Sunday, it was my great pleasure to go to the Webb School Arts & Crafts Festival in Bell Buckle, TN.  If you’re ever in the area when it (or the RC Cola and Moon Pie Festival) is going on, I strongly suggest that you put it in your schedule.  The festival takes over the entire town and is just a hoot and a half!  I went with some sweet friends and I’m just gonna have to talk about the food.

Ice cream stands dotted the festival but it was far to cold for them to be doing much business.  The same cannot be said for the funnel cakes, the cheese steak sandwiches, the polish sausage with peppers and onions, barbeque, ruffle fries, chicken on a stick (with sides of potatoes and corn – I’ll get to those later), roasted corn, turkey legs, peanuts (boiled, roasted or cinnamon coated) and all manner of fried pickles, cookies, snack cakes and candy bars.  Remember when funnel cakes were the biggest splurge on the menu?! Not anymore! You can have deep fried oreos, twinkies, snickers and peanut butter cups.  My stomach hurt just looking at it.

At the chicken on a stick stand, I watched the guy put A POUND of butter in the potatoes.  A pound. I have no clue what was in the corn.  While I like the taste of it, I hardly ever eat corn anymore -unless it’s in cornbread, I am Southern, after all. (Note: of course kettle corn is exempt from any corn rules. To review, it is a gift from the gods, not a lowly grain.) When my sister lived in Germany, the Germans used to comment about Americans eating livestock food. That’s about all they use corn for – for pigs and cows.  And, really, that’s about all it’s good for.  We humans get nearly no nutritional value out of it.

We enjoyed our brunch of pulled pork sans bun (saving those calories for kettle corn, don’t you know), which was a pretty good option.  We skipped the sides and I went light on the sauce – the barbeque sauce, that is, not Sauce-sauce.  It was Sunday morning, for goodness sake. (Although, wait, we did buy some tequila jelly and moonshine pickles. Maybe there was a little Sauce-sauce.) Nutritionally sound choices were few and far between.

However…

That’s not the point, is it? The point is that we were celebrating Fall – my very favorite season. A treat from time to time is allowed – particularly when you’re walking six hours looking at arts, crafts and what-in-the-worlds. As in everything, balance is the key. I did not dive into those fried dill pickle spears like I wanted to not because of calories, but because: 1. I didn’t have a beer, and 2. deep fried foods now give me a stomach ache.  The memory of enjoying them will just have to serve.  On occasions like this, it’s essential to remember to live a little.  Allow yourself to enjoy life.  Breathe deeply of the crisp air and enjoy some pumpkin bread.  When going to a fair, save a few calories and let yourself enjoy the fair fare. After all, it’s the kettle corn mother ship!