CityView Magazine

editor Summer in the city Plus, Fayetteville’s top fall tradition A Allison Williams 12 | Aug/Sept • 2010 Fayetteville summer stretches well into what Yankees call fall, but we give a grand hail and farewell to one of our favorite seasons. We throw a grill out with the girls (Page 18) and take a tour of the city’s top spots to eat out of doors (Page 30). But the true showstopper of this Capital of Culture issue is our Annual International Folk Festival. You don’t have feature on the 32nd to travel the globe to experience Italy, Greece or Spain or for that matter, India, Panama, Puerto Rico or Belize – more than 30 countries will come to life downtown, Sept. 25- 26. We take you through the festival day by day, sampling some of the food, culture, sights and sounds along the way. We hope you enjoy reading about it as much as we enjoyed the telling and taste testing. Yes, in the dog days of summer, the CityView staff was treated to a preview of the fall festival, a grand potluck supper, international style. We grazed our way around the world, piling our plates with sweet fried bread, crisp spring rolls, fragrant Filipino noodles, spicy Indian curry, sushi rolled by hand and so many other wonderful dishes, too many to list. There were colorful costumes, oompah music and stories, oh what wonderful stories. Which reminds me ... there’s still time for the person in possession of a hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind Italian wedding cart – you know who you are – to return it to its rightful owner. The cart was officially given to the Sons of Italy by the late Mayor Dawkins after it was discovered in a Fayetteville basement. The cart quickly became a Folk Festival favorite and the subject of an ownership dispute. City or Sons of Italy, the cart mysteriously disappeared after last year’s festival. Lucky that the Sons have backup in the form of a trusty gondola constructed by Fayetteville Technical Community College students, a thank you for the annual scholarship the club provides to a deserving FTCC student. These days, the gondola is a little rickety, so the Sons go scouting every fall for the smallest, skinniest member of the club ready for an adventure down Hay Street. I hope you are, too. Summer or fall, Fayetteville is truly a place of diverse people and cultures. Take the time to enjoy them, whether it’s a simple dinner with friends or a weekend spent enjoying the Folk Fest. See you there!

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