2023 DATE: July 28-29, 2023
This post documents my experience on August 6, 2011.
I haven’t been to many rib festivals in the past for various reasons. Three of those reasons are as follows:
- Admission charges
- Expensive per bone
- My mom’s ribs are usually a lot better
Still, when I had the opportunity to meet my friend Rich at the free Canal Winchester Blues and Ribfest…
…I thought it would be fun!
I arrived a bit earlier than Rich and started checking it out from the southern end…
…passing vendor booths that included the local art guild…
…and a booth filled with cool Alpaca products.
It wasn’t soon after…
…that I remembered why I came.
I walked through the area, trying to figure what ribs I would try first…
.…but it was difficult..
Very difficult.
There were more ribs here than I could possibly consume!
Overwhelmed with too many choices and a rumbling belly (not to mention the need to practice economical frugality), I decided to keep walking until Rich arrived….
…checking out the cool inflatables and the kids’ area…
…and finally distracting my hunger with some music found on two stages…
…blues music, that is.
When I got a text that Rich was nearby, I took a gamble with my first rib sample…
…heading for the booth with the most advertisements.
Here I got a sample for $6 and these ribs were pretty decent.
But, when Rich arrived, I told him about a guy in line who had sampled ribs from 6 booths already, announcing Buckeye Back Ribs as the best so far.
So we went there next…
…and got some fall-off-the-bone flavorful deliciousness for $4.50.
With our food in hand…
…we sat down at one of the eating areas.
And we enjoyed our ribs and told each other stories, until a man came by with a $1 coupon off a funnel cake and we considered that option.
It was a really hot day (not the best setting for fried food) and I had planned on going to the Ohio State Fair for deep fried Kool-aid and a donut burger that evening (you can read about that here), so I seriously didn’t want to overdo it.
But I hadn’t had a funnel cake in all the festivals that I’ve written about (more than 150).
Perhaps it was a sign to finally get one.
Fortunately, we decided on a happy medium – getting the funnel cake (which was covered in both honey and powdered sugar) and splitting it because that’s what friends do..
Fortunately, it matched my shirt.