Holly and I had promised to buy an aebleskiver pan for JD and Erica (good friends of ours) as a wedding present. Some weeks (probably months) back I had a craving for some aebleskivers while they were over and that one batch I made had them hooked; thus it seemed to us we could make a fantastic wedding gift out of an unusual pan. Rather than just mail order a pan online we thought it would be more fun to take JD and Erica to Junction City's Scandinavian Festival where the local drug store has a booth and sells the pans right there.

The trip itself was uneventful as most short road trips are. However, since Saturday was Norwegian day I put Lumsk into the CD player and assailed my poor passengers with Norwegian Folk Metal. I can't say it got anyone in the mood as the festival looks at traditional Scandinavian music, dance, crafts, and foods, but I did my best. By some strange force of forgetfulness I didn't know where to turn off when I got into Junction City and before I knew it I was through the city and looking for a means to turn around and head back. It's common knowledge that when a man gets lost while driving a car all the other passengers will form opinions of where they need to go next and what turns to make; I had three passengers and sometimes three opinions. Somehow we managed to find the backside of the festival, then I was in search of some shade covered parking.

All too soon we were standing in a relatively short line for the first victim of the day, a Swedish Meat Pie. The honor was not to be though, for the grumbling of tummies forced our hand and the four of us shared a FryJo while standing in line. If you've never had a FryJo then you have missed out on one of the purest joys a festival can bring to your senses. In short it is a smaller but more substantial cousin of the elephant ear, and often more chewy: it is a cross between a donut and an elephant ear, having the best of each combined into one. It was my original plan to have one all to myself, but my expanding midsection dictated otherwise, and I was loath to ignore that message.

By the time we got up to the purchasing window we were obliged to wait for fresh pies to come out of the oven. A hot meat pie is not so pleasant a thing as one might guess, for should you burn your mouth you will ruin your ability to taste the rest of it, and any other food for the rest of the day. Knowing this fact (from experience) we walked about the festival on a mission to watch some folk dancers strut their stuff. This seemed to be the hi-light for some of our party, and having the good fortune to find some shade and enjoy this cultural feast for the eyes and ears we had time to let the pies cool before mercilessly devouring them.

Perhaps my favourite aspect of the Scandinavian Festival is it's moderate size. One can take their time and meander about the booths and manage to see everything in a short few hours. One need not commit themselves to an all-day affair, or even a multi-day affair. So off we went peeking in the different booths seeing what they had to offer. Ice cream seemed to be the order of the moment and even though the weather was most agreeable the ice cream cones did hit a certain spot (which was thankfully not a lap or a shirt).

There was of course a mission in all this festival enjoyment, and that was to locate the booth of the local drugstore and to acquire an aebleskiver pan. After a second circuit of the festival (I did mention it was moderately sized) we asked a local who regretfully informed us the owners sold the store and retired, leaving no place in all of Junction City to soothe that craving for homemade aebleskivers.

In the end we all had fun, and JD and Erica were able to enjoy a new festival, and perhaps we'll have to take them to the Octoberfest next. I got my Swedish Meat Pie and my FryJo. As to the aebleskiver pan, the Internet is a wonderful medium to find all manner of odd objects, and so one has been found.