Cranberries

This weekend was Cranberry Fest!

At the festival they sell pounds and pounds of cranberries. As in you go to a large open air structure and they ask how many pound you need and then hand you a prefilled bag of either fresh cranberries or dried cranberries. I bought the 3lb bag, but they had up to 20 pounders on hand.

Since I've never bought fresh from the bogs cranberries I asked the lady working the cranberry sale if there was a cookbook at the festival somewhere. She pointed me to another tent where I bought a cookbook filled with the winners of the local recipe contest for this year! It was only $2 and should help me figure out ways to prepare my 3 pound of berries!!!

There was also this heavenly treat. Maple flavored cotton candy. It's seriously amazing and I'm not positive it's not crystalized maple sure that's been spun. It taste exactly like maple syrup.

The Cranberry festival is such a big deal that even the local grocery store had cakes and cupcakes celebrating!

The reason Fi wanted to visit the festival was her new interest in hair feathers. After finding someone selling them she spend some allowance money to get one in brilliant turquoise.

And then she took a picture of one I got in my hair that's red and black (although the camera made it look orange and my hair lighter brown) and immediately began plotting how to get more. I see a new obsession starting for her.

As with most festivals we stopped and had lunch at a giant tent labeled "FOOD TENT" and ate cranberry infused foods. 

On the way home we checked out the fall colors. This is just around the corner from my house.

 There was a lot more we were hoping to do but the number of people in attendance was completely overwhelming. Today Fi and I and our newly local family friend Mark (who I apparently need to take photos of) went back and it was much more manageable. We walked around a little and ate some of the best BBQ I've had in a long time.

It was a really interesting event with more artist and venders than I've ever seen in one place. Also more local foods and chain-saw sculptures than ever before. There were a lot of giftable crafts. Now I know for next year that come early October I need to gather up our Christmas budget and hit the Cranberry Festival!