On the road and at home, it's always about food and fun!
There was a time when I would visit several county fairs each summer, taking in the delights of fair food, visiting the Home Economics buildings where pies, cakes, cookies, and all manner of sweets were on display along with jars filled with pickled veggies, fruits, and even meats, and freshly picked fruits and vegetables. It was in short, entire rooms filled with the cooking and farming traditions that date back centuries.
The county fair tradition is woven into the fabric of nearly every American community across every small town. However, the all-American state and county fair tradition is not all carnies, corn dogs, cotton candy, and apple pie. The fair is a place for communities to come together and share some of the most meaningful moments in life that can evoke affection and nostalgia.
Best-selling author and winner of the Gourmand Cookbook Award (2018), Liza Gershman captures this long held tradition in her newest book — County Fair: Nostalgic Blue Ribbon Recipes from America’s Small Towns Listed as one of the Top Ten Best Books About Food in 2021 by Smithsonian Magazine, Gershman’s book is a visual feast that is jam-packed with the images, stories, and voices of the folks in the tightly knit communities who celebrate this unique slice of Americana each year.
In partnership with Images Publishing, Gershman beautifully illustrates the county fairs throughout the book with stunning color photographs of food, vintage, and retro ephemera. Highlighted here are close to 80 Blue Ribbon–winning recipes from across America’s heartland as well as interviews, from tastemakers behind each region.
From homemade pies and cakes to jams, jellies, pickles, preserves, sweets, to the classic apple pie, chip chocolate chipper, lemon meringue to unique snickerdoodles and chokecherry jelly, Gershman brings us prize-winning regional specialties from all 50 states, as well as ample 4H and FFA livestock events — secret tips for stocking your pantry, and recipes that embodies the legacy of an American institution.
“Fairs have always been a passion, and imagery of carnival games and Americana decorate my mind,” says Gershman. “The cacophony of the Big Top and the midway –packed full with myriad colorfully themed games, amusement rides, and food booths–entice visitors; the scents from the farm overwhelm; the sweetest pink cotton candy aromas wafting through the air. Certainly, I’ve fallen in love at the fair, been amazed and awestruck by crafts, and delicacies, and community coming together as one.
“This book was made with love during the pandemic. It took a village, as best projects do, and I was so fortunate to have the help of many friends and family lending a hand to this book. Pages include my mother’s watercolors, award-winning recipes from loved ones, and portraits of many of my wonderful growing fairy-godchildren.”
Let County Fair be your travel guide, state by state, sharing the most-loved recipe from each region. This book is not only recipes though; the photographs capture the energy of the carnival games and rides we all know and love.
Best-selling author and Winner of the Gourmand Cookbook Award (2018), with a master’s degree in English & American Literature and a photography degree, Liza has nearly two decades of industry experience working in all facets of commercial and editorial photography and writing. Liza’s 19 published books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine stories have enhanced her storytelling abilities in her extensive professional background, which includes Creative Direction, Art Direction, Producing, Event Production, Wardrobe, Prop and Set Styling.
A storyteller in all mediums, Liza specializes in Lifestyle, Food, and Travel. Her passion for people, culture, and cuisine has taken her to more than 55 countries and 47 U.S. states during her career. Liza’s 12th book, Cuban Flavor, garnered numerous accolades, and has been touted on CBS and in National Geographic, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, NPR, and many additional local and national publications and radio shows. Liza was honored to speak for Talks At Google, and on the prestigious campuses of Twitter, Oracle, and Disney, among others.
As a photographer and art director, Liza teaches, writes, and presents for such celebrated companies as Creative Live and Canon USA. She was honored to be selected to nationally launch the 6D for Canon, and the T6. Prior to that, she worked as the in-house Senior Digital Photographer for Williams-Sonoma and continues to freelance for clients such as Goldman Sachs, Hyatt Hotels, Restoration Hardware, Safeway, Party City, Getty Images, Airbnb, and Visa. In 2010, Liza was Governor Jerry Brown’s campaign photographer, and in 2014 was a photographer for the RedBull Youth America’s Cup.
Lisa was a regular contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle Travel Section, writing tips on top destinations for a monthly column called “5 Places” She continues to write about travel, food, and culture in articles and book form. Many of Liza’s notable clients include celebrity chefs, restaurants, wineries, beverage brands, fashion brands, spas, and hotels.
The following recipes are courtesy of Liza Gershman’s County Fair.
Whiskey Sour Cocktail Jelly
Terry Sennett, Blue Ribbon Prize
Duchess County Fair, New York State
In a heavy pot stir together the juices, sugar, and bourbon. Cook over high heat until the mixture comes to full rolling boil, stirring constantly.
Quickly stir in the pectin. Return to a full rolling boil and boil hard for one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, quickly skim off foam with a metal spoon. Place one cherry and one orange slice into each hot sterilized jar.
Ladle hot jelly into jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe jars and rims, adjust lids, and screw bands. Process filled jars in a boiling water canner for five minutes.
Buttery Peach Toffee Pie
Inspired by Emily Sibthorpe-Trittschler, Blue Ribbon Pie
Michigan State Fair
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
To make the filling combine peaches, sugar, flour, tapioca, and butter flavor.
Grind the candies thoroughly in a food processor until crumbs. Stir crumbed crumbled candy into peach mixture.
Line the bottom pie crust with mixture. Add top pie crust and seal. Cut vents and top crust. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.
Graham cracker crust
Simply double this recipe for a double pie crust
Mix ingredients together until mixture has the consistency of wet sand. Press into a 9 inch pie dish or tart pan, using the back of a flat measuring cup or drinking glass to ensure a flat and even bottom. Bake at 375 degrees for seven minutes before filling.
Zucchini Cream Pie
From Suzanne Heiser’s mother’s recipe box via Norma Malaby, a favorite cousin from Kokomo Indiana.
Indiana State Fair Indiana
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Puree zucchini and continue with other ingredients except sprinkle spices. Poor in an unbaked pie shell and sprinkle top with cinnamon or nutmeg. Bake 20 minutes at 425 degrees then reduce oven heat to 350 degrees and continue to bake until done and the filling is set.
Apple Cake
inspired by Kathy McInnis, Blackwood New Jersey.
County 4H Fair New Jersey
Place flour sugar oil eggs juice vanilla and baking powder into a bowl in order given, beat until smooth.
Place half the batter into a well-greased pan. Arrange some apple slices on top of batter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and additional sugar. Pour in the rest of the batter and repeat apple slices and cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 325 degrees for about 90 minutes. Cool in pan.
Brilliant displays of flowers, vignettes of garden arts, a cast iron bed frame painted white and cozy sitting nooks, a pond, a memorial to a dear friend and such unique structures as a Japanese Garden are all components of the lovely garden created by Grace Gianforte, a two-acre extravaganza celebrating nature’s beauty. In keeping with the woodlands in the back of her more formal gardens, Gianforte and her husband, Peter Katz, maintain the Pier Nature Preserve, a meandering board walk lined by tree trunks leading across bridges, crossing a small stream and offering glimpses of semi-hidden delights—a circle of stained glass placed in the grass, birdhouses, a copper lantern and planters of flowers—is open to all the neighbors on Pier Road, a short road paralleling Lake Michigan north of St. Joseph in Hagar Shores, Michigan. Take a turn when wandering Gianforte’s garden and unexpectedly come across a peace garden, an intricately wrought iron bench and table, rolling waves of shrubs in different shades of luscious greens, a sign with a garden poem and ceramic birdbaths—it’s all a visual treasure hunt.
The gardens have been a passion for Gianforte who lives and works in Chicago a few days each week and then comes back to indulge in a flurry of creativity. Her home, built in the 1920 and located at 5023 Pier Road, is the perfect backdrop of drop-dead garden rooms but unique as it is, it’s just one of a quartet of fabulous gardens on display during the 2018 Symphony League Garden Tour on Sunday, August 5th from Noon to 5pm. The League, the non-profit support organization of the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra, was organized in 1975 to raise funds for the orchestra and holds several very successful fundraisers each year.
“We waited until August for the tour this year so that herbs, vegetables, and flowers will all be in season,” says Anne Odden who is co-chairing the event with Karen Johnson.
At the turn of the last century, Pier Road was a popular resort area and in 1915, according to the “Southwest Michigan RoadMap: The West Michigan Pike Volume II: Historic Resource Survey,” W. B. Pratt, owner of an area fruit farm since the 1860s, subdivided his land, opening a resort called Pratt’s Lakeview Park and later Pratt’s Resort. The history of the gardens on the tour are tied into this early history. Irish Catholics from Chicago vacationed here and the home belonging to Mike and Nancy Braun was once a retreat for nuns from Chicago and the garage/stable a place for priests to stay. Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley Sr. supposedly vacationed on Pier Road before buying a place closer to Chicago in Grand Beach. The property where Donna Schinto has her house and gorgeous gardens was on property that was part of the Pratt Resort and the home of the Ferrantellas was a farmhouse set upon a large expanse of farmland which east past M-63 and south to what is now Midwest Timer.
The following gardens are on the tour:
TJ, Karen, and Kyle Ferrantella, 
4835 Pier Road
““If you’re looking for pristine gardens, you’ll need to look elsewhere,” TJ Ferrantella writes to me in an email after I visited the gardens surrounding their second home on Pier Road.
Describing his flower gardens as being more likely to be maintained by a lawn mower and Round Up than by any other means, Ferrantella says that many of the concepts used in establishing the family’s extensive gardens were heavily influenced by Patricia Thorpe’s book The American Weekend Gardener, which advocates a realistic, low-maintenance approach to gardening.
Ferrantella has divided into his gardens and gives them names.
His favorite is the Bulb Garden defined by the birch tree and first established with the planting off over 1,000 bulbs. True to his emphasis on easy weekends requiring little to no maintenance, this garden requires about one hour of weeding once a year.
“In Spring, it’s filled with yellow daffodils, progress to blue irises in late-spring, and to lilies in summer,” he says. “We are often asked what is the greenery growing in the garden. It’s fallopian japonica – both variegated and non-variegated and it was originally planted here to hide the leggy stems of the summer plants.”
The Frog Pond Garden located at the fork in the brick sidewalk was created so the couple’s now grown three son could play with frogs, the plant material around it immune to the damage caused by stomping kid feet.
Overall, the Ferrantellas’s garden areas offers a comforting and casual ambience. For lazing around there’s a hammock, for entertaining people have gathered in a pretty screened in porch, it’s door painted a bright red that contrasts nicely with the yellow house and its white shutters. The hum of laughing voices mingles along with Here people have the musical sounds of chimes moving in a gentle wind and the clucking of hens whose coop is tucked under a tree house. Tucked among the flowering bushes and masses of plants are pretty settings revolving around garden art and a wrought iron seating area.
Mike and Nancy Braun, 5006 Pier Road
Tucked along a high bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, when Nancy and Mike Braun first bought this late rambling 19th century home the land was barren and the buildings which not only include the house but a structure which because of its barn like doors looks like that it was, at one time, a stable before being used as a garage and guest quarters for those visiting the whoever was staying in the house. Mike Braun, a retired attorney, likes to build and he has turned part of the stable into a studio for his wife, naming it Nanistan. Also an attorney, Nancy creates her mosaics there and preserves flowers from her gardens. Inspired by a trip to England, she also built a garden wall out of stackings stones.
Nanistan isn’t the only structure Braun has restored or built, he also has added a gazebo, pergola and trellis in a garden area so large that some are tucked out of sight.
“There was another home there years ago,” says Braun pointing to an area now full of separate gardens, some filled with vivid blooms, an abundance of herbs like chives, oreganos, thyme, French tarragon, cilantro, basil, winter savory and marjoram intersperse with globe thistle which Nancy says looks pretty when dried, strawberries and Sweet William.
And because she has a cat, Nancy also grows catnip, a plant she says the feline delights in.
A large pond (dug out by Mike), bordered by hibiscus, iris, bear’s britches, candy tuft and buffalo beans with its spikes of yellow blooms, is accented with a flowing fountain and a statue of a heron.
The Brauns lived and worked in Chicago, for years coming up for weekends. But now, liking the peace and quiet of living on the lake, they now live here fulltime.
“We enjoy great sunsets and having friends visit,” says Nancy. “And, of course, working in our garden.”
Donna Schinto, 4887 Pier road
Donna Shinto also lived fulltime in the Chicago area, but when she decided to sell her home in Glenview, Illinois and move permanently to Pier Road, she took much of her garden with her. Digging up her favorite plants, she transported 50% of what was growing in her yard to the 1.4-acres surrounding her home—a task that took many car trips to and from her residences.
But it was worth the effort. Shinto’s has fashioned a formal garden with garden rooms as well as fenced vegetable and herb gardens that invite visitors to explore. She uses art and statuary such as blue glass globes, a rustic metal rooster, huge pots of flowering plants, an old red pump mounted on a wooden box, a large geode with its interior crystals revealed, a pond circled by smooth stones and almost hidden by rich green foliage and a vintage toy Volkswagen, made of metal and painted in fading, slightly rusting colors of yellow, red, blue and green with a peace symbol on its hood.
Seeking to integrate her Glenview plants with the landscaping already in place—the property was once part of the Pratt Resort and boasts 12 majestic black walnut trees and large sugar maple with an 11-foot circumference and making sure the home fit in with her abundance of greenery, Shinto had the house designed and positioned so all fit in with the landscape. The mark of a true gardening afficianado.
Ifyougo
What: 2018 Symphony League Garden Tour
When: Sunday, August 5th from Noon to 5pm (EST)
Cost: $10 tickets on sale at the SMSO office or SMSO website in advance or at one of the four gardens during the day of the event.
