Old Town Art Festival

Last weekend our little area of Chicago threw an Art Festival that required a huge section of Wells Street to be blocked off. It was TONS of fun, even though Bart and I got poured on. There were literally over one hundred tents that sold everything from handmade jewelry, to blown glass to potstickers and Pina Coladas that were poured into hollowed out pineapples. The only down side was that Bart and I had no money to spend on a nice piece of artwork to bring back to NY with us next fall.

We did, however, have money for food and drinks. Okay, so maybe if we hadn't spent so much money on food and drinks we COULD have bought some art, but it smelled good, okay?!

One of the best things we had were, in Bart's case, an ice cold beer, and in mine, delicious homemade lemonade. We also had the world's best homemade guacamole and homemade tortilla chips from the Adobo tent.

It was so much fun to wander up and down the street and in and out of tents to look at everything people were selling. You wouldn't believe how many people commented on Bart's sweatshirt--at least 4 people selling at the Festival were from Massachusetts! I thought more people would think Bart was from Chatham, IL or something.

I also ate Celtic corn on the cob. It was soooooo good! It's sweet corn that is left in the husk and grilled until it's piping hot and cooked through. Then the husk is pulled back, all the way to the bottom of the cob and the corn silk is pulled out and thrown away. The people selling it dipped THE WHOLE THING in a huge cauldron (I am not kidding, folks, a cauldron) of melted butter and sprinkled it with Celtic seasoning. I'm not sure what the seasoning was made up of, but there was definitely salt and I'm pretty sure dried lemon zest in it. Delicious. There isn't a picture of me eating it for obvious reasons. I was picking corn out of my teeth all night and scalded the roof of my mouth, but oh well.

<----This was what we ended our night with. It took a lot of coaxing on my part for Bart to let me buy one and eat it since it is probably the most unhealthy thing a person could ingest. This, my friends, is a DEEP FRIED SNICKERS BAR. I'll just give you a moment to let that sink in.

So the way they make this amazing bit of deliciousness is that they dip an unwrapped Snickers into Funnel Cake batter and then throw it into a deep fryer. I'm not sure which freaked Bart out more--the fact that it was candy basically covered in more candy, or that it was deep fried within an inch of its life.

Anyway, the batter is made sooooo wonderfully crunchy in the deep fryer and when you cut into it with your fork, Snickers literally ooze out onto the plate. I probably should have waited at least a minute for it to cool, but I didn't and burned the roof of my mouth for the second time that day. Enter second homemade lemonade. I wanted another Snickers, but Bart was, probably rightly, terrified that I would die that night in my sleep of a heart attack if I did, so we left it at the one and went home.

What a glorious day :)