Life with a toddler means trying to find things to keep them and you occupied since you can't hang…read moreout at the movies al the time or curl up with your favorite book all day. So after finding out that the inaugural Paw Paw Festival was happening (in Paw Paw, Illinois) and it is only about an hour and twenty minutes from Chicago!
The festival is named for both the town and the fruit, a paw paw, which grows here. I had never heard of the town or the fruit. It's a small green fruit, oblong, with a soft, creamy flesh. There was a little sign there with some of the decorations calling it a hillbilly mango. You can scoop the fruit out of the skin with a spoon--even the little wooden spoons they had for taste testing made easy work of it. It has big thick seeds inside it so I'm not sure how much fruit you'd need to make some sort of pastry or something out of them, but they may generally be just for eating alone.
The festival was very very small--truly a small town festival. There were maybe a few hundred people here, and we only stayed for 90 minutes or maybe two hours. I parked in the grassy area that they had for parking, maybe 100 feet from where the festival was. There were a few vendors there selling lotions, flowers, honey, as well as a farm stand that was selling gourds and fall fruits and veggies. There were a couple food booths, serving barbecue and one with some Mexican street food. One of the vendors was from Arkansas, Pure Joy ice cream, and they had some really delicious ice cream bars--there was a paw paw and lime one, which my friend bought, but I couldn't see past the rosemary and peach one that he had. That one was freaking amazing. He also was selling paw paw t-shirts, sweatshirts, and something called caramel paw paw sauce. Once I learned that the dude was from Arkansas and not Sugar Grove or something, I had to buy a jar--well, two, so that I can send one to my mom. They were doing trivia throughout the day for prizes, and there may have been other activities that I didn't hear (they used a mic from the stage, but the sound wasn't super great). There was a little area where folks could take photos or selfies, and even a cut-out paw paw to stick your head into. They put some thought into some of these elements.
Folks were friendly. Was there a lot to do? No, not really, but it was a nice afternoon. It was a very small festival, but it was a nice drive out west. I really appreciated that they had several kids activities. There was a basket with tubes of bubbles and sidewalk chalk, and they had tables out where kids could decorate their own paw paw--there were coloring sheets with paw paws on them, and a huge amount of art supplies like pom poms, glitter, crayons, and more. The park in which it was held was also right next door to the school, so children had access to playground as well. It was really great, since oftentimes there's not much for kids at things like these, so well done, Paw Paw Fest.
