Sunday Fair

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Long line to go into packed to bursting tents (photo Kate Thornberry)

The final event of the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival is a shebang called "Sunday Fair", which takes place on the last day of the Festival. Last year it was staged at a big, shady park in Georgetown; this year it was held at the Vineyard at The Salt Lick in Spicewood. I think it always MUST be held outside of Austin, because it must be held in a big field where multiple enormous tents can be put up, and there has to be ample parking for thousands.

I went to Sunday Fair with fellow food writer Ann Guidry and her baby Sam. The weather was PERFECT: In the low seventies and breezy and sunny. So perfect, in fact, that I believe attendance was greater than anticipated. The event was MOBBED! The Vineyard at the Salt Lick was not as nice as the park in Georgetown; there was no shade at all, and one could not sit on the ground because it had recently rained and the ground was muddy. (So muddy that hay had to be distributed to prevent some areas from becoming enormous mires.) There was a prohibition on bringing in collapsible chairs, so essentially, once you got there you were sentenced to be on your feet for the duration.

Sunday Fair essentially works like this: for $40 each attendee gets to try all the Texas wine he/she cares to sample, with some free food samples as well. I have only attended twice (this year and last); last year the food samples were noticeably outnumbered by the wine samples, and this year the food vendors were even more rare. It would be a gross exaggeration to say that there were only 4 vendors serving food; but that is what it SEEMED like. All the lines for food were long and slow, and the food-dealing vendors seemed overwhelmed.

I don't think this was an oversight by the Festival or anything. I think it is just a function of giving away food being far more costly than giving away wine, and the rewards of doing so being less. After all, if you want people to try your wine, it's great marketing to give a lot of wine fanatics free tastes. Chances are you are going to recruit some new customers.

Food, on the other hand: even if people really like your food sample, it doesn't mean they are going to come to your restaurant. People who are sampling a lot of wine are going to be seeking out food, partly to offset the effect of the alcohol, and also because alcohol stimulates the appetite. They are going to be glad to get some food, but the likelihood they are going to seek any specific food item out again is low, especially if it is from a restaurant that is generally out of their price range. I do not doubt the food vendors in the past have found participating in the Sunday Fair to be a losing proposition. In the future, I think the Festival may have to at least make it a break-even proposition for the food vendors.

I was there for the duration, and I am pretty sure thousands of people attended. Feeding a couple of thousand (or more) people has got to cost a fortune! One restaurant that was cheerfully dishing out a tremendous amount of food was Sullivan's Steakhouse; they gave each person a fairly nice serving of prime rib, mashed potatoes and green beans. I noticed that their signage said "$5 Martinis for Happy Hour!" (the same price as 3 Forks Steakhouse) which leads me to believe there is a Martini Happy Hour Price War going on Downtown!

The Salt Lick also handed out vast amounts of barbeque, and also, being the very first thing attendees came to, not a single person declined.

One of the standouts in the food department were The Leaning Pear Cafe of Wimberly, who offered an outstanding sweet pototo soup: creamy, balanced, and perfected seasoned. It is one of their rotating soups; I would happily drive to Wimberly to have it again, it was that good.

Pure Luck Goat Cheese impressed me YET AGAIN, as well. They have introduced a new Bleu goat cheese, creamy and not too strong, that I have tried to buy in the store twice now since Sunday Fair, but it is always sold out. I would have to say it is the best local Bleu I have tasted, not unlike a Cambazola. Once all the local chefs taste it, it will be impossible to get, if it isn't already. It's fantastic.

I was also thrilled by Cake Balls! Apparently, Cake Balls have been around long enough to be passe (they are beloved of brides, because they lend themselves to buffet dining.) Well, I missed the memo, because I had never heard of Cake Balls before and they are charming. Also: never dry. Of the many varieties offered by Cake by Bridges, my favorite was the lemon.

After swilling down many tastes of Texas wines, all of which hit the spot, I arrived at home still hungry, and made myself a couple of tacos. The few tastes of food provided really weren't enough to last a person from noon til 5 PM.