[CH] Bowers Festival 1999
Stober, Karen, SOHQ (kstober@att.com)
Mon, 13 Sep 1999 09:05:47 -0400
It was gorgeous. A clear, bright blue sky with only occasional fair weather
cumulus clouds floating by. =Mark and I carpooled.
On the road outside of Kutztown were three foot bright red and green chile
peppers pointing the
way. Lots of open farm country there, full of Mennonites, Amish and
Pennsylvania Dutch folk. Lovely area. Many cows. Peaceful and green. Some
farms are for sale. I hope they are not replaced with developments and
shopping centers.
We arrived around 11AM at Meadow View Farm. It is a Mennonite farm so the
people there had that peculiar accent. The men were in the straw hats and
suspenders. The women in the little bonnets and dresses, but they had chile
print aprons today. There were over 100 kinds of chiles, dozens of heirloom
tomatoes, and many heirloom species of squash, pumpkins, watermelon,
sunflowers, herbs, eggplants and stuff growing. Must have been twenty
varieties of grape tomatoes alone. First, we checked out the buildings. I
bought my sister some hand made soaps in the shapes of seashells. She likes
seashell themes. No chile shaped soaps. In the salsa and soup building,
there was a lovely hand-made Mennonite quilt, $350, and a round quilted
tablecloth, $150, dahlia pattern. Both made with a chile print fabric.
Next year I hope to set aside cash to buy both. I am sure they were made by
the Mennonites in the area. Mennonites feel that only God can be perfect so
all of their quilts have a mistake somewhere.
We walked through some of the fields but chose not to pick our own. We
sampled. A tiny pea sized yellow chile was HOT!!! It stayed around for
almost twenty minutes. The drought and subsequent heavy rain had swelled
and burst tomatoes. The owner said he spent a lot of money irrigating his
fields and when the stream was drying up, he knew his Artesian well would
too, and all his money and work would be for naught. But, all worked out,
the crops were much better this year, and he was able to come down in
prices.
Because of the drought, pumpkins would be poor this year. The prices were
really good on BIG pumpkins so I got a happy orange guy for $2.50. I hope
it lasts until the end of November. I would have bought a cheese pumpkin
too, but I still have cooked down pumpkin from three years
ago, I don't need anymore.
After (gently) dropping the pumpkin in the car, we got on the Clydesdale
drawn cart and rode to the Bowers Chile Festival. Only the first pair of
horses didn't have the breed characteristic "feathers" so they may not be
Clydesdales. The other pair did. Hint: We saved $2 by parking at the farm,
it's free there (it's a cow pasture, be careful where you step), and the
horse drawn cart is free all the time.
Many, many booths of chile laced foods filled the little, shady fairgrounds.
Some hot, some not. Music in the air, even chile and bean eating songs.
Many sauces. I think some of those big, round, black rigs may have been
"industrial size" smokers. Counted cross-stitch and handprinted cards for
sale, all with chile themes. No chile Christmas cards. Tiny handblown
glass eggplants, chiles, even a ristra, from $8 to $14. Herb pillows and
small swags. Lots of clothing and aprons, but not what I was looking for.
I bought a big, red chile shaped hat for winter. No bracelets. All I could
find were earrings and a watch. The Tabasco dealer had the chile watch but
it was DEAD! I was so disappointed. Many fresh chiles were for sale. I
bought a make it yourself tiny basket of chiles. One little teardrop shaped
fellow is fiercely hot and delicious. Food included jambalaya made by a
motorcycle gang for charity, ribs, sausage, Thai food, mussels, crabcakes,
jerky, honey, salsas, chipotle biscotti, and many others. I had grilled
mussels with three kinds of hot sauce on them. Topped it off with chocolate
chile ice cream. Good, chocolatey, and it had a nice little burn in the
back of my throat.
Met with a group of people from the chile head list. Photos are on =Mark's
site,
"http://www.exit109.com/~mstevens/bowers99/". The stuffed peppers were
delicious. The red ones had a little kick to them, the green were sleepers.
The fresh chocolate hab wasn't hot but had a fine, fruity flavor. The
Porters came and gave me a jar of their own really good Super XXXX peach
habenero jam. MMmmm. They also had the famous "wet bar" in the back of the
car going. So we had rum with Sprite soda and ice. We talked Doug into the
Jalapeno eating contest. So we drank some at the "wet bar" until the start
time came. All of us had cameras poised. The winner and defending champion
ate seven and a half last year, in thirty seconds. They were off. Doug ate
and ate and ate, and ate eight, and won. After the thirty seconds was over,
Doug even ate another. He got a free night and dinner at a resort near
Kutztown, and a huge trophy, which he carried all over and bragged about.
It was a really funny. Believe it or not, people came up to Doug and had
their bottles of salsa autographed. He also was interviewed for a local
newspaper. Doug said they wee really juicy peppers. Easy to bite but hard
to swallow all that. You had to swallow it or it counted against you. A
plate was provided to spit it out on. If there was a tie, the person with
the shortest stems won. One of the contestants was turning red by the end.
That kid didn't place. In fact, we thought he was going to collapse, he
looked so bad.
Next year I was informed, told, in no uncertain words, that I must be his
challenger in the contest. At least 10,000 people came to the festival.
The couple of people who live in Bowers all had garage sales. Lots of baby
junk. Conrail freight trains came past the grounds about
every hour.
We finally made it over to Bower's Inn and got to use some real bathrooms.
The guys had a beer. Then one of the guy's drove us back to the farm. Mark
and I walked around some more and checked out the pumpkins and fields and
tasted some heirloom tomatoes. One little pale yellow guy had the most
wonderful, full bodied flavor. Most were mushy with little or no flavor.
It was 4:30 and we had to leave. It's two hours for me and three for Mark
in driving time. As we were leaving, the last chile field tour and lecture
group was going out. Why, look at that, Doug took his Jalapeno eating
trophy with him and was showing it off. We laughed up a riot in the car.
"Yours In Heat",
Karen