Fall Has Festivals, Too???

Yes, that's right, my friends!  Chicago is a city so in love with its summer festivals that they continue right on into the fall!  Last weekend we had the opportunity to travel all of 5 blocks to the 27th Annual Apple Festival right in our very own Lincoln Square.  And if you thought, RibFest was crazy, you've never been to Apple Fest.  The street was filled with apples and pies and cider and chiropractors!  The biggest difference between this and RibFest, though, was the clientele.  As apples tend to be more family friendly food than ribs, every child in the neighborhood was there.  And apparently there is nothing like apple products to turn all children within a two-mile radius into a hysterical mess of salt water and snot. 

(Of course, we Pearsons know this on a personal level.  Ask my parents about the time Mom brought apples instead of pears to Molina's when Ben was little.)

Our Mission:  Identify and purchase the highest quality pie product at the festival for breakfast.

Elizabeth:  The festival took up the entire official square on Lincoln, including the little plaza where the fountain is.  As such there were a lot of apple products to choose from.

Michel:  I don't think it was as big as Rib Fest in terms of how many blocks it encompassed, but because it was smaller, the crowd felt much more compact.

Elizabeth:  Agreed.  This felt like the most crowded festival we have been to.

After wandering through the festival and trying as many free samples as we could, we finally decided to purchase two slices of The Chopping Block's "Famous" Apple Pie.

Elizabeth: It was like being on Oprah: "YOU get a pie!  And YOU get a pie!  And YOU get a pie!  Everybody gets a PI-IE!!!"

Michel:  Except if it was Oprah, we would have been given the pie and then been stuck with crippling taxes on said pie.

Elizabeth:  Instead, we just paid a ridiculous $7 per slice of...really bland pie.

Michel:  It was so light on flavor that it seemed like the person in charge of baking the pies had just skipped the part of the recipe that contained all of the seasoning.  They even neglected to sweeten the whipped
cream.

 
(Fun Fact: Even The Chopping Block's blogger doesn't like their apple pies.)

Elizabeth:  So what do you do when your much-sought after apple pie is more than a little disappointing?  You eat those suckers because, after all, you paid for them, and then go try all the other free samples you can find.

Michel:  There were surprisingly good grilled cheese sandwich samples to be had at Apple Fest.

Elizabeth:  Overall, I really liked the festival itself, and I'm looking forward to going back next year because let's be honest: who doesn't love a good fall festival?

Michel:  Probably the Beach Boys.

Elizabeth:  Well, next time, we will just seek our apple pies from other vendors.

Rating:  7.5 Apple-Flavored Vertebrae out of 10***

***Points lost for bland apple pies, but points gained for the presence of a chiropractor booth...because all the best festivals have chiropractor booths.