The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 40

D8 The Pantagraph Thursday, September 25, 2003 www.pantagraph.com GOIBACK At a glance Apple and Pork Festival this ET rri I ioar s- 0 ii mi 8 ml Clinton Jj-. 0 brace the names of Gershwin, Porter, Berlin and Kern as much as those of Lennon, McCartney, Morrison and Jagger, we realized that there is an art to maintaining the standards in the Great American Song-book. Sinatra had it, of course. And Garland. And Astaire.

And Ella. And Nat. And right on down the list to the finger-popping, ever-grinning Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Sure, Tony Bennett is still out there, plying the circuit, still coasting on the cross-generational appeal he cultivated during that strange period when MTV allowed him through the door for a moment or two back in the early '90s. But in terms of truly swingin' show biz couples from the era, Steve 'n' Eydie are the dinosaurs about to pass through the backstage door marked "Extinction." We'll miss, among other things, the pop of those fingers.

Contact Dan Craft via e-mail at dcrattpantagraph.com BILLBOARD FROM Dl Especially now that their performing days are officially numbered. So what if we didn't particularly like their music as kids weaned on the rock and pop of our post-Steve 'n' Edyie generation? But now, looking back, we realized we probably should have. Neither Steve nor Eydie could compete with the assorted British invasion bands when they were all thrown into that bizarre entertaia-ment Cuisinart known as "The Ed Sullivan Show." The duo's chronic finger-poppin' patter and brassy personality seemed pretty outmoded, even then. And a little creepy, too: people just don't grin at each other all the time like that in real life. Especially adults.

And especially not the adults we knew- But as our music education matured and we came to em butter slathered over a piece of fresh-baked corn bread. The first festival was a mod-; est single-day affair, involving a single ham and a two-gallon pot parked out on the estate's driveway. But before the day was out, recalled a board member on the eve of the fest's 25th anniver- sary in 1993, "We ran to the butcher shop and took his lunch meat and everything else he had." Thereafter, the festival's identity was cemented, the food and the attractions were expanded, and the event swelled to two days. From that lone ham in that lone kettle in 1968, the fest grew to require for starters 1,400 pounds of ham 1,000 gallons of cider 2,600 pints of apple butter eight cases of dill pickles 1,000 loaves of home-style bread and on and on. As Buss notes, there is cer- tainly more than food at hand, including a beefed-up entertainment lineup, plenty of arts and crafts, harvest demonstrations, kids' activities, a scare- crow contest, museum tours, antique tractors and this year a Civil War flavor via the 33rd Regiment Band from Bloomington, area re-enactors, Abe Lincoln and Mary Todd impersonators and more.

But, at the end of the day or APPLE FROM Dl Pork, as in "pork cutlets," "pork BBQ," "pork rinds," "pork sausage," "BBQ pork ribs," "smoked ham sandwiches," "ham and beans" and yes "porking out." Larry Buss, head of the De-Witt County Museum, for which the festival is its primary fund-raiser, agrees that the secret of its success is "the food just the nature of it. It's not your typical festival food, or what you now see at most festivals." At the Apple and Pork Festival, he says, you can find what may be the area's only rendition of an apple cider float (fresh cider and ice cream). And don't even get him going on the festival's most sought-after culinary ware, the secret-recipe ham 'n' beans. "They're the No. 1 seller," he says without hesitation.

"I don't know the recipe. I have no idea. It belongs to the Elks in Clinton." (The Elks are just one of the many not-for-profit groups sponsoring a festival, food booth.) Buss continues, without a hint of conspiracy or cover-up, "I have a feeling there's some kind of seasoning that they put in it." Whatever, the Elks whip up close to 20 mammoth-scale kettles (30 gallons each) of the hearty carbohydrate stew, which translate into around 5,000 servings (with cornbread wedge and drink, all for four bucks). It's not unheard of, Buss notes, for the kettles to be'la-dled dry by as early as 1:30 p.m. on Saturday and 2:30 p.m.

on Sunday. Moral of this gustatory story: Eat hearty, eat early Apple and Pork Festival fans, who number around 70,000 these days, have been eating hearty, if not always early, on the C.H. Moore Homestead grounds since 1968. That was the year that the Things to know about the 35th weekend: Location: C.H. Moore Homestead (a.k.a.

the DeWitt County Museum) grounds, old U.S. 51 at Clinton's north edge. Admission: Free Times: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Parking: Parking along old U.S.

51 is available but goes fast. Festival officials recommend parking at Clinton High School, where shuttle buses ($2) run continuously. Tram service ($2) is available from Mr. Lincoln's Square downtown. Events: Arts and crafts show, flea market, scarecrow contest, antique tractor exhibit, crafts demonstrations, museum tours, pony rides, petting zoo, live entertainment, Civil War re-enactors and displays, Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln impersonators.

Food: Apple butter, ham and beans, apple cider, apple cider-floats, River Rat Potatoes, funnel cakes, taffy apples, apple cakes, corn on the cob, apple fritters, pork cutlet sandwich, BBQ pork sandwich, pig tails, pork rinds, hot caramel apple sundaes, apple sheet Danish, sausage sandwich, gingerbread cookies, BBO pork ribs, sliced BBQ pork, kettle corn, apple goodies, bratwurst, etc. Saturday entertainment: Prairie Rose, bluegrass band DeWitt County Museum Association was bequeathed the C.H. Moore estate, an authentic Victorian mansion situated on seven acres just east of old U.S. 51 at Clinton's north edge. The run-down mansion, which had been a rental property for several years, was hardly museum-ready.

In fact, it was Pageant's ratings fall again despite gimmicks SOURCE: ESRI, CDT Pantagraph graphic MICHAEL FREIMANN (10:30 a.m.); Eddy Winter, country-gospel singer (11:45 a.m. and 1 p.m.); Half Day, bluegrass band (noon); Colleen Wild Band, bluegrass band (1:15 p.m.); Jessie The New South with Nickie Bugg and Kara Sutherland, bluegrass band (2:30 p.m.). Sunday entertainment: Bobbie Singers, gospel group (10:30 a.m.); Eddy Winter (11:45 a.m.); 33rd Regiment Civil War Band (noon); Forgiven, gospel group (1 p.m.); Eddy Winter Kara Sutherland (2 p.m.); Modern Cowboyz, country band (2:30 p.m.) hardly ready for anything. To raise the money for restoration, the idea of a festival on the grounds was hatched, using Indiana's Covered Bridge Festival as the template. The apple and pork theme was suggested by a museum board member, and it stuck, like a spoonful of tart apple the two days of the last full weekend of September, anyway "it's the food," reaffirms Buss.

"I've gone around and strolled the grounds and asked people what is the one thing that keeps them coming back each year," he says. We know the answer. And so do you. And it can best be summed up in this quote from a festival worker on the occasion of the event's 25th anniversary: "Somebody said last year that they were standing in line for food and somebody asked them what they were standing in line for. And they said they had no idea but they knew it was going to be good at the other end.

done before. (Miss Florida Er-icka Dunlap won the pageant.) The innovations apparently didn't help, nor did some reality TV-style touches, including lfve performance by former "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken and remote cut-ins from a Beaver Creek, viewing party hosted by Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter "The Bachelorette" fame. Steven Miller, a Rutgers University broadcast journalism professor and longtime pageant observer, said the ratings indicate it's time for the networks to give up on Miss America entirely, having tried many things to stem the of viewers. Pageant officials preferred look at the silver lining namely, that Miss America the most watched program Saturday night, as it always is. PHOTO REPRINTS AVAILABLE FOR DETAILS CALL 829-9000 OR 800-747-7323, EXT.

249 ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. Like a lacquered perm on a sweltering summer day, Miss America's ratings continue to droop. Despite a slew of gimmicks aimed at reversing the slide, 10.3 million viewers an all-time low tuned in to watch Saturday's three-hour telecast, Nielsen Media Research said Tuesday That's less than half the viewers Miss America had as recently as 1995, and 1.7 million fewer than last year's telecast. Pageant organizers and TV producer Bob Bain had hoped to boost ratings by injecting a new competition casual wear into the proceedings and by telling viewers, as the show went on, who won each of the individual competitions, which had never been PIANO TUNING Prompt Courteous Efficient Over 40 Years Experience Ron Scott Piano Shop 1-800-886-4604 A VEE Corporation Production rrr. September 30 -October! "ASSfMBLYHALL SHOW SCHEDULE TUE 930 7:00 WED 101 10:00, 7:00 iT-l rjm iT-TiT a of so loss to was Great Fall Golf Rates Call 217-784-5000 for tee times today! 1 Let us honor our Mother with prayer, song, and celebration during this Year of the Rosary! Upgrade to Weekdays Weekends GoUS-Cart i "-Aw-innw mc EMHlt All Day $2 Extra $4 Extra wttbUkTL UMi The Mn Hereon Company.

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