A Fair to remember | pasta

Street theater. Never could figure out exactly what it was about.

I never can resist a street fair — the colors, the crafts, the food. Even as I tell myself I've seen it all a million times, there I am traipsing around, enjoying samples, trying out weird posture improving contraptions, fingering the silver earrings. We went to the U District Street Fair on Sunday. Billing itself as the longest running street fair in the nation, it has more than 300 craft and food booths, and 50,000 visitors. You'd think there would have been plenty of exotic food choices for hungry vegans (with cameras), this being Seattle and all, but it was slim pickings for the herbivores. I did spot a vegan burger but it was $8 so I passed. I found a Mighty-O doughnut sample, and some samples of Dave's Killer bread, both of which were delicious, and I purchased a fruit and juice slushie, but mostly I just took photos and wore myself out.

An obvious example of bliss consciousness.

I would have tried these swinging chairs myself; I usually do at street fairs. But they were all full of blissed-out people slowly swinging in a trance-like state, either unable or unwilling to re-enter their real lives.

The Slimpickins band plays 20's and 30's Country Blues, Rags, Klezmer, Old Jazz, and Ballads. According to their fb page, the bass player plays on his homemade gas tank bass. He has a piece of tape stuck to it that says, "aluminum" so I guess he gets asked that question a lot.

A capoeira demo with a very small practitioner.

What would a street fair be without exotic clothing. In person, this booth had an ephemeral glow about it, and I couldn't resist taking pictures. I later noticed in the photo there's someone in the "changing room" trying on a gown. See the sneakers peeking below the curtain?


The body painter goes about her business in a most colorful booth.

Next to the animal rights booth was a cat adoption organization.

No street fair excursion would be complete without at least one tie-dyed item purchase. I hope Miss E. likes these socks!

On our walk back through the university campus to our car, I saw a blooming dogwood. The blooms were not very extravagantly colored, and barely stood out among the leaves, but I couldn't help photographing them.

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We've been a sorry couple of cooks lately, barely managing to cook a meal here and there, but here's one that stood out. My husband used a recipe from Nona's Italian Kitchen (Bryanna Clark Grogin) as a guide to make sauce for pasta, which he was craving. The sauce was amazingly delicious — bright and piquant — filled with vegetables and flavor, and one of the best I've ever tasted. I failed to get the name of the recipe but if you're interested, check back later and I'll update this when I get the info. We used Whole Foods 365 brand organic whole wheat pasta and, as always, this economical noodle was tender yet toothsome.