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HomeLeisureEnglewood TravelerFinger-licking good festivals in N.Y. state

Finger-licking good festivals in N.Y. state

Posted by Mark Chapman on June 10th, 2010 at 5:20 pm

Rutabaga curl­ing? Yup…

So you want to go some­place new on vaca­tion. You want to find some­thing a bit different.

The Fin­ger Lakes Region of New York, is tout­ing its 20 Coolest Fes­ti­vals for the remain­der of 2010:

1. 30th Annual Straw­berry Fes­ti­val: With all things straw­berry at the fore­front, Owego’s 30th Annual Straw­berry Fes­ti­val includes enter­tain­ment, food, arti­sans, parades, straw­berry short­cakes and wine tast­ings. And did we men­tion that Owego was voted America’s Coolest Small Town last year?

2. Lyons Pep­per­mint Days: Did you know the city of Lyons, New York was once the pep­per­mint cap­i­tal of the world? To cel­e­brate this legacy, Lyons now offers Pep­per­mint Days, which includes parades, dance exhi­bi­tions, local bands, a car show, a trac­tor show, food and craft booths, his­tor­i­cal tours and fireworks.

3. The Gene­seo Air Show: Also known as the “Great­est Show on Turf,” this event is a remark­able throw­back to an era of great pride in being an Amer­i­can. Located on the grounds of the 1941 His­toric Air­craft Group Museum, the show offers vin­tage air­craft demon­stra­tions as well as mod­ern day acro­batic flying.

It’s like bowl­ing. Sort of. But with vegetables.

4. Elmira Street Paint­ing Fes­ti­val: The town as a can­vas! Wit­ness the streets, side­walks, and town squares in down­town Elmira as they are trans­formed via street paint­ing with imper­ma­nent designs. Even dogs are invited to cre­ate their own “Mast-fur-pieces,” by walk­ing through pet-safe paints and then on their own can­vases to cre­ate beau­ti­ful abstract paintings.

5. Fin­ger Lakes Wine Fes­ti­val: It’s the biggest wine fes­ti­val in a region known around the globe for its wine. Fans will find art, food, crafts, music, cook­ing classes, and, of course, plenty of wine! An addi­tional perk is the new Brewer’s Gar­den for beer fans. Camp­ing is avail­able onsite, as the event is held on the grounds of Watkins Glen Inter­na­tional Racetrack.

6. Grass Roots Fes­ti­val: Con­sider it Wood­stock lite. Grass Roots is a 96-hour music marathon at the fair­grounds in Tru­mans­burg – Ithaca’s lib­eral sub­urb. World & roots music mostly. Merle Hag­gard and Burn­ing Spear head­line this year. 60+ bands, 20th year, 12,000 fans, mul­ti­ple stages. Huge.

7. Ganonda­gan Native Amer­i­can Dance & Music Fes­ti­val: This annual sum­mer event fea­tures a wide range of Native Amer­i­can tra­di­tional dancers, musi­cians, sto­ry­tellers, and artists shar­ing their cul­tural her­itage. Fea­tures work­shops such as corn­husk doll mak­ing, native foods such as fry-bread, inter­preted pro­grams in the Visitor’s Cen­ter and Bark Long­house, guided trail walks, and the fam­ily drum jam.

8. Syra­cuse Arts Week: Arts Week along the Con­nec­tive Cor­ri­dor com­bines the long-standing Syra­cuse Arts & Crafts Fes­ti­val and the pop­u­lar North­east Jazz and Wine Fes­ti­val with nearly 20 inter­ac­tive arts activ­i­ties that are sure to bring out the cre­ativ­ity in every­one who vis­its. Side­walk art con­test included!

9. Eric Canal Pirate Week­end: A full week­end of pirat­ing adven­tures, includ­ing the Pil­lage ‘N the Vil­lage Bed Race Regatta, Pirate & Kazoo Band Parade, Pirate Win­dow Paint­ing Con­test, canal boat rides, Goonies in the park, museum and walk­ing tours, pirate tales, live music, food, children’s games and more.

10. Gar­lic Fes­ti­val: Where else can one feast on food laced with fresh gar­lic, sam­ple great musi­cal enter­tain­ment, enjoy farm ven­dors and gar­lic farm­ers ready to sell their wares, watch gar­lic cook­ing demon­stra­tions, and min­gle with a fun bunch of garlic-loving peo­ple? At the Fox Run Vine­yards 18th Annual Gar­lic Fes­ti­val – the sec­ond largest gar­lic fes­ti­val in the world.

The Ithaca crowd shows its love for rutaba­gas. Or, at least, for rutabaga curling.

11. 90th Anniver­sary of the 19th Amend­ment: A com­mem­o­ra­tion and cel­e­bra­tion of the pas­sage of the 19th amend­ment that gave women the right to vote in the part of the coun­try that got it all started – the Fin­ger Lakes.

12. New York State Fes­ti­val of Bal­loons: Wit­ness the thrill of dozens upon dozens of hot air bal­loons unleashed upon the Fin­ger Lakes. The Labor Day Weekend-festival is cou­pled with crafts, live enter­tain­ment and great food in Dans­ville, the com­mu­nity where Clara Bar­ton founded the Amer­i­can Red Cross.

13. Vin­tage Grand Prix Fes­ti­val: Motor enthu­si­asts from all over the world come to cel­e­brate the Fin­ger Lakes rac­ing her­itage at the home of the rebirth of Amer­i­can Road Rac­ing. With the Grand Prix Fes­ti­val are major “Stone Bridge Dri­ver Events” which are rally races, tours and runs that take place around the orig­i­nal road course that started on the streets of Watkins Glen.

14. Slice, Dice and Spice NY: Slice, Dice and Spice NY is a cook­ing com­pe­ti­tion designed to show the culi­nary tal­ents and assets of the Fin­ger Lakes region. Nine teams con­sist­ing of four food­ies and one pro­fes­sional chef from around the Fin­ger Lakes on each team will com­pete in an iron-chef like com­pe­ti­tion at the impres­sive New York Wine and Culi­nary Center.

15. Dundee Scot­tish Fes­ti­val: Due to its strong Scot­tish her­itage and a land­scape rem­i­nis­cent of the Scot­tish High­lands, it was only a mat­ter of time before Dundee hosted a Scot­tish fes­ti­val. Their first ever Scot­tish fes­ti­val will offer bag­pipes, Scot­tish cui­sine, music, danc­ing and mer­ri­ment, with bands like North Sea Gas from Scot­land and The City of Wash­ing­ton Pipe Band from DC.

16. Naples Grape Fes­ti­val: Can peo­ple spend a whole two days cel­e­brat­ing a grape? They can in Naples, NY – the area cred­ited for cre­at­ing the grape pie! This one-of-a-kind fes­ti­val includes every­thing from grape pie con­tests, to arts, crafts, grape food, wine tast­ings and music. You can even really get close and per­sonal with grapes dur­ing grape stomping.

17. Newark Val­ley Annual Apple Fest: Step back in time to the 1800’s in Owego, NY – voted as the country’s coolest small town – as exhibitors dress in period cos­tumes to pro­vide a glimpse of how peo­ple lived 150 years ago. Demon­stra­tions include black­smithing, open hearth cook­ing, spin­ning and weav­ing, black pow­der shoot­ing, soap mak­ing and more. Lots of music on mul­ti­ple stages fea­tur­ing blue­grass, folk, celtic, traditional.

18. Ima­ge­Out Les­bian & Gay Film & Video Fes­ti­val: This one-of-a-kind film fes­ti­val plays an impor­tant role in enrich­ing the lives of les­bians, gay men, bisex­u­als, trans­gen­dered peo­ple, their fam­i­lies, friends and allies. Keep in mind that Rochester is a big film town, as the city’s bene­fac­tor – George East­man – invented roll film!

19. Dick­ens Christ­mas Fes­ti­val: This street cel­e­bra­tion begins the day after Thanks­giv­ing and runs every Sat­ur­day and Sun­day through Decem­ber 20th and a lim­ited show on the 24th (noon to 3). Charles Dick­ens and his cast of char­ac­ters inter­act with res­i­dents and vis­i­tors in the streets, stores and restau­rants through­out the town of Skaneateles.

20. Inter­na­tional Rutabaga Curl: For a dozen years, hearty Itha­cans have met in Decem­ber to crown a world cham­pion rutabaga curler. In this pseudo sport, ath­letes roll the hefty veg­eta­bles down a 79’ court to a round tar­get. Sub­se­quent play­ers try to knock com­pet­ing rutaba­gas away. Clos­est to the tar­get wins. The annual event marks the offi­cial clos­ing of the sea­sonal Ithaca Farm­ers Mar­ket. Rutaba­gas are just about the only veg­etable left in the mar­ket that time of year. And no one wants to eat them.

We kid you not: Here’s the Rutabaga Choir per­form­ing at the 2008 fes­ti­val…

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