Great Googa Mooga, ?Fooga!? | Parent Earth | Videos about Food for ...

The Great Googa Mooga
May 19^th & 20^th 2012

The Great Googa Mooga was defined by organizers as:

n. an amusement park of food & drink
adj.?something wonderfully great
excl.??oh my goodness!? or ?how bout that!?

For those who thought they were coming to a music festival, this festival?s main attractions were the food and drink with 75 food vendors, 35 brewers, 30 winemakers and 20 live music performances. For foodies it was a packed house with over 40,000 attendees, and longer lines to wait for food and drink than most restaurants in the city.

I arrived Sunday afternoon, starving after a morning spent making DVDs for Nicole?s presentation at the Kellogg Food and Society Conference, and headed for the shortest line I could find ? at one of my favorites, Num Pang Sandwich Shop. I splurged on a double, which included two mini pulled pork sandwiches and two sides of grilled corn on the cob. I was trying to avoid lines and find my friends (a difficult task given bad cell service in the park) so I skipped the ID check and grabbed some Blood Orange Lemonade from Num Pang too?so delicious!

Hunger satiated, I found my friends in Hamageddon, where they had just escaped from being nearly singed by the enormous metal pig roast, and had delighted in the antics of Peelander-Z, a Japanese action comic punk rock band dressed up ?like Teletubbies,? according to one friend.

We sought out dessert only to find all the ice cream stalls sold out- oh, dear! I noticed the cotton candy machine and short line at Liddabit Sweets. My friends noticed their caramel chocolate honeycomb popcorn. My cotton candy was made with maple syrup and came with a pretzel stick. I like to think of maple syrup as a healthier option and the natural color and lightly sweet flavor certainly made for a delicious alternative to the bright colored fluff of yester-year. The mix of sweet and salty also helped to delight the palate, making my amusement park experience complete.

Before leaving to explore more of the day in Prospect Park, I stopped by the Just Food booth where they were selling seed bombs?a little something to take away and spread the food festival out into the city.

As the first year of the festival, there was definitely room for improvement, but with the goal of having?friends and neighbors to eat, drink, talk, laugh, dance, linger and just . . . be together,? the organizers certainly succeeded. The kids even came out ? anyone over age 6 required a ticket and with the many food booths, kids could try a sampling from vendors all over the city. Just Food also had a number of activities for families including ?Wonderful Wigglers: A Worm Workshop for Little Ones!?

For next year, one friend requests that they ?bring the New Orleans Brass to the General Mooga!? My advice on the long lines: look to Num Pang?s organization: two lines one for ordering, one for pickup with your ticket. It was efficient and moved fairly fast.

But all in all, Googa Mooga, thanks for a good time.

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