A Kitchen in Queens

The weekend I moved into Ridgewood Queens, my roomates and I took a walk down to the main road to check out what was near us.  What we found was a swarm of people, strolling through an 8 block area, riding rides, playing games, and eating anything fried that they could get their hands on.  

I love a good festival.  I grew up going to various festivals around Cincinnati in the summers with my friends.  St. Ritas, St. Mikes, St. Gabes.  My friends would want to stand around and talk, but I would spend most of my time playing games.  I’d run back and forth to the group, trying to win money from scratch off cards, spinning wheels and by throwing darts at balloons.  

New York fairs are nothing like Ohio fairs. The ones in the city, which pop up everywhere during the summer, mainly have food and vendors selling jewelry, sheets and electronics..  There are rarely any games or rides..  That’s why this festival is different.  

I love the crowds, the people watching, the carnival games and the food.  I never said this would be a healthy blog.

That said, I generally find festival food to be a dissapointment.  It’s always great in theory, but once I bite into it, I think to myself, “yeah, once a year is enough.”  Creating anything for a massive group of people is bound to leave most of the food overcooked and cold.  Already grilled chicken and beef kabobs, french fries and cheese sticks under hot lamps and pre-fried zeppoles. Unless you get there when it’s fresh out of the fryer, you’re bound to have a lack luster meal.

However, there are a couple exceptions at the Fresh Pond Road festival, or maybe it’s new york festivals in general.  The corn.  Oh my god.  The corn.  Grilled to perfection and seasoned perfectly, if I am anywhere in the vicinity of a street fair, it is imperative that I immediately find a piece of corn.   They’ll put cayenne on it, they’ll put BBQ sauce on it, and wherever there is corn, there are arepas.  Corn cakes with cheese?  How could you possibly go wrong.  

And fried Oreos!  It’s become increasingly popular to fry, well, everything, but my first introduction to fried everything was the fried Oreo.  EVERY New York street fair has fried Oreos, and although I don’t eat them every time I see them, I insist that if you have never had a fried Oreo, that you immediately go search one out.  I will admit that the Jersey Shore (yes, that’s right, I said Jersey Shore) has outdone this New York standard with their own specialty in fried cookie dough, but it’s much harder to come by, and honestly I’m not sure if it’s completely safe.  I mean, it is cookie dough.  That said, I laugh in the face of danger, and happily eat fried cookie dough once a year as well 

And the most important thing about street fairs?  The chance to win things you don’t need.  I jumped in on a water gun carnival game with four 10 year olds, beat them all, and then kept the pig.  I call him Fred.