Collections on Show at a County Fair

Mid-August. A great time of year to go to a County Fair. The Fella, the Baby, the Friend, and I went to the Clackamas County Fair on the last day. Usually I like to go on one of the first days, but this year our schedules meshed on a Sunday. I was impressed that everything still looked pretty good: the veggies were a bit shriveled, but holding on; many of the dahlias looked gorgeous that I think they must have been replaced; and the cakes and pies were not buzzing with flies, so those glass cases must help.

Nachos with creamy cheese, grange hall displays, a million kinds of pie, fancy chickens, piglets and pygmy goats, 4-H-made tunics and educational poster boards. All these are highlights.

But a must-see for me is the arts and craft building. The basement is always a bit spooky with random flowers and vegetables that are not displayed with the other flowers and vegetables in another area of the fairgrounds. Why are they in this basement? How are they different than the other flowers and veg? We give a quick sweep through here and head up to the main floor, where the cakes, cookies, and canned goods are on display and the table settings wrap around the room. This year there was a new category.

Chocolate cake made by men! I told the Fella he should definitely enter next year, as he has a few chocolate cakes under his belt. I loved that the fair poobahs decided the men needed their own category in which to compete. Bless them. From the main floor we go up to my favorite part, the hot and creaky second floor, where they hang the quilts, paintings, and photography, and house under glass all sorts of hand-made artifacts: from dresses to baby books.

One of the most amusing aspects on this floor is the collections. I am not a collector. I think knick-knacks take up too much space. To know that a person has amassed an assortment of an all-the-same something and decided to put it in the fair is endlessly fascinating. Don't get me wrong, I have interest in many things. I like my cooking equipment and my set of Betsy-Tacy books and the books about those books. But I don't know if I have a collection worthy of entering in a fair.

One of the first collections that I recall from a fair several years ago was famous buildings--Taj Mahal, Frank Lloyd Wright--made out of Popsicle sticks, done by a 90-year-old man. Both handmade and a collection. But this year's collections were the best I had ever seen.

Gone with the Wind fanaticism

J-E-L-L-O

Soap Savers? What are these things?

Thanks Collector and Fair-enterer. Now we know. 

British Royal Family Collection

Audrey Hepburn. Who doesn't love her?

Overall, the collections were entertaining and educational. I especially thought of my friend, Jen, who loves Gone with the Wind, the Royal Family, and traveling back in time, and who had to miss the fair this year. So, Jen, this post is for you.

Tired fair-goer

Koren's Blue Ribbon Cornflake Macaroons

When my sister, Koren, was about 10 years old she entered cookies in the Polk County Fair. She was pretty confident and excited about them. My mother had entered cookies for the past few years and never won, so Mom warned her several times, "Don't get too excited.You might not win anything." Koren ended up winning not only the blue ribbon for her age group, but the grand prize, a bag of sugar! Mom was flabbergasted. Koren's self-assurance was maintained.

Following is the recipe for Koren's Blue Ribbon Cornflake Macaroons. The recipe comes from my Grandma Gertie Brinkman. According to my mother, "I think the brown paper bag has a play in the cooking." I made them recently and they were very easy and surprisingly good. Surprisingly, because I don't really like meringue. But they had a nice sweetness from the sugar and coconut and a good crunch from the cornflakes.

Cornflake Macaroons
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups cornflakes
1/2 cup coconut

Beat egg whites until stiff. Mix sugar, salt and add slowly to the egg whites. Beat until smooth. Fold in cornflakes. Drop a rounded teaspoon of batter onto a baking sheet covered with a brown paper bag. Bake at 300 degrees for about 20 minutes. 

Note: Even though the cookies cooked perfectly, I had a hard time getting them off the brown paper bag. I ended up sliding a knife under each cookie, scraping it off the bag. 

I brought some of the cookies over to my sister and her family after I made them. She told me she didn't really like the cookies when she was a kid and never made them again after her big win. But she tried one of mine and thought it was delicious. My 8 year old niece loved them.  She wondered if they had marshmallow in them. Koren and I figured that those judges 30 years ago were just tired of chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, and peanut butter.

A Theme Makes the Fair Go Round

Polk County Fair 2010
Garden Club Exhibit

When I was a kid going to the Polk County Fair, it seemed like the entire fair was based on a theme. This theme would extend to the categories for submission. It would determine the displays from the garden clubs, the judging for flower arrangements and photography. A Whole Lotta Fun! A Family Affair! How the West was Fun! Being in the western U.S., the theme often had a pioneer or frontier bent. I never paid too much attention to the theme, as it never really changed the fair on the whole. There was still the same rides, the elephant ear booth,  the same pie flavors, the cookies to make, the 4-H aprons and quilts to see.

I recently wondered who decides on the theme every year. Is it a fair board? How do they think about it? Do they have several years planned out ahead of time. I contacted the folks at both The Clackamas County Fair and the Clark County Fair and found out that they have different ways to decide on a fair theme.

The Clark County Fair typically has a feature exhibit for their annual county fair, so they pick their theme based on this. For example, in 2006 the exhibit was on dinosaurs, so their theme was Jurassic Journey. In 2011 the exhibit was historical fire engines, so The Old Firehouse became the theme. And this past summer, the wild west was on display, so the theme was Summer's Best Goes West. Having a theme that ties into an exhibit is a great way to show off and promote the fair each year.

Clackamas County Fair 2012

The Clackams County Fair does it differently. They have a contest. This past summer the theme--Fair Sights,  Rodeo Nights, Midway Lights--was submitted by a family in Canby. The previous two years a family in Wilsonville won. According to Jennifer Sampson, the Clackamas County Event Center Administrative Assistant, "The theme contest is always exciting for us here in the office because you just never know what is going to be submitted."

If you are interested in submitting a theme for summer 2013's Clackamas County fair now is the time. Submissions will be accepted until October 31st! And you don't have to be a Clackamas County resident to submit your idea. At the end of November, the fair board will narrow all the submissions down to 3 to 10 finalists and the public will be able to vote for the winning theme online in the first two weeks of December. 

Just go to http://www.clackamas.us/fair/theme.html.

Old West themed flower arrangement

Walla Walla Shares More Than Sweet Onions

Over Labor Day weekend, the Fella and I decided to get out of town--not because it was a holiday weekend, but because it was his birthday weekend. Every year for years I've suggested driving out to Walla Walla, Washington, and along the way, stop by the Maryhill Museum and the replica of Stonehenge, but the Fella has always nixed that plan, telling me that we could do it on my birthday. Unfortunately, my birthday is in December, when the days are short, the weather temperamental, and the Maryhill Museum long closed for the season. For some reason this year he changed his mind-thank goodness-and we set off along the beautiful Columbia Gorge for the 4 1/2 hour drive on a sunny Friday afternoon.

I enjoy small towns. I love walking around and piddling about and getting a feel for a place. But I do like some structure to a day, so we weren't sure what we would be doing in Walla Walla, besides eating. Then, on our first night, as we walked toward the center of town for dinner, we saw this sign.

Walla Walla Fair & Frontier Days: Labor Day weekend. We found a copy of the local events newspaper with a schedule. Not only was there a real fair at the fairgrounds, there would be a parade through town! This proved to the Fella that this trip would be more for me than for him, but he was game.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and walked to Main Street. People were already setting up chairs along the sidewalk, but there was still plenty of space. We found a nice shady spot, curbside, and waited for the parade to begin (occupying ourselves in the meantime by browsing a nearby vintage and new furniture shop and picking out furniture for our future imaginary house).

The parade started off kind of slow. 

  

But then there were fire trucks. 

And a marching band.

And a classic truck with a swirl of advertising flags.

And, course, horses. 

We watched the hundred or so floats roll or prance by us. By midway, the sidewalks were full of parade-goers. Children ran out into the street to pick up pieces of candy thrown out by grown ups on horses or kids walking besides their float. Like crazed squirrels, dashing across a busy street to a nearby tree, kids blindly rushed in the street to beat the other kids to a tootsie roll, parents frantically attempting to snag a t-shirt to reign them in. No children were trampled, although at times it got dicey.

Afterward, the Fella and I walked through old Walla Walla neighborhoods to the fairgrounds. It was an easy walk, not too far from town. We paid our $9 entry fee and headed in. Like many county fairs there were food booths, rides, chickens, horses, cows, and goats. After we ate lunch, we found the Arts and Crafts building, which is always my favorite. The fruits and vegetables were shown in this building, too. I love to see the decisions people make when crafting, whether quilts or dresses or bags made of duct tape. And there is nothing like a wall of canned goods.

 In the end, Walla Walla Frontier days was a fun time for our weekend out of town and the Fella's birthday. I even won a little dog for him by tossing a dart at a balloon (popped two in one go!) 

Little Dog Enjoying Stonehenge Replica 

Blackberries Are The Pot of Gold at the End of Summer

Blackberries have always been my quintessential bit of summer. When we were kids, my brother and sister and I would head into Gentle Woods Park, walking the along the creek, cutting through the branches and brambles with our feet and hands, in search of blackberry bushes. We would have more fun on the journey than actually picking. But our goal was always "enough for a pie," in kind of a survivalist, Little House on the Prairie kind of way. As if we could have no dessert, nothing for our mother to make or no treat for our father after a long days work, unless we picked these blackberries. It was the same sort of feeling of eating our Campbell's beef stew--out in the backyard playhouse--with a wooden spoon. It felt so rustic and we loved rustic, as long as there were Fudgcicles in the freezer and a comfortable bed to crawl into at night. So, we would tramp home with our berry "pails" full, and our mother was the one responsible for actually making the pie. She hated making pies. But she did it.*

I enjoy making pies, but I tend to freeze most of the berries that I pick during the summer--I still live in survivalist mode. I do love the journey quiet of berry picking. Earlier this week, I drove out to Sauvie Island Farms spent the money to pick on well maintained berry vines. Getting out of Portland and into the countryside always makes me happy, and reminds me of my summers as a teenager being outside picking berries for money or working at the dried flower nursery. It always makes me wish I was a farmer, but then I remember my friend who works her ass off running a small organic farm. She told me that once she calculated her hourly wage (if she would have paid herself) to be something like $5.50 an hour. So, thanks farmers! I appreciate coming to your land and picking your berries and cucumbers and basil. [For great pictures of produce, check out my farmer friend's blog belweather farm days.]

*Unfortunately, in my family the idea of pie baking was more exciting that the pie eating (very unlike the Ingalls, who always seemed to be starving out there on the prairie). Often after everyone had a piece, the pie would sit in the fridge and get dried out and sometimes moldy. Sorry Mom. 

A County Fair Never Grows Old

Beginning when I was 7 or 8, my mom made sure each of us kids entered stuff in the Polk County Fair - crafts we had done in school or scouts, cookies, flower arrangements. It was something to do during the summer, and an opportunity to create and participate (my mom liked to keep us three kids occupied the best she could - we joined the summer reading program at the library in our small town, took swimming lessons and gymnastics, visited the teddy bear lady, which is a whole other story.) I loved it. I loved creating a flower arrangement with a theme. I loved standing in line and offering up my synthetic woven potholder or my God's eye of yarn and popsicle sticks or my 5th grade essay on the Beluga whale to the ladies who made sure my entry tag was filled out with my name and address and then properly folded over so judging could be anonymous. I loved heading to the Arts and Crafts building the first morning of the fair, the scent of hay from the surrounding fields in the air, to see if I had won any blue ribbons, red ribbons, or black, third place ribbons.