Restaurant Bites & Rhubarb Delights

The month of June arrives on Saturday and is there any better way to kick it off than with a food festival? Luckily, two palate-pleasing events are happening locally to appease appetites and boost community spirit. Organized by the Keene Young Professionals Network (KYPN), the Taste of Keene Food Festival returns to the city's downtown area Saturday, June 1, from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Now in its fourth year, the festival features booths from more than 40 vendors, including local restaurants and food producers, as well as regional distilleries, wineries and breweries. Taste of Keene is free to attend, and festivalgoers can purchase tokens that are traded for "tastes" at the booths. Tokens are $2 each and can be purchased at the event or in advance. Tastes range in cost from one to three tokens. The list of food vendors includes Fireworks Restaurant, Jenna's Market, Jack's Crackers, Karen's Kosmic Cookies, Luca, Machina Kitchen & ArtBar, Sole's B.A.R., Yahso Jamaican Grille, Granita Enoteca, Guerilla Grill, Eat More Cake and many more. "This year we are very excited to share that our breweries, distilleries and wineries will be right in the event footprint on Main Street," said KYPN President Alana Fiero of changes to this year's Taste of Keene Food Festival. "There is no longer a separate biergarten and patrons can freely walk around the footprint with an (alcoholic) beverage as long as they stay in the event footprint and have a wristband that designates them as 21-plus." Fiero said that the event footprint has also expanded this year all the way down to Ted's Shoe & Sport on Main Street, while in previous years it ended at Railroad Square. With collaboration from The Colonial Performing Arts Center, two street performers and three live bands will provide entertainment during the event. From the incredible sponsors and vendors to the hungry crowds of attendees that show up to eat, the popularity of the annual event and the response from the community has been increasing every year, Fiero said. "We are excited about the growth — it's extremely fulfilling to see the support this event has had over the years and hope that it can continue to mark the beginning of summer in the Monadnock Region," she said. "We also hope it inspires others to get involved and paves the way for other great events and festivals to emerge." For more information, to preview vendor menus, and to purchase advance tokens, visit keeneypn.com. Follow the Facebook event for updates at facebook.com/YPNKeene. Across the region in the small town of Bennington, another annual food festival will mark its thirteenth year on Saturday. A fundraiser for the GEP Dodge Library building committee, the Bennington Rhubarb Festival will be held, rain or shine, Saturday, June 1, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Sawyer Memorial Park, 148 State Route 202, in Bennington. The festival began in 2011 as a fundraiser and was the inspiration of a town library employee named Molly Eppig, who was on the hunt for a theme that would be unique to the area. The idea of featuring rhubarb sparked and quickly moved to the top of the list. Initially held on the front lawn of the library, the event was eventually moved to Sawyer Memorial Park, where it gained visibility and now attracts many more visitors each year, said Circulation Librarian Melissa Searles, who estimated hundreds of festivalgoers attend annually. Food and craft vendors, a petting zoo, children's games, a rhubarb story walk and the library's book and bake sale are all popular activities at the festival, she said, in addition to the multiple levels of pie contests, rhubarb wine contest and the humorous "hollering contest" for both kids and adults. Awards for rhubarb superlatives, like longest stalk and widest leaf, are also handed out, in addition to contests for themed artwork and photography. Now organized by the library trustees, the event has returned to a one-day festival this year to make it more manageable, Searles said of the festival's prior three-day length. Although Bennington is a small town of only about 1,450 residents, the park's location on Route 202 sees a lot of traffic and passersby who will stop just to check it out. "It's a very unique festival and there's something for everyone," Searles said of the popularity and great turnout year after year. "There's fierce competition to purchase pie. You have to get there early because they sell out quickly." To learn more about the Bennington Rhubarb Festival, visit townofbennington.com/rhubarb-festival or find the event on Facebook at facebook.com/NHRhubarbFestival.