We haven’t had a chance to do an event like this, so this was interesting. Jim Doherty had contacted us via email a while ago about popping at the Sudbury Colonial Faire in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Everyone gets dressed up in period costumes from the revolutionary war and reenacts chasing the British out Sudbury…or Massachusetts..or whatever. Their normal kettle corn vendor couldn’t make it this year, so they had contacted us.

I KNEW our bright yellow tent would be an issue with somebody someday. They try to get everything to blend in with the ambiance of the event so you can delude yourself into thinking you had lived in that era, for a short while anyway. I’m not too sure if they used yellow dye #9 back in the 1700’s. I had sent him photos of our setup and after some head scratching, they decided to go with us. I kind of promised that if this event were lucrative, we could scrap together the 200 bucks to get a plain white tent and fit in better next time.

Of course it rained like [insert funny analogy here]. Normally on a weekday farmers market, if it rains we don’t make the trip because it’s VERY tricky to make kettle corn in a downpour. If you don’t bag everything within a few minutes you end up with a bin of mush. Jim had mentioned that MANY people come JUST FOR THE KETTLE CORN, so we were concerned about not disappointing the crowd that will “soldier through” this event, come rain or shine. We couldn’t just blow them off even when the forecast predicted “suck”.

The event went off as planned, we went through 5 oils which isn’t too bad of a day. We normally do that on a regular day at the Framingham Farmers market. The rain held off pretty much during the day, but waited for us to start loading the trailer before it really turned on the faucet. Of course an hour later, when we’re sitting in our cars, ready to pull out of there is when it stopped completely. I think the kettle corn Gods were giving us the finger for our incongruous tent color.

What is also notable (to us anyways) is that THIS field, which is located next to the Wayside Inn, was the location of another kettle corn vendor which inspired us to get into this business. For years, “Grand Pa’s Kettle Corn” has popped here at their yearly craft festival which Velma and I would always visit, just to get their kettle corn. Many people were wondering if we were the same people who pop there every year. I took that as a compliment since I’ve always loved “Grand Pa’s Kettle Corn”.

 We were invited to come back to this craft fair again this year on Saturday, September 13th, so here we are. The festival seems to be growing, there were more tents and you’ll notice from the photo, we ended up on the other side of the flagpole. You can see last years blog entry here. This is not our normal type of gig, we tend to focus on weekday farmers markets and strive to get a loyal following. Shows like these are basically once per year and we are exposed to all new people for every show.  This is kind of an exception because it’s in Framingham, and it’s in the same location as our weekly Farmers market.  It’s interesting to compare and contrast the differences.

We did a pretty descent day of popping.  (8 oils)  This is comparable to a good day at our Springfield location, but we had to pay more to be here in this spot. We probably had more customers on average, but only sold a single small bag to most of them. It’s VERY common to sell large bags or multiple bags at our usual spots. Obviously we haven’t turned these people into mindless, kettle corn junkie zombies…yet.

I thought for sure we would be hardly sealing the bags, just selling open bags so people could munch on them at the event. We found many people buying them as they were leaving, wanting their bag sealed up tight. It’s faster for us to just shove the kettle corn into a bag and hand it to them. The heat sealer we use takes a little more time to fiddle with the bag and close it. We offer twist ties to anyone who wants them, but we found that it’s slower and more tedious to twist a twist tie one very bag you make. We’ve also found that we hardly give out samples to our usual customers at farmers markets, even if I insist on giving them a handful.

I just noticed this as I was making the blog entry. Because wickeddelicious.com has a high ranking on Google, when I did a search for “Metrowest Humane Society Craft Fair” on Google, we came up 2nd, right under the Metrowest Humane Society webpage. We were still way up there for a search of just “Metrowest Humane Society”. Cool.

 OK, this was very silly.  I was cruising around the internet, looking for more pictures of kettles for my kettle corn popper machines page.  Since I’ve done a ton of research on this, I might as well toss it all onto one page and hopefully get some Google Adsense clicks.  (Yes, I’ve sold out, I’ve now started putting Adsense ads on this blog.  Aren’t they annoying?) I discover this shot:

I’m thinking, “boy that sure looks like MY Northbend kettle..and MY blue long sleeve t-shirt with dark gloves…and MY blue cooler…and MY yellow tent.”  The  image was prominently displayed in the center of www.kettlepopper.us. I grab the image and do a screen capture of everything. The photo looked very familiar, but I couldn’t figure out who took it.  I fire out this email to them:

And I couldn’t help noticing in the photo you have shown - that *I* too have a North Bend Originals popper, pop under a yellow tent (you can see it in the corner and by the color balance of the photo), use dark gloves with a blue shirt, BOLTED A PIZZA SERVER TO A POLE to stir kettle corn, and have the same color ice cooler.

Wow!  Small world isn’t it?

Eric Bickernicks
Velma’s “Wicked Delicious” Kettle Corn

Later that night I’m arguing with Velma.  I tell her that’s me and our tent in their photo.  She thinks maybe it’s not.  No, I tell her, that’s definitely me in that shot.  I explain (once more to her) that I’m a guy and I’m a VISUAL creature…I can recognize my greasy torso and gloves anywhere.  Maybe you’re wrong she says.  It then hits me.  I go searching for this newspaper article that Steve had mounted on a plaque.  That was it!  The Springfield Republican newspaper had done a little article on us for their September 13, 2006 issue. It matched perfectly! I quickly run upstairs and fling the now moldy plaque onto our bed while Velma was reading. Everyone please take note: I clearly WON that argument with my girlfriend on the night of September 11th, 2008.  Next case your honor.

Steve got the same email and sent this out to them:

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:30 PM, <steve@somewhere.net> wrote:
Time for a cooler inspection…. if the same drinks are in there, this is getting freaky, Man.

We get this back for a reply:

From: “Dan Somebody” <kettlepopper@somewhere.com>
HELLO ALL! LOOKS LIKE YOU NEED MORE BUSINESS IF ALL YOU WORRY ABOUT ARE OTHER PEOPLES WEBSITES!

That’s pretty funny.  Now…wouldn’t you be concerned if you saw yourself on the front page of a competitors website?  What kills me is somebody in Iowa needs to steal a shot from an East Coast newspaper to put on their website.  They obviously MAKE kettle corn.  How hard is it to pull a camera out and take a lousy shot of themselves making it?  On top of that, I went back and found the embedded text info within their picture.  It had my name in it!  (I could’ve won my argument even sooner if I had known.) I guess they only recently got computers out in Iowa, since they haven’t figure out how to turn off the ALL CAPS button.  And why are their votes considered so important every 4 years?  What gives?