the scene and apparently it’s all the rage. Behold the Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger. If you have a very strong stomach, you should watch this video of Courier Journal reporter, Chris Quay, trying one for the very first time. I love how in his article he refers to the combination of grease from the burger and glaze from the donut as “glease.” Webster’s Dictionary, take note. I’m not going to lie, the gentleman with the orange shirt and the interesting mustache makes me a little bit homesick.

Our neighborhood holds its annual Decatur BBQ, Blues and Bluegrass Festival every August. Fortunately, the festival food at Decatur events is marvelously different than that of the Kentucky State Fair. Good music, good food, good people, and all within walking distance of our house. Our friend’s band, Roxie Watson, took to the stage at 5pm and rocked the house, as usual.

While I like barbecue as much as the next person, it just doesn’t appeal to me when it’s so blazing hot outside. August in Georgia sort of feels like you’re in one of those barbecue smokers and I start feeling empathy for the little pigs. Give me a Chicago winter over this heat any day, but I digress. Thankfully, Badda Bing! didn’t forget about the vegetarians, or in my case, the flexitarians. Owner and Chef Michael Condon offered up one of the tastiest, lightest, fluffiest veggie burgers I’ve ever had.

It was like a gift all wrapped up in silver paper especially for me. Look closely between the burger and the spinach and you’ll find a fried green tomato surprise! Now I’m a whole grain kind of a girl, but sometimes white bread is so good it’s worth every gram of carbs. It gets even better, my friends. Badda Bing was also selling FRUIT SOUP!! I’ve always said somebody needs to open up a smoothie stand at festivals, but this was even better.

It was SO refreshing on a hot, summer day. No one fruit dominated another, so I couldn’t even pinpoint what was in it. Cantaloupe, maybe peaches, oranges, lime, and basil. That’s my guess. I tried making a fruit soup once, but it didn’t go over very well. It too had cantaloupe as its base, but then I ruined it with too much carrot juice and ginger. Lilly didn’t approve. I don’t hold a grudge, but I didn’t share this soup with her either.

She didn’t notice because she was already fixated on getting one of these:

A chocolate sea salt popsicle, handcrafted by the King of Pops.

and a Watermelon Mojito popsicle for the boy. 

They didn’t even check his I.D.