Shauna Eats Sunnyside

Strawberry Fields Forever?

a few weekends ago, we got all local patriotic and decided to cruise through the annual Strawberry Festival on 46th St. (b/w Queens Blvd and 43rd Ave), held on the doorstep of and sponsored by the All Saints Episcopal Church. big ups to the guy above, but we’re nondenominational cats over here…

this being my second run-through of the good ol’ Strawberry Festival, I’m still trying to figure out how tha fuck strawberries fit into the equation. or scary porcelain dolls, for that matter.

a photographic stroll through the block’s bizarrerie:

we trekked courageously northward from the Blvd into the congested Bliss St. territory of confused (yet intrigued) locals scouring the wares of every random secondhand vendor known to man…

case in point: plastic fruit and vegetable magnets.

festive wall art and a capped dalmatian…

fine china, willis reed figurines, suzanne somers and the klean kanteen… (WHERE THE F*CK ARE THE STRAWBERRIES??!)

dolls are scary….

(even the dog was bored)

so halfway down the block of bountiful yet entirely useless bullshit was this lovely, welcoming churchyard full of celebratory dwellers and a paltry list of eats:

look, STRAWBERRIES!!! the purpose of this frickin festival! although, to be perfectly honest, we saw no one eating strawberries. we saw no berry offerings other than the lead-off dish. we smelled no fresh strawberries permeating the air. it was truly an anticlimactic afternoon…

until…

the distant din of a bass drum and tinkling shoulder xylophones indicated the onslaught of the Sunnyside Drum Corps. who knew?! like a speeding ambulance or a drunken bike messenger, foot traffic was momentariy halted for the local marching gang’s performance of the summer, “when the saints go marching in,” as well as the debut of the narcoleptic cymbalist:

…please, someone get that kid a cot.

and this one boasted solid peewee flag-waving skillz, with nary a cowlick to be had…

now back to the festivus…

maintaining neutral third-person objectivity while negotiating the side-by-side folding tables of secondhand crap helped us work up quite a hunger. we were practically salivating when we stumbled upon a hand-written poster advertising international snackage:

based on the colorful country flags, we were anticipating some impressive world fare… trust, it was the only reason i would set foot into a rectory. once in the basement, we came upon a spread of primarily italian cuisine, with trays of curry and rice and peas thrown in for some last-minute diversity:

with nothing particularly redeeming about chowing down on baked ziti in the basement of a non-air-conditioned church, and no succulent strawberry delicacies awaiting our parched and expectant tastebuds, B and i turned tail and bounced back into the sunlit street for further trudgery…

even a pirate lad turned out for the occasion…

i was drawn to a bin of colorful (and affordable!) fuzzy circus socks, though B was having none of that. he did, however, perk up considerably upon discovering a goldmine of action-packed brian dennehy flicks:

and the seemingly dangerous novelty of electric shock chewing gum:

i knew it was time to go when we happened upon a bin of half-naked barbie dolls and this impenetrable wall of beenie babies:

…and so ends the perplexity that the Strawberry Festival invokes on our hapless neighborhood each year. wishfully thinking, maybe next year will yield some theming consistent with celebrating strawberry season, or berries, or the summertime, rather than a faith-centric communal junk sale.