Open Door #4: Weekend Recap: Fairs Galore

Monday, August 19, 2013

Weekend Recap: Fairs Galore

Mid-August is high season for festivals and fairs in Connecticut and I feel like we put in some pretty good effort this week with partaking in the activities.

On Saturday morning, we drove over to the Milford Oyster Festival and walked around the green for a while. We got there right when it started and there were already tons of people walking up and down the aisles. My favorite purchases were two small bags of homemade gummi candies. I don't think I've ever come across homemade gummi bears before and it was easy to see that they were time-consuming to make. I was super-impressed with them though and now kind of want to try making them myself. I'm a bit impressionable when it comes to food.

I wish we had a place to put one of these cheerful birdhouses.

Gorgeous lazy susans and cutting boards made from local trees.

Homemade gummi candies. The sour cherry rings were amazing.

I usually hate these balloon carts but how cute is that giant blow-up popsicle?

We headed back up to New Haven on Sunday morning to check out the Pop-Up Shop set up in the Broadway parking lot downtown. The first Pop-Up Shop was a couple of months ago in Fairfield, and I was bummed to miss such a cool event right in our backyard so we made an effort to check it out this time. I really love the idea of this nomadic independent fair; it's like a smaller, local version of the wonderful Renegade Craft that takes place twice a year in Brooklyn. Again, we were there right when the vendors opened for business, but there were already lots of people walking through and checking everything out.

The food area was really great with a combination of about ten trucks and stands, mostly from the surrounding areas. Craft Butchery from Westport was serving these amazing pork green chile tacos, and Anthony and I wound up splitting an order of the philly steak fries from the Fryborg truck. The band was awesome too; it would have been great to have a few more tables and chairs in the center but all in all, I couldn't have asked for a better event in New Haven. We can't wait for the next Pop-Up in the fall.