Street Fair Season! ~ by Lexa Fisher

The weekend of May 18th and 19th kicked off my favorite part of summer with the first street fair of the year in Seattle's University District. 2019 is the 50th anniversary for this street fair and average attendance for the two days is 150,000 people!

I especially love street fairs for the locally crafted wares. There are booths with T-shirts, handmade soaps, jewelry, candles, honey, and of course plenty of food choices.

Local honey from Shipwreck Apiary

Local honey is a favorite of ours, and we learned a lot when we asked the honey vendor about a rare variety, fireweed. It turns out that the fireweed flower grows primarily at high elevations, and around here a beekeeper needs a forest service permit to place hives in most of these areas. Placing forty hives would have cost the beekeeper at Shipwreck Apiary $3,000.00, so he had no fireweed honey to sell this year.

My favorite balsamic vinegars and oils

Balsamic vinegar is my go-to salad dressing and my favorite brand OMG! was there this year. OMG! is also available year-round at Seattle's Pike Place Market. We bought strawberry fig, vanilla fig, peach white balsamic, and an herbed oil for oven-roasted vegetables.

Delicious looking! But too pretty to burn?

Cupcake and parfait candles! We experienced power outages three times last winter, so candles were just a prudent purchase, with a cherry on top (of the whipped wax frosting). These smell as delicious as they look!

Our favorite local soaps

Our favorite Washington-made soaps were here again this year, and we stocked up for a few months. Stormy Mountain soaps are made in the small central Washington town of Entiat. Stormy Mountain will also be selling at Seattle's (in)famous Fremont Solstice parade and street fair June 22nd.

A handsome man I saw buying soap. The same guy I married fifteen years ago. 😊