Scribe-ls

The Frisco Barbecue Cookoff and Festival this weekend (June 16-17) is a delicious diversion!  Get there early and you'll park right around the corner and get tickets and food without waiting in line.  The food ranges from $1 for a deep-fried pickle - a Southern treat not found often around here - to $6 or $7 for a full meal. It happens annually, so if you miss this year, put it on the calendar for next!  

Food choices range from the pickle and barbecue choices, of course, to funnel cakes, mini doughnuts with sticky sweet dips and grilled bananas with sundae toppings (a real treat you must not miss).  The best bet is to sample, sample, sample.  Samples of the meats can be a neat little nibble in a portion cup or on a stick, or a half-serving suitable for sharing.  Some, like the Kansas City team's pulled pork offering (their name escapes me) near 3rd and Main, are barbecue at its best - tender, rich, juicy meat and a slightly sweet, spicy-tangy tomato-based sauce and others, like the cajun sausage on a stick with an uneventful sauce, are barbecue you wish you'd never met.  One of the winning entries consisted of pulled pork with a fruit-based sauce which was okay, but just not what I like.  Apparently, the judges did.  KC style is definitely where it's at to my palate.

Another grand taste, and one of the pricier at $5, was the Key-style shrimp 'n' sausage on a stick with a slightly-overpowering sauce served up by the Golden Toad team.  I'll definitely do these at home with a honey, jalapeno and lime sauce. 

We found another tasty treat, too, in the grilled jalapeno poppers.  Maybe I don't get out much, but these little half-shells with a cream cheese mixture inside and a bacon blanket outside were a new marvel and another "do at home" possibility.  I might even take it a step further and put a shrimp or brazil nut inside. 

The mini doughnuts were a disappointment, tasting suspiciously like under-flavored funnel cake batter cooked in a doughnut-like shape.  Throw some sugar and spice in the mix and they'd be dandy, though.

The grilled bananas...what can I say?  They're heavenly.  A half banana is cut lengthwise, rubbed down with brown sugar and grilled until the skin turns black (but not burnt), then served up skin and all with whipped cream, chocolate and cherries.  Warm, gooey, sweet and almost good for ya!

My husband I found $25 worth of tickets for both of us to be plenty unless you really want to gorge yourself.  We bought far too many tickets at any rate, but chose not to torture our palates with the usual cheap beer offerings, so had lots of tickets to sell off at a discount on the way out.  The local restaurants also get in on the fun, most of them accepting the tickets.  That was a huge point of gratuity for us when coffee time hit in mid-afternoon. 

This is one of the best-organized street festivals I've attended, not that I'm huge on that venue. Booths were lined up along either side of Main Street, with a broad path dotted with lots of trash receptacles and picnic tables between.  Sidewalks "behind the shuffle" were open, so it was easy to access the local shops or just take a break from "crowd swimming."  Low-key amusements were at the mountain-end of Main, for both kids and big kids, and the cutest little pig race played out every two hours about a block away.  Live trad bluegrass and DJ'd rock gave it all a slightly rowdy air.  There were ticket booths located conveniently throughout and two ample restroom stations on side streets. 

When you go, make sure you take and drink water and wear some sunscreen because the white-hot mountain sun is brutal.  Ice cold bottled water is sold for $1, as are sodas, but I'm far too cheap to buy water.  A quart canteen each is usually plenty.  There were some sunscreen freebies but  Miss Crispy here ignored them and has future new freckles as a souvenir.