SURREAL TRAPDOOR: Marshmallow Salad at the Legion!

You think I’m kidding, dear Readers? No need to wait for a time machine. Merely hop in your  smug-emitting hybrid and head down to Huron County in August.

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Fab fruit & veggies

Fall fairs are big here. It’s still possible to be a big fish, or even a small fry, in your local pond without competing with the millions and millions served on the internet.  You can find fame growing the largest vegetable, making cakes with vegetables, crafting fantasy planters, great pies or jams and pickles.

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Biggest vegetable winner : did aliens visit?
Veggie birthday cake: not as good as money cake!
Veggie birthday cake: my dad would have made me eat it!
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Gandalf lives!

The handmade quilts and tapestries are especially awe-inspiring: all hand sewn. True artistry!!

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Each weed is an individually sewn strand!
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All hand sewn!

Pies are a fall fair staple. Not only in a variety of contests but best of all for eating!  The variety is huge: apple, rhubarb, strawberry, blueberry, pecan, pumpkin, raisin.  If you can dream it, you can enjoy it here.

We manage to drive through Stratford regularly without getting infected by Shakespeare but summer stock comedy greatly appeals so we headed to the Blyth festival. If Truth Be Told turned out to be a well-acted drama about local heroine and Nobel prize winner, Alice Munro.  Sadly we missed the comedy about the turkey baster…

The theatre package included a country supper at the Legion. Awesome! But we hadn’t counted on the current demographic for summer stock theatre. Suffice it to say that we were the youngest by a lot!

Dinner time on the ticket said 6:15 pm. We wandered up and down the main street of Blyth and finally conceding that we were uncharacteristically early, we walked the 50 feet to the Legion. Rule #1, elderly people always arrive early.  Rule #2, don’t get between the geriatrics and food or there will be blood. At 6:00 pm there wasn’t a seat to be had except two up against the wall in the corner at the furthest distance from the bar and the washroom.

My childhood Sunday dinner!
My childhood Sunday dinner!

Food as expected was “meat, potatoes and two veg” and the roast was cooked the way my dad liked it, black all the way through. Portions were huge and the volunteer wait staff friendly. But what’s this? Something that looked like miniature coloured marshmallows in a creamy dressing. No, that couldn’t be. But yes MARSHMALLOW salad! I didn’t think they made rainbow, mini-marshmallows anymore.

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Huron County: the Jurassic Park of retro brands!!

It tasted the way you’d expect it to taste. But when in Rome… And I slather chutney, red pepper jelly, etc on my cheese and meats so the sugar sin was probably the same.

Ed was delighted to find Old Vienna on tap, a beer he hadn’t seen since he guzzled it as an engineering undergrad.  Huron County: the veritable Jurassic Park of retro brands.

And dessert was pie, of course, but lemon meringue and banana cream disappeared long before the waitress ploughed through the crowd to reach our Arctic exile. We settled for pecan and pumpkin – both damn good! – but skipped the watery, grey coffee. Americanos at the fancy new hipster bar across the street proved a salvation – and our true urban nature.