Bring on the Peanut Festival

Published 9:47 pm Thursday, October 3, 2019

I feel like I’m running out of firsts when it comes to some of the unique things that happen in Suffolk.

I covered one such event last week as I watched Dr. L.D. Britt receive the Suffolk First Citizen Award before a packed auditorium at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts. I enjoyed meeting so many people who have been positively impacted by Britt’s life and seeing so many who were touched in some way by his life.

Another city first is coming for me — the 42nd annual Suffolk Peanut Festival taking place Oct. 10-13 at the Suffolk Executive Airport.

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We’ve been talking about it in the office, and it was a topic of discussion at Wednesday’s City Council meeting with Tourism Development Manager Theresa Earles.

As with the rest of us at the Suffolk News-Herald, I’ll be out there at various points during the festival, though I’m already wishing I can clone myself so it would be possible to both enjoy the Suffolk Ruritan Club Shrimp Feast and cover the swearing in of new superintendent Dr. John B. Gordon III at the Oct. 10 School Board meeting.

But I’m still going to spend a lot of time at the Peanut Festival, and I’m excited to soak in the atmosphere, the music, food, games and all of the activities while helping to cover it along with the rest of our staff.

I feel like I was getting a good taste of the festival with the lunch I was eating as I wrote this column — two peanut butter sandwiches.

I grew up with that as a staple of my lunches, and with my mother wondering what happened to all of the peanut butter in our house, as one of my favorite things was to take a spoon and eat the peanut butter straight from the jar. And though I have refined myself enough that I no longer eat peanut butter with a spoon (I save that for whipped cream), I still keep multiple jars in the pantry.

It makes me curious to see how peanut butter can be sculpted. I’ve never tried to sculpt peanut butter before, but it sounds like an activity right up my alley. I’ve been to a few Neptune Festivals to see how sandsculpting works, but never peanut butter.

And of course, because I like to go on tangents, I’m curious to see what other kinds of daily things can be sculpted.

That just took me to the Google machine, in which I see everyday items like plastic water bottles, paper, CDs and even electrical cables.

It wasn’t quite what I was thinking about, but it goes to show that art can come in infinite ways — and sculpting peanut butter is an art, too. As I’m saving my curiosity for the event itself, I’m not going to look up things that have been sculpted with peanut butter. I’m genuinely curious to see what people come up with, and in my head, I’m working out possibilities myself.

Maybe someone will let me try to sculpt something with peanut butter.

Hint. Hint.

I can’t promise what I’ll come up with, but I would love to try.