Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer. (Boo! Boo!) But summer gods and goddesses, take heart: The sultry season is alive and well during “CORNucopia,” the Historic Hudson Valley fest that returns to Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow, an HHV property, Labor Day weekend. This late-summer rite features a bounty of corn-centric delicacies and a bevy of interactive, corn-related activities.
Visitors can compete in a corn shucking contest, participate in a barn dance, learn how to make a corn-husk doll and play games like Konk a Crow, Cornhole, and Ring-a-Cob in the CORNival gaming area.
Other activities include scarecrow-making and both modern and historic open-hearth cooking demonstrations — using corn as the main ingredient, of course. Youngsters can thread their way through a “mini maize maze” and all visitors can tour the site’s 18th-century manor house and grist mill. There visitors can purchase cornmeal ground on-site, which will include recipes for some of the items being prepared at “CORNucopia.”
A –“maize’-ing food selections available for purchase include fresh roasted corn, cornbread, corn salad, kettle corn, corn salsa and chips and corn chili, plus draft beers and draft root beer from Captain Lawrence Brewery. Blue Pig of Croton-on-Hudson will offer sweet corn ice cream.
Live bluegrass and folk music by the Tappan Cowboys will be heard throughout the day.
“CORNucopia” takes place 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday through Monday. All proceeds support Historic Hudson Valley’s education and preservation mission. Online tickets are $16 for adults; $12 for senior citizens; $8 for children ages 3 to 17; and free for children under age 3 and for Historic Hudson Valley members. Tickets, availablr at hudsonvalley.org, and are $2 more when purchased on-site. Philipsburg Manor is at 381 North Broadway (Route 9) in Sleepy Hollow.
For information, call 914-366-6900 or visit hudsonvalley.org. – edited by Georgette Gouveia
