South Park Restaurant in Clarksville: A Classic Country Diner.

This unassuming spot on the south side of Interstate 40 offers its lunch specials pre-cast with a selection of side items and dessert to boot.

Eat Pie All Through Arkansas's River Valley!

Love pie?  Arkansas has more than its share of great pie places.  No matter the part of the state you happen to be in, there’s a great pie ahead of you. And if you're close to US Highway 64 in western Arkansas, you're in for a LOT of pie.

The Arkansas Peach - Johnson County's Pride and Joy.

The Johnson County Peach Festival is just days away. It's a great time to head up to Clarksville and its surrounds and pick your fill.  Let's look at the history of the Arkansas peach and where to pick your own.

Monster Melts and Peach Shakes at Fat Dawgz BBQ and Something Sweet in Clarksville.

Johnson County is a prime destination this month with the Johnson County Peach Festival on the way While you're in town, grab a bite to eat at this comfortable joint on the downtown square. It also has great pie.

Peachy-Keen in Clarksville.

I love me some peaches. I can do serious damage to a quart box of the yellow-red fruit. For me, the juicier the better. They’re best eaten wearing an old t-shirt while sitting on a porch swing, or on a tailgate. Pits go out in the yard and may become a tree someday if you are lucky, I’ve always thought.

And even after this weekend, I still love peaches. And I still love the Johnson County Peach Festival. I just don’t know when I’ll get back around to eating peach cobbler again.

See, I was afforded the honor of judging the peach cobbler contest at this year’s festival, an honor I planned to relish. And I did. But boy... well, you just read along.

The setting: Clarksville, Arkansas, on the square. Each year the community comes out and enjoys itself fully with a celebration of all things peachy-keen. Mind you, not everything is about eating a peach -- some things have far more to do with the community, mind you. The whole mess starts out with a beauty pageant to figure out who’s going to be the Miss Johnson County representative to the Miss Arkansas pageant. There’s also the selection of Peach Miss and Peach Mister. This is a tradition that has stood the test of time.

Photo by Chuck Haralson

There are the great sports celebrated, too, such as the early-in-the-morning greased-pig races. Photographer Chuck Haralson went to Clarksville early just to catch that. And boy, what a spectacle -- young folks trying to capture a little pig that’s been well lubricated. An event full of laughter, that one.

Photo by Chuck Haralson

Most of the Friday morning events at the festival are focused on two things: children, and doing things before it gets too hot to do anything. There are terrapin races and frog jumping contests, both packed with local kids who bring their own champions.

Photo by Chuck Haralson

Thing is, used to be they could potentially do these things later in the day, rather than at 8:30 or 10 in the morning. That’s because the festival used to be in early June. Well, a couple of years ago I went and found that there was a total of a single box of peaches already off the trees. That was back in 2009, and peaches were hard to come by. So now the festival is held the third weekend of July, and there’s a hope for peaches to be about.

One of the first things I noticed when I got there late in the morning was that yes, there were peaches around. While the peach fried pie tent I’d enjoyed before was absent, there was peach tea, peach ice cream and just plain peaches all around. Seems that Wal-Mart stepped in this year and donated a bunch of peaches... and everyone was distributing them. You couldn’t turn around without smelling them, and you couldn’t step from one booth to another in the vendor area without being offered one.

There were a lot of vendors, too. Unlike some places where the vendors are lined up along roadways or in a fairground, they were all packed onto the courthouse lawn -- which meant they benefited from the shade of trees. This also meant if you needed to use the facilities you could go into the courthouse and enjoy your, um, relief in air conditioned comfort. Mind you, business as usual was underway at the courthouse, but the staffers there were courteous and kind.

Mind you, around noon it had already surpassed 100 degrees outside, and there was a sort of passive waiting about the whole thing. A couple of vendors had those great neck wraps available that hold cold water right against your neck. Several were offering free water for passers-by.

There were also a great manner of crafts on display, from elaborate woodcarvings to nameplates made from cut-up license plates, crocheted baby doll dresses to flower head bows, and a whole lot of tie-dye to boot. There were concessions, too -- corn dogs, fried potatoes, walking tacos, cotton candy and snowcones all around. And jellies and jams and bandanas, too.

Now, when the heat started to get to me, I did duck across the street to a new enterprise called Fat Dawgz BBQ and Something Sweet. This little eatery smelled wonderful and was serving up not only barbecue but a fine selection of pies. I passed on the peach cream pie for something even colder -- a wedge of frozen peanut butter pie with a homemade chocolate drizzle. It wasn’t quite frozen, which was good because I value my teeth, but it was cool and creamy and light and the girls at the counter gave me a gargantuanly large cup of ice water to go with it. 25 minutes of that and I was hydrated and ready to go.

I met up with Chuck on the front porch of the courthouse steps, and we waited for the big exciting competition to begin -- that is, the peach eating contest. I’ve seen some kids go to town on these peaches before, and this time was no different. There was, however, a bit of confusion on how peach eating was supposed to be done. Check out the video here for more on that.



After the heat, the judge in the affair checked mouths and hands to make sure all the peach matter was gone before declaring a winner. There had to be an eat-off between the top eaters in the 6-12 year old range. Those kids... well, first time around they just absorbed those peaches. The younger kids took a little longer.



I will advise you this -- if you plan to participate or have a child participating in this activity, be sure to wear shoes you don’t mind washing off with a waterhose. There will be sticky around.

Afterwards, a great crowd flowed into the courthouse for the event I was there to judge, the cobbler competition. I should tell you, I was not expecting what happened. Back when I covered the event in 2009, there was but one cobbler and one jam entry in the festival, and it took no time to determine winners. In fact, when I was on the phone with the festival folks before the event I was assured that I was in good shape, that in 2011 there were some eight cobblers, and I’d be all right.

So you can imagine my trepidation when I sat down and was told that there were 15 -- count ‘em, 15 -- different cobblers to judge. It also became abundantly clear to me that I was in a rare group of individuals judging this competition. After all, it’s not every day you get to share a table and some cobbler with a gaggle of teenage beauty queens. I kid you not.

And if you thought peach cobbler would be boring, think again. There were biscuit dough cobblers and cobblers made with lattice crusts and those packed in pastry dough. There were some made with ripe and almost too sweet peaches and some made with under-ripe ones. Some were very tart. Some were a little fluid. But each had its own merits.

The first place cobbler

And as I sampled each one I reminded myself that I needed to pace myself. I knew I could manage 15 bites of cobbler. I figured it out to be about twice as much as I’d get if I’d ordered peach cobbler for a dessert somewhere. And besides, I hadn’t had a real lunch yet.

The second place cobbler

Boy, I had made a mistake. Not only had I already eaten a slice of pie before we got started, I failed to take into account the possibility of having a cobbler-off -- that is, having to judge a couple over. So, 17 bites of cobbler later, a winner and a second and third were selected

and we were all released. And the general public descended on that long row of cobblers. See, when the competition is over, all that cobbler matter becomes fair game, and the organizers dole out vanilla ice cream to go with it. Everyone’s happy. Everyone piles in, tries what they want and cleans the plates as it were.

Except man, I could barely move. It was so much. SO much. I stumbled down the courthouse steps, got me a T-shirt from the festival and a great little peach pin and a couple of neck wraps. I chatted with folks and felt this sensation in my gut. I was stuffed to the brim with peaches and cobbler crust, and... well, I had to get an antidote. The folks with the Diamond Drive-In out west of downtown on Highway 64 set me up with an enormous cup of iced tea and a WOW Burger for the road. It was an antidote, for sure... but it sure took a while to wear out of my system.

There were other activities of note -- a fishing competition, a cardboard boat race, dancing in the streets and a parade. And so much to do for the kids, like the inflatable slide and that great little train that drove the kids all over downtown.

I love the Johnson County Peach Festival and I will be back. But I think I may just have to get a substitute stomach if I find myself honored with eating peach cobbler again for these good folks. At least they were kind and found other judges for the nine different peach jams entered for competition this year!

Breakfast Trek: I-40 Westward.

When I accepted the project from the Arkansas Times to create an article on the best breakfasts in Arkansas, I knew I’d have some old favorites to chip in. But I wanted to do something far more comprehensive. I wasn’t about to sit there in Central Arkansas and blow smoke about the places I’d been. I challenged myself to seek out just about every good breakfast place in the state.

Thing is, I was on a deadline, a self-imposed deadline of September 10th. I wanted to get everything in before I went out of state for an assignment -- and frankly, I had no idea when the Times would use my cover story. I was in Door County, WI (where I ate what Good Morning America has dubbed the Best Breakfast in America at the White Gull Inn -- pictured to the right) when I got the project and I knew I’d be out of state for work in Memphis and Western Tennessee in the middle of it all. I also knew there would be mornings I would not be able to get up and go out… mornings where my daughter was going to sleep in or my husband wouldn’t be available to hang with her so I could go get what I needed.

And frankly, there were going to be long distance morning, too. Little Rock is very close to the geographic center of Arkansas but that still means a four hour drive to places like Bentonville or three hours to Lake Village. I started planning out trips -- some overnight that included several outlying restaurants, some close in where I could just go get the review and come home and write it up.

And then there were the multiple breakfast mornings. Those were the mornings where I tackled breakfast time and time again. It was the most effective way for me to get out and get what I needed to get done, done. It meant I had to do major pacing; I’d come home with a stack of take-out boxes in the passenger seat and a memory of yet another amazing Arkansas sunrise in my head. Even with my careful pacing, I was unable to keep all the pounds off. I gained about 20 pounds in my sampling of roughly 75 Arkansas restaurants between July and September of this year. Still trying to work them off.

So what was it like? I figured the best way to share this was to give you a narrative of what I went through. Here’s just one day of many I experienced.
***

Friday, September 3rd, 2010. I was up before the dawn, leaving out around six from Little Rock on my way westward. I had assignments that weekend to tackle in Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers (you’ll hear more about these along the way) and had decided it was a prime opportunity to check out four of the breakfast restaurants recommended to me by readers of the Times and of Tie Dye Travels.

I was taken by the beauty of the morning and stopped briefly in Mayflower, where I captured shots of the sun starting to reach into the sky over Lake Conway. Photos can’t quite capture what I saw that morning, but I stood out on the shore and attempted this anyway.

Back in the car and up to Conway, where I pulled up to Bob’s Grill on Oak Street about 6:45. I initially went to the cafeteria line where one of the ladies behind the counter told me breakfast service was at the table. I found one of the backless booths along the entry line and had a seat.

I recall there being a breakfast buffet the last time I’d had the opportunity to stop in, but since that was the Friday morning of Toad Suck Daze back in 2007 I couldn’t tell you whether that had been normal or not. That was all right. I looked over the tri-folded paper menu and found the Double Hashbrown Plate With All Veggies ($3.99). Sounded like a good start. I also ordered a small orange juice, which was strangely restorative. I was still in the process of waking up.

The décor in Bob’s Grill is pretty simple -- green tablecloths, local wildlife paintings on the wall up for sale. At seven in the morning there were three groups of half-a-dozen people each, mostly guys. There was no music playing, just the steady hum of conversation and the clink of utensils against ceramic plates and spoons stirring coffee in mugs, all over the sizzle of the griddle and the sigh of the Vent-A-Hood in the back.

I could tell the regulars. The waitresses would bring them their coffee or cola without any sort of introduction, plopping beverages down and pulling out their order books.

Maybe it was the orange juice soaking into my system or the increased light coming through the windows, but the inside of the restaurant was gaining color by the moment.

In the next booth closer to the door a middle-aged woman had a seat. The waitress came right over to her and sat a mug on the table.

“Good morning, Ms. Connie,” she greeted the woman. “The usual?”

The cheery woman smiled and nodded. Others across the room called over their greetings, and she waved to each of them before settling into her crossword puzzle.

I’d been looking through the condiments on the table and heard “did you find the jelly you wanted?” beside me. I looked up to see my smiling waitress grinning at me. She slid a platter and a squeeze bottle of salsa in front of me.

“I think so. You have a good selection.”

She smiled down at me again, slid my ticket under the corner of my plate and moved on. I looked at this marvelous pile of vegetation in front of me and sighed. The shreds of hash brown were almost occluded by the pile of sautéed peppers, onions and tomatoes that were themselves coated in melted shredded cheese. The four wedges of buttered white bread toast perched on the plate. Well, time for work.

I sampled the potatoes. They were buttery and spiced well with black pepper and salt, tucked in under the complement of vegetables above. It was a very good combination, and I could have eaten my weight in it. The salsa was a nice touch, but completely unnecessary. I could take or leave it.

I had another slow bite, watching the other patrons. My waitress sauntered by, carrying a 10 inch plate that had a short stack of pancakes hanging off of it, a container of melted butter and warm syrup in her other hand. She dropped off her load at one of the group tables to murmurs of appreciation.

The other waitress came by with mugs and a pot of coffee she delivered to a booth up from mine, only to return shaking her head. “No on the coffee, they want cokes today,” she told my waitress, shaking her head.

My waitress came back by and I asked her for a take-out box. She looked down at my plate. “You eat like a bird!” she proclaimed.

“I wish that were the case,” I conceded, but she was already gone to the kitchen for my veggie-potato receptacle. I drank the rest of my orange juice and paid at the register before heading out -- $5.50 for my breakfast and a dollar on the table.

***

My next stop wasn’t far off. I wanted to check out Something Brewing, the little coffee shop over on Front Street. I’d had their lunch before -- they do a really good Reuben -- and I’ve tried their syrup-flavored teas, even had a latte there before. Seemed like a no-brainer to get there and have breakfast.

The restaurant was quiet when I got there at 7:30, no one visible from the outside. Inside at the counter one guy waited, taking an order on the phone before turning to me.

I gazed longingly into the pastry case and made myself settle on a single item -- the blueberry scone ($1.75). Paired up with a traditional mocha ($2.99), I figured I could buy myself a little stomach space and get a good waking up at the same time.

The inside of the restaurant was quiet, but outside the weather was perfect, as cool as it had been on any morning since the start of summer. I found myself a spot on the deck out front and watched traffic go by.

After my usual round of photos, I had a good sip of the mocha, more chocolate-y than most and a welcome wake-up. I turned to the scone, the perfect sort of biscuit-crumbly. I think a lot of places forget that about scones -- they’re just Scottish biscuits and they should have a flakiness to them that overrides any hardness of the crust. They should be slightly moist, too.

This one was, except it had notes of texture of a good sugar cookie to it, too. It was pleasant, and I could tell how the dried blueberries had soaked up some of the butter in the batter. The butter flavor was in every bite; I didn’t feel like acquiring more butter to smother it in.

School buses were passing by, heading out to run the first of their routes for the day. I found myself relaxing, almost forgetting my morning’s mission. But the road was calling again, and I knew I only had a few more hours to sample anything else and a lot of miles to get under my tires.

***

See, that’s the thing about breakfast. With the exception of a few 24/7 diners and the occasional “breakfast anytime” local joint, the breakfast window is short. It opens when the first of the breakfast restaurants open (for Bob’s Grill that was around 5am) and closes when they stop serving breakfast. The average for Arkansas is 10:30 a.m., though some stop as early as 9 a.m. (65th Street Diner actually closes its doors and turns off the lights at that ime) and some as late ast 2 p.m. (Fayetteville’s Common Grounds). I had a recommendation in Clarksville to check up on. It was 7:46 a.m. To be safe, I needed to sit down for breakfast in Clarksville by ten. I was over an hour away.

So… Atkins. I had heard of a little place north of the interstate to check out, and it looked like I had time. So back on the road I went.

I fielded phone calls and watched the scenery go by -- Menifee, Plumerville, Morrilton, Blackwell. Heading west after the slow turn a mile north of Blackwell, I could see the ridge of the mountain that hovered over Atkins, hazy and bluish green under the light blue sky, the twin ribbons of interstate ahead, the tanning crops of summer’s end spread out on either side of the roadbed.

I took the exit and started looking for the place. There was a small restaurant behind the gas stations just off the road, but there was no sign of life out front. There was a sign on the door that mentioned it would be closed for Labor Day weekend. Their loss.

It was 8:20 and I had plenty of time to make it to Clarksville. I could get back on the road and stop at Fleet Diner in Pottsville or I could drive into Atkins’ small downtown and see what I could find there. The latter sounded more interesting.

I crossed Highway 64 and the railroad tracks before turning to the left and looking at all the storefronts. I noticed several cars in front of a storefront on 64 and figured if there were breakfast available it’d be there.

I was right -- and surprised, too. I’d never heard of the Atkins International Café. I lived in Russellville in the early 90s and went to and through Atkins quite a lot -- and since then had traveled through many times heading back and forth to visit my father-in-law. This place had never hit my radar.

I had a seat at a table along the west wall. There were others there, a three-top to my right, one guy at the lunch counter. The interior was very warm and eclectic -- a large painting over my shoulder, exposed brick walls, mismatched dining sets, tin stripped ceiling and a piano in the back. It was now 8:30 a.m. and though I had eaten just a quarter of Bob’s Grill’s hash browns and a third of the scone at Something Brewing I was already feeling full.

The menu seemed pretty typical for breakfast -- eggs, French toast, pancakes. I dithered over the idea of the Corned Beef and Swiss omelet but after seeing the strong Mexican influence throughout the rest of the menu I went for the Huevos Rancheros ($5.95) with iced tea. The tea was delivered with a chunk of fresh lime, a variation I appreciated (I like lime but not lemon in my iced tea and rarely use either).

The people at the three-top to my right had come in when I had but they’d called their orders in, so their platters were delivered before mine. I saw these three big platters come out and wondered if the diminutive woman at the table was going to be able to finish hers -- or whether I should expect something similarly large.

I felt something slid onto the table. A man was standing next to me, smiling down. “You from around here?”

I noticed he’d slid a menu onto the table. “My father-in-law’s in Dardanelle, so we come down here some.”

“Take this with you. You might want to come back,” he told me, smiled again and went back to the kitchen. I realized he saw me photographing the menu. Busted.

My waitress was there moments later with the plate. I was immediately struck by the bright reddish orange salsa -- so orange, in fact, there was no way it’d come from a jar. It was housemade, somewhat astringent and packed with onions and bell peppers. It was the consistency of a very chunky spaghetti sauce and similar in color, but the flavor was Spanish with hints of cilantro.

The salsa had been poured over the two eggs, which were over easy and which ran like crazy when poked with a fork. They’d been separated from the fluffy yellow rice and the beans with a tortilla. The rice was typical, but the beans were wet and somehow they were irresistible. I stopped myself a few spoonfuls in, realizing just how full the beans would make me, silently griping at myself because they were beautifully seasoned.

I needed to try the full experience, so I pulled one of the very hot tortillas out of an aluminum foil pocket and placed a bit of every ingredient inside. This was perfect, hearty and almost too much to bear. I needed to hit that Clarksville restaurant. I knew I did. So I called for another take-out box and packed my breakfast to go.

Another dollar on the table, $7.74 at the register and a knowing grin from the guy who’d brought me the menu. He knew I wasn’t just another passer-by. He had no idea I was on a breakfast quest.

***

Fleet Diner didn’t appear to be open when I pulled through Pottsville on Highway 64. I briefly stopped, updated my Facebook page with the week daily lunch suggestion and checked my email, then rolled back onto I-40 to head on up.

I stopped in Russellville and gassed up the van. I wasn’t worried about Russellville -- I’d already found three great breakfasts there (one of which, Paradise Donuts, sadly closed this past month due to non-payment of sales taxes). Up through London and Lamar, and I saw Clarksville in my sights.

I took a right at the end of the ramp, headed back to Highway 64 and turned right again. I went down quite a ways, not seeing anything except a taqueria and wondering if this place existed. Right on the edge of town, I saw it and pulled in. It was 9:45 a.m. and I was hoping breakfast was still the menu of choice.

This was Momma’s Kitchen, a neat little white building packed with little booths and tables and a counter all in one room, shades of beige and wood paneling striped with the sunlight coming through the blinds.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful as to see the words “small plates” on a breakfast menu. I was already starting to hurt just a bit from all the food and the idea of eating anything large was just not comprehensible to me.

I went for the very simple, ordering one egg, grits and a pancake for $3.29. As I blearily realized I needed another eye-opener, I caught a sign a-glance. It read “In order to be old and wise, you must first be young and stupid.” Oh, how true. That little sign by the register should have been a warning for me. Four breakfasts in the course of three hours was probably too much, even at the limitations I’d put on consuming those breakfasts on myself. The clock over the register said 9:50. There would be no more breakfast acquisitions this particular morning. I checked my phone for messages and realized it was once again attempting to go dead on me. Stupid phone (I replaced it the next week -- it was a refurbished model that was pretty faulty).
I tried to focus on what was happening across the restaurant on the grill. The girl working the grill managed an expert flip of a pancake; I found myself hoping that wasn’t mine -- it was very large and I figured I’d be unable to conquer it.

I was listening kinda off-hand to the conversations around me, not really consuming the words but feeling the patter around me. That is, until the plates were slid in front of me. I took out the camera and started to shoot, not thinking about any sort of conversation.

“So who do you write for?” my waitress asked me. I realized she’d sat down at the booth next to mine and was watching me. So were the other four people in the booth. Busted again.

I told her I wrote a blog and shared all the things I ate on it, and this seemed to satisfy her. I hoped my exhaustion wasn’t showing. I also hoped my stomach was going to accept this meager offering.

I had nothing to worry about. Perhaps I was misjudging myself, I don’t know, but one bite of that crispy-edged pancake and I realized I was really hungry. I’d been teasing my belly all along, just taking a few bites here and there and then hitting the road. I’d already spent more than $20 on breakfasts that morning and hadn’t really eaten one. Weird.

The pancake was white and fluffy but not very thick, somehow achieving a crispiness all along its edge. The over-hard egg and grits were okay, but it was the pancake I found at the end of my fork over and over again. I finished it off unabashedly. It was very tasty and I was glad I’d finally found some place in Clarksville to stop at that wasn’t some chain operation.

As I sat there gathering the last bit of strength I’d need to make it to Fort Smith to meet my photographer for our next shoot, I doodled away on my notepad. I wrote the words “Eat Arkansas for Breakfast - Kat Robinson spends a summer rising early and traveling far to discover Arkansas’ best 50 breakfasts.” I counted out on my fingers every place I could remember. The breakfast I’d just consumed was number 57. I was going to have to do some culling -- and I hadn’t even hit northwest Arkansas yet. Dear heavens.

***

That was four. Over the course of that weekend I ended up eating breakfast 12 times -- and barbecue twice. This job has its hazards, that’s for darn sure.

Something's Missing...

Ah, peaches. Forget the yellow-orange wedges that slide out of a can. Forget everything you know about peaches from a grocery store. Just think about the blistering heat of summer, the shade of a large tree, the tang of that first slightly-fuzzy bite, the syrupy sweetness of an over-ripe fruit, the way the juice rolls down your chin no matter how neat you are. Peaches are the first true taste of summer in Arkansas.

That's one of the many reasons I hit the road with my traveling companion and headed up to Clarksville for the Johnson County Peach Festival. The state's oldest outdoor festival was certainly worth a look-see.

And like many of the great festivals across Arkansas throughout the summer, we found people from around a community, coming together for a good time. But there was something missing this year.

It was a Friday morning, closing in on noon. We'd arrived a little too late for some of the more amusing entertainments, such as the greased pig race and the frog jumping contest. The terrapin derby had just wrapped up, and folks were starting to find their way over to the food vendors. Hawg Trough BBQ had their catering rig set up, and a couple of churches had booths selling burgers and sweets.
There was kettle corn and funnel cake and fresh-squeezed lemonade (with and without sugar), corn dogs on a stick and fried Oreos and all those lovely festival foods we wouldn't be caught dead consuming indoors or outside of festival time.
The aroma hanging over the relaxed crowd was one of satisfaction and deep fryer grease.

Vendors from around these parts had set up in carefully aligned rows on the Court Square, some hawking T-shirts and purses and jewelry, others with quilts and potholders and rag dolls, still others just handing out pamphlets and water bottles and information.

Kids were playing hard in the kids area, where giant inflatable slides and castles loomed over a lone ticket seller taking money for the right to take off your shoes and go bounce in a bouncy castle.

But something was missing.

We checked the schedule, noticed a gap, and decided to explore a bit around the nearby area. Right across the road from the courthouse grounds was Teeters Pharmacy -- at least, that's what it said on the marquee outside. We crossed the road to investigate, and discovered that a curio shop had invaded... but not entirely. Nestled among the wide range of antiques and whatnots, we found a pharmacy counter (complete with pharmacist and assistant!), a candy counter, a dish registry, and lots of neat little knick-knacks.

With stomachs rumbling (and my never-ending search for good food continuing) we walked down a bit to see what else we could find. We passed a shoe store, an antiques market, and turned down next to Fred's. No food to be seen.

We thought we'd hit the jackpot with this
little place called Joco Java that was on
the next corner. Indeed, it looked inviting
-- a two story building that had obviously
received much care, grape and
muscadine trellises overhead, a little oasis.


Sadly, strange signs greeted us, and we discovered we were looking at a defunct business -- that, for the humble price of $50,000, could be yours to "rock" the area.

Well, looked like it was definately fair fare for us for lunch. No problem.


We wandered back over to one of the stands operated by one of the church groups.

I always like this sort of stand -- the food tends to be cheaper and somehow enhanced by the humbleness of its nature.

Fried pies were being turned out of a deep fryer, and we couldn't resist ordering up a pair of blackberry.

The lady working the pies flicked a brush into a Cool Whip container, coated the pastries with something that was somewhat but not completely unlike Cool Whip, and we were handed very hot morsels of delight.

You just know when you're getting something homemade -- outside of the obvious crimping and icing of such pastries, there's that taste... that wild blackberry taste you can't replicate with pie filling.

Someone, maybe this year or the last, had hand-picked those blackberries, maybe on the side of the road or out on someone's farmland, but those berries had been obtained with scratches and bug bites and a lot of love.

I love summer blackberries.

The pies... were excellent. But yet, there was still something missing.

We went over to the gazebo for a seat and a chance to consume our pies. I watched one of the booths nearby for a while, where hair garlands and yarn puppets were being sold. Little girls clamored for the wreaths of artificial daisies.

I saw a young man "walk" a black chicken puppet across the lawn with a great deal of skill.

Another customer bought a little pink poodle puppet -- which was apparently lifelike enough to draw the attention of a nearby woman and her fine example of a miniature schnauzer.

After our soujourn in the shade, we went back out for more.

We perused a tie-dye T-shirt stand, looked over some local arts and crafts,

and peered in on the making of funnel cakes.


But still, something was missing... something essential. Our curiosity piqued, we entered the courthouse to find out what was really going on here.

And that's where we discovered the sad truth -- this Peach Festival, sadly enough, had no peaches. More than a month's worth of rain (six or seven inches' worth in some places) had delayed the crops. Peaches were still green on the trees, and it's likely to be the second week of July before the majority of this year's crop are ready.

Wow... a Peach Festival without peaches. Yet no one's enthusiasm had seemed to flag. There were still all sorts of things going on for everyone to do. I suppose it had turned into more of a celebration of the peach than anything else.

One o'clock was approaching, and we ventured out to the courthouse steps, where children of all ages were gathering. And that's where we actually saw our first peach -- a half-bin-full provided by Holben's Triple D Farms, a local operation that had sent over its first ripe fruit of the season. Yay, there would be a peach eating competition after all.

The kids were sorted into an older (8-12) and younger (under 8) age group. They each signed up for the contest and took a peach offered to them.

The rules were explained -- each competitor was to eat the peach all the way down to the pit, then hold it up. They were told that these were cling peaches, so don't be surprised if some of the yellow stubbornly held onto the pit. Heads were counted, roll was called, and then they were off! The splat of juice at the feet of competitors was barely audible over the cheers and encouragement of parents in the crowd.


In under a minute, several of the kids had held up their pits in glory.

The next heat was organized, with the younger kids.

As the rules were being explained, a couple of the kids misunderstood and started eating when "ready set eat" was mentioned -- and then they were all into it.




The younger kids seemed to go after the peaches with even more zeal... and even when the winners of the heat were declared, most of the kids continued to eat, enjoying and savoring their peaches with vigor.




One young lady was oblivious to the crowd and ate every bit of her peach, bent over to keep the juice from rolling down the front of her shirt.

The third heat began, and... well, see for yourself.




It was, indeed, a sight to behold.

Afterwards, we went inside the cool courthouse to await the beginning of the food competitions -- jams, jellies, and cobblers. It took some time before we saw the first of the cobblers laid out on a table, and we waited with anticipation for more. And we waited. And waited. And then we finally realized -- the single cobbler and single jar of jelly was all there was for the competition. The rules clearly state that the peaches used in the recipes have to come from Johnson County... and perhsps that's why there were so few entries.

The crowd that had formed around the judges table watched as the judges were interviewed -- Jennifer Breedlove, Queen Elberta 2008; Arissa Griffin, Miss Arkansas Valley 2008; and Miss Arkansas 2008, Ashlin Baston -- who told a reporter that she had better have some peach cobbler! When he mentioned that there was just one cobbler and that three of the judges were big burly law enforcement officers, she told him "I made it through 47 other girls at the Miss Arkansas Pageant; they have something to worry about."

The cobbler samples were passed around, notes were taken, the winner announced.

Hopes for more peaches were shared all around.

And this is where we left off, heading out the doors and back home. Another trip out west on I-40 is planned soon, as soon as we hear that peaches are ruddy orange and ready for picking, and we can savor that fruity delight on our own.

This was the 67th festival... and Arkansas' oldest outdoor festival gathering. I bet it will continue, peaches or not. Most years, the rain and the weather are agreeable to synching up on having the peaches ready. So they weren't this year? That's AOK.

If you'd like to learn more about the festival, peaches, or whatnot, contact the festival organizers.