I have written extensively about the joys of the Brookings Summer Arts Festival, so I probably don't need to tell you much more about it. Here's the short version: it's a giant annual two-day arts festival in Brookings, South Dakota. It's also my favorite weekend of the year (tied with Halloween, obviously). There are amazing vendors and you always see eight thousand people you know and I almost never miss it.
One of the greatest joys of the arts festival used to be the food. Yes, I said USED to be. In my late teens and early 20s, you basically had to commit to being there eight hours for both days in order to eat all the things you wanted to eat. I would arrive each year with a rough game plan of the order in which I wanted to consume said food: frozen hot chocolate and mini donuts for Saturday breakfast, cheese curds and a strawberry smoothie for Saturday lunch, SDSU ice cream for Saturday dessert. Then on Sunday, you would return to re-eat the things you loved most, as you would not get to eat them again until the following year. Oh, and be sure to bring plenty of cash, because the food vendors never took cards.
Flawless, right?
(If you're a 20-something with an insane metabolism and a stomach of steel, that is.)
It WAS flawless. For a while. Until my favorite foods started to disappear.
The first thing to go was the frozen hot chocolate. There was only one food stand that sold it, along with kuchen (which is South Dakota's state dessert and basically a cake/custard/pie all in one). But one year, that food stand was nowhere to be found. Honestly, I was a little bit crushed. It's almost always as hot as the surface of the sun during the summer arts festival, and a frozen hot chocolate is perfect for the sweltering days.
Ok, no more hot chocolate. But I still had my other favorites.
Next to go were the strawberry smoothies. It needs to be said these were not just any strawberry smoothies. They were hand-blended in front of you using just real strawberries, ice, and sugar. None of this milk or yogurt-based nonsense. They were refreshing, tasted great, and had actual strawberry chunks in them. But then they were gone.
There were several other stands selling strawberry smoothies, so I tried each and every one that year to no avail. They were either dairy-based or syrup-based - not a real strawberry to be found. I was once again crushed.
After my two favorite drinks were gone, I switched to hand-squeezed lemonade. You can get lemonade at almost every food booth, but you have to be very careful about where you actually purchase it. Many of the lemonade options are not actually hand-squeezed - they are just from powder or concentrate. That is simply not what I want. You have to look for places giving out clear cups with actual lemons in them. That's the key. This year, I found my real lemonade at the Brookings High School Marching Band fundraiser booth. I'll be back there next year.
The cheese curds were the next victims. There were several cheese curd stands at the park, but one in particular was head and shoulders above the rest. I don't know what made them that way, but these cheese curds were really something special. You couldn't find curds of that caliber anywhere else - no other festivals, no fairs, nowhere. It was the shabbiest looking stand and only sold cheese curds, so that's how you knew which one to go to. But then THEY were gone. You can still get cheese curds at the park, but they are far inferior to the originals.
But the mini donuts hung on. These were not just any mini donuts - they were magical. You would order a half dozen, a dozen, or a dozen donut holes. You'd get them piping hot in a clear plastic bag with the inside coated in sugar. They would invariably burn your fingers and your taste buds, but it was worth it. These mini donuts tasted less like donuts and more like funnel cake, which is absolutely my jam. The mini donut stand was also run by a non-profit, which you can't help but love. Plus, they were the only stand selling ice-cold glasses of milk. So Midwestern.
This past year (as in yesterday) was the first year without the mini donuts. I felt that familiar sinking in my stomach, knowing that another greasy piece of my childhood had disappeared.
The final item remaining on my original list is SDSU ice cream. I am not at all concerned about that disappearing - SDSU ice cream is much too important for that. It's an institution in and of itself. Even if, god forbid, SDSU ice cream vanishes from the park, there are still plenty of places to obtain it. Not the end of the world.
None of this is to say I go hungry at the arts festival. I just can't get the super special foods that I used to find only there. I had a funnel cake and iced coffee for breakfast this year, which was not at all shabby.
With the lunch/supper options at the festival being pretty meh (giant corndogs, giant turkey legs, etc), I instead opted to have Nick's for lunch (never a bad idea) and a little taco truck for supper on Saturday. Both were absolutely delicious.
Oh, and a lot of the food booths take cards now! The fundraiser/nonprofit booths don't, so you'll still want some cash on hand, but the food booths that are full-time businesses do. As someone who almost never has cash, this was a welcome change.
We'll see what next year brings, food-wise - you'd better believe I'll be at the arts festival unless I am actively dying. Maybe I'll see you there. We can share a funnel cake.
