Sunday, Pedro and I went to see the Old Town School of Folk Music Roots Festival at Welles Park. My favorite parts of their festival often center around the Nuestra Musica area, which this year was right at the south entrance at Montrose. With murals prominently displayed, it didn’t take long for me to whip that camera out!
On the west side of the southbound entrance was a mural for willing hands to pick up a brush and fill in the blanks.
Here’s a close up:
We arrived just in time to watch Maribel Castro’s corn masa making demonstration. She starts out by grinding the corn with the roller, ending up with the masa ball that you see in the bowl.
The next step was taking some of the masa and forming into a smaller ball, and then putting it on the tortilla press, which this child did:
I’m glad I was still full from breakfast, because watching fresh tortillas being made would normally get me very hungry, and wanting to leave for a taco. If they had a comale, I would have been gone! Pedro wanted to get a fresh lemonade, which he treated me to (gracias, Pedro!), and while we were standing and drinking our lemonade, we noticed some interesting booths including one that sold coffee horchatas and another that sold churros.
.
If you’ve never had a nice, hot ch
urro, you should know that it should be one of the main foods on the food pyramid.
I chose the strawberry one. It was wonderful!
At the Sunnyside part of the festival was the Staff Stage, where the drumming was lively. I think this was the Seams performing during that time.
Next, we headed over to the Dance Tent, where Waltz Across Chicago was performing. It looked like fun, and unfortunately we didn’t stay until 2:40, when they were featuring
Simbolo Norteno. Still, it looked like people were having fun.
We went to visit artist Cindy Tomczyk at the Kid’s Art Tent was, and everyone looked like they were having fun!
Back on Lincoln Avenue, the puppet show was being performed. As we were approaching it, a woman gave the puppets a $1 tip and so here you have them fighting over it.
Back at Nuestra Musica, Umbral Ecuadorian Andean Music was performing — great stuff!
We decided to leave via the Sunnyside exit so that we could catch the Staff Stage again, and we were delighted to hear Lanialoha perform Pacific Island music.
I am very glad that I went back home to put running shoes on (it was lovely with my navy blue dress from Anthropologie). Originally I left to meet Pedro with a cute pair of strappy sandals, only to turn back home and change to more practical shoes. We did a lot of walking, heard a lot of great music, and saw many interesting sights. My feet thank me for going with more sensible foot comfort.
.
And what is it that sticks in my mind so much? Okay, the cute guy drumming for Lanialoha (Jen, you would have loved him!), one of the Umbral musicians, the freshly made tortillas and those churros! And what did I miss? Chuy Negrete — I was hoping he’d be here this year.
