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Clara Chism, 4, left, sister Kenna Chism, 6, and grandmother Kathy Chism, 61, all from Bend, play with “Magic Snow” at the Holiday Food & Gift Festival on Saturday at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond.
Scott Hammers / The Bulletin
Find trinkets & treats at holiday festival
By Scott Hammers / The Bulletin
Published: November 22. 2009 4:00AM PSTREDMOND —
Sisters Clara and Kenna Chism stared wide-eyed as Christina Huntley turned a dash of white powder and a dribble of water into a mountain of artificial snow at the Holiday Food & Gift Festival in Redmond on Saturday. As a tub filled with “Magic Snow” — made from the same super-absorbent polymer used in diapers, Huntley explained — Clara, 4, and Kenna, 6, dug in, scooping up handfuls and watching the flakes float down.
Grandmother Kathy Chism said the artificial snow seemed a good substitute for the girls, both of whom have been anxiously awaiting winter since moving to Bend from Rhode Island a week ago.
“Every day, they ask, is it gonna snow? Is it gonna snow?” she said.
The three-day show at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center is as sure a sign as any that Clara and Kenna won’t have long to wait. With more than 120 vendors selling everything from rocking chairs to wine to handmade candles, the festival has opened the holiday season in Central Oregon for the past decade.
Mixing up a sack of pink paste, Lucinda Baker, of Tumalo, explained how she turned her career in the film industry into a trade show business. The algae-based paste assumes a rubbery consistency when mixed with water — customers place their hands or feet in a bucket of the paste, leaving behind a cavity that Baker fills with gypsum cement. The completed stone castings capture details down to individual pores and hairs.
Greg Cramer of the MarshAnne Landing winery in Oakland, Ore., said the road that led him to the festival began a few years ago at the summit of Mount Hood. A home winemaker at the time, he climbed the mountain with his father, and while at the top realized he was dissatisfied with his life back in Washington, D.C. Within six months, he’d quit his job, moved to Oregon and planted a vineyard.
“It’s one of those life-changing events. You follow your dad’s dream to climb Mount Hood and have this profound experience and decide what you’re going to do with the rest of your life,” he said.
Cramer was one of several food and beverage vendors — including half a dozen wineries — with free samples available.
One such vendor, Gerethe Vestergaard, barely stops moving during the holiday season on account of her business making kringles, a Danish pastry flavored with cinnamon and hazelnuts. Between October and the end of the year, she’ll make around 3,000 of the 3-pound, pretzel-shaped pastries, she said, loading up to five at a time into the oven in her Beaverton home.
Husband Soren Vestergaard pointed to an artistic rendering of a kringle hanging at the back of their booth.
Soren Vestergaard described it as an official insignia of the Danish royal family that his wife is not technically authorized to use.
“The queen can’t get us here,” he laughed.
The Holiday Food & Gift Festival will continue today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5, and those 12 and younger get in free.
Scott Hammers can be reached at 541-383-0387 or at shammers@bendbulletin.com.
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