PORT ANGELES — You can buy corn dogs, funnel cakes and ice cream bars from any number of vendors at the Clallam County Fair, but only those sold by the Lions and Kiwanis clubs, their members will tell you, are “dipped with love.”
The Port Angeles volunteer service organizations also like to remind people that the money raised during the four-day fair stays local and helps others in the community.
On Friday morning at the Kiwanis booth, located about halfway down the main thoroughfare, Tom Allen, Peggy Norris and Jen Swanson were working the first shift, dipping ice cream bars in preparation for the day’s crowds.
In assembly-line fashion, Allen unwrapped the vanilla ice cream bars, Swanson dipped them in melted chocolate and Norris placed them in white paper bags.
“It takes a lot of arm muscles,” Swanson said, as she slowly lowered a naked bar into the dark chocolate, gently twisted the wooden stick to make sure the surface of the ice cream was evenly coated and then held it aloft for about 20 seconds until the chocolate had hardened.
Norris said Swanson, along with Michell Gentry, were “dipping stars.”
“It’s kind of like the Queen’s wave,” Norris said. “It’s all in the wrist.”
Over the course of the fair, Kiwanis estimates it will sell about 1,200 hand-dipped bars priced at $5 each (with our without peanuts). All of the money goes toward local youth-oriented projects and scholarships for Port Angeles High School students.
Just south of the Kiwanis booth, Kevin Borde, Ken Simpson and Larry Tiemersma manned the Lions Club’s corn dog and funnel cake operation.
Making the corn dogs starts with inserting sticks into 10-inch cooked wieners, dipping them in batter, shaking off the excess and cooking them six at a time in 375 degree hot oil until they turn golden brown.
“We make them as fast as people order them, so they don’t have to stand in line, and they’re fresh,” Simpson said.
The key to a good funnel cake, said Tiemersma, who could fry four at a time, is waiting for the right moment to flip it over so it doesn’t overcook.
The Lions Club stopped selling hamburgers and began selling corn dogs about 15 years ago. The cost of hamburger supplies and condiments made them too expensive for families, while corn dogs are a traditional, economical fair food that also happens to be less labor-intensive to prepare.
Credit for the popularity of the Lions Club’s dipped menu goes to the “batter babes” who work in a trailer behind the stand: Hazel Bryant, Joni Kuntz and Jackie Larsen.
Starting at 8 o’clock every morning, they assemble the dry ingredients for that day, measuring the mixture into plastic food storage bags so the contents can be tossed into a mixer with water and eggs (for the funnel cakes) when the batter supply runs low.
The batter is homemade, not store-bought, and every year they “fine-tune” the recipe, Larsen said.
A funnel cake with chocolate syrup, cinnamon sugar or plain costs $10; it is $12 for one with berries and whipped cream.
The Lions Club anticipates selling about 2,000 to 3,000 $10 corn dogs during the fair, Simpson said. Proceeds from the stand fund projects like its eyeglasses and hearing aides assistance program and its program that installs wheelchair ramps at the homes of people who cannot afford them.
The team behind the corn dogs and funnel cakes also benefits.
“We get to share the mistakes,” Borde said. “That’s why we’re all so thin.”
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
Barrett Alton, 8, center, reaches out to slap the hand of friend Easton Schmeddling, 8, as Barrett’s brother Kasten Alton, 5, co-pilots a craft in the Flying Saucer ride on Thursday at the Clallam County Fair in Port Angeles. The carnival is a longtime highlight of the fair, which runs through Sunday. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
Bo Anderson, 8, a member of the Pure Country 4-H Club, right, receives a lesson in cow milking from his sister, Bailey Anderson of Port Angeles, an open class competitor with her brown Swiss dairy cow, Darla, on Friday at the Clallam County Fair. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
