Festival and fun on the streets …

This is a dangerous week if you live in Geneva, Illinois and you try to exercise any sort of restraint with your dietary intake.

You see it’s Swedish Days – our annual “Midsommar Fest” – it runs from Tuesday through Sunday and culminates in the biggest small town parade you are likely to ever see with Shriners buzzing their lawnmower engined contraptions past your toes.

When Lesley and I first moved to the USA more than 20 years ago we stumbled upon Geneva while we were looking for somewhere to live in Chicagoland. The festival was underway when we visited and we were completely sold on the Fox Valley area in that one moment. We got lots of warm and fuzzies about what life could be like for our family in a community-driven town like Geneva. We were not wrong, Saint Charles, Batavia, Geneva and all the smaller surrounding towns have a wonderful charm.

Anyway, I digress, back to Swedish Days. Come down any day during the festival and you will find all sorts of activity going on.  There’s a craft show, there’s a carnival, there’s shopping with lots of bargains, there are kids’ activities like the “Creation Station”, there are Concerts on The Courthouse Lawn, every evening there are concerts on the central stage – bring a picnic and camp out on the courthouse lawn that gives a great view of the stage …  (You can get a full list of each days activities on the Geneva Chamber’s website).

and there are food booths up the wazoo …

Knights of Columbus, Lions Club, Viking Service Organization, the list goes on and on and they are serving all the traditional street delicacies.

Although I’m not a vegetarian, I do live in a vegetarian household and as I’m too lazy to keep the fridge stocked with meat, I don’t eat much of it … until Swedish days!  Every lunchtime I head out to grab the delicacy of the day – typically a bratwurst – in one bun or another.

Now you don’t need me to tell you, but this diet is extremely low fiber, and I’m a high fiber diet kinda guy.  So for breakfast I make sure I double up on my muesli … a little compound that I make myself from rolled oats and various dried fruits and nuts.  Delicious when mixed with yogurt and topped off with fresh fruit (blackberries and raspberries at this time of year).   You can’t beat high fiber foods. Added to that I spend most of my day surrounded by more natural fiber than anyone could ever digest – it just needs to be knitted or crocheted into something – of course you could knit it into a high fiber food.

Have I got the balance right?  Let me know.

Meanwhile it’s almost lunchtime and I’m planning my attack on the food booths … I hear the Methodist Church is serving up a particulary mean chicken sandwich this year (0% fiber – sigh!).