This is the second edition of Lookout Eugene-Springfield’s new food and culture newsletter! Future installments will be delivered to your inbox every Thursday. You’re receiving this newsletter because we think you might be interested, but if not, you can opt out here.

We’re sweaty, we’re dusty, and we’re just getting started. 

This newsletter comes to you on the heels of attending the media day tour for this year’s Oregon Country Fair, the impossible-to-ignore cultural event that opens to the public this Friday. We’ve split this week’s newsletter into two halves: What you should do if you’re going to the Country Fair, and what you can get into if you’re sticking around Eugene and Springfield.

Your weekend itinerary: Country Fair version

The fair boasts, as usual, a stacked culinary lineup. Find all the food vendors (plus artisans, music schedules, fair activities, resources — well, everything) in the Peach Pit. It’s also my (Taylor’s!) first fair year, so you best believe I’m documenting everything I eat.

I’m particularly excited to try Patti’s raw fruit pies and check out the stand that sells pierogies and ice cream sandwiches. Tag along with Annie and me on socials, and follow our ongoing fair coverage this weekend. 

The Peach Pit is also your guide to choosing what revelry you’ll want to get into this weekend. You’ll be able to see the usual parades, stilt walkers, puppets and more along the path and in the meadows.

But I (Annie) am hoping to catch comedian Demi Adejuyigbe during one of his performances at the Spirit Tower — but will he do one (1) backflip? Adejuyigbe will be performing at 1 p.m. on Friday and 1:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Spirit Tower. 

The marquee musical event of the weekend is the Sunday afternoon All Star Celebration of Bob Weir.

Weir, a beloved founding member of the Grateful Dead, died earlier this year. The concert will honor his legacy with a performance featuring musicians who played alongside him, in some cases for decades, on other musical projects. That’s at 4:15 p.m., Sunday, July 12 at the Main Stage.

Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to receive Weekend Bites & Sights every Thursday in your inbox.

YOUR WEEKEND ITINERARY

Cake on cake on cake! You can grab a slice from Made It Myself, a home bakery in Creswell, during the first Porch & Farm Crawl on Saturday, July 11. Credit: Taylor Goebel / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

Is it just us, or do little roadside stands carry the best produce, baked goods and jams around? The Porch & Farm Crawl — happening this Saturday, July 11 — is your roadmap to 30 of them. Think of it as a self-guided shopping tour, with routes in Eugene/Springfield, Creswell and Junction City/Harrisburg. Pick up maps at the stands or access them on the event’s Facebook and Instagram pages, where you can also learn about each vendor. If you miss this crawl, don’t sweat it: There are already talks of another one in the fall.

It’s the final weekend for the Oregon Bach Festival; take a spin through the website for the full list of concerts, but here are the remaining concerts with tickets still available:

You should also make time to see the play “Jerusalem,” a production of which opens in Eugene this week at the Very Little Theatre, produced by Capital T Theatre. This upstart local theater company performed the original play “Shermer” last year; this year, they’ve swung to what one critic called “the greatest British play of the century.” Tickets are $25.

one thing we loved this week

Annie here. I was enjoying my weekly outdoors lunch during Tuesday’s Lane County Farmers Market when I spied some watercolor painters hard at work at the next table over. I’m chatty, so I couldn’t stop myself from asking: “What are you working on?” 

The answer, University of Oregon senior Stella Mashburn told me, was week three of a four-week summer watercolor painting UO class. The class, taught by teaching professor James Schauer, has brought students around Eugene for live painting practice. 

I asked for a peek at Mashburn’s sketchbook. Look:

Lovely stuff.

“It’s nice to have everything portable,” she said when asked what she was learning from the class. “It’s all in one spot, you can look back on all of it. Just getting confident sketching and doing things in public spaces would be a big part of it.” 

(Thanks, Stella and James, for letting me bug you midpainting.)

in case you missed it — food and arts news

For a behind-the-scenes look at The Porch & Farm Crawl, check out our feature on some of the participating home bakeries. We cover how they work, who runs them, creative goodies (read: cheesecake-stuffed chocolate cake) and tips for folks who want to start their own home bakery.

The Eugene Science Center opened its new outdoor playground as part of an expansion, my colleague Lilly St. Angelo reported earlier this week. Our photography Snowden intern for the summer, Brooke Taché, also took some really lovely photos of kiddos enjoying the new digs.

Any “Project Runway” fans? You’ll have a hometown hero in this season’s competition in Bi Pham, who is a graduate of Sheldon High School and now a New York City-based designer. I chatted with Pham about his path to “Project Runway,” including a detour spent preparing for a career in dentistry, ahead of the Thursday night season premiere. 

Question for you

This Oregon ArtsWatch headline got us thinking. 

This week marks the inaugural Portland Arts Week, “a new citywide event celebrating the collective creative energy that sets Portland apart as a vibrant arts and culture destination,” Justin Duyao writes; this year’s event is themed “Art and Sports.” In practice, that looks like a symposium at the Portland Art Museum, a gallery walk, pickleball, skateboarding, poetry readings, dance, live music and more. 

What could that look like in Eugene and Springfield? Both cities have their art walks (actually, Eugene has three), so a unifying annual week of events tied to a metropolitan region could be intriguing. The Coffee Shop Hop could serve as a blueprint. 

What do you think? Good idea, bad idea? What would you want that to include, or not include? (And, the eternal arts event question, do you have a few hundred thousand dollars for someone to just start it?) 

Drop us a line at taylor@lookoutlocal.com and annie@lookoutlocal.com. 

BEFORE YOU GO …

Taylor here. I got a few foodie tips from our friends at Oregon Country Fair during our media tour: Eat “off hours” (a late lunch, perhaps?) to avoid longer lines — or embrace the wait and make a new friend among the hungry hoards. Also, the food is likely worth a few extra minutes: Every vendor goes through a rigorous application process to get in, including a panel of judges who taste their products. Once you’ve secured the goods, find a shady spot to nosh (there are plenty!) 

And if you see us at the fair this weekend, give us a shout! I’ll likely be wearing a tie-dye T-shirt, closed-toe shoes and copious amounts of sunscreen. 

Download the Lookout Eugene-Springfield app in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Our content isn’t possible without community support, so if you’re not already, please consider becoming a Lookout member.

Annie Aguiar is the Arts and Culture Correspondent. She has reported arts news and features for national and local newsrooms, including at the Seattle Times, the Washington Post and most recently as a reporting fellow for the New York Times’ Culture desk covering arts and entertainment.

Taylor Goebel covers Lane County's food and drink scene. She has nearly a decade of experience in multimedia journalism, having reported across the Mid-Atlantic on dining, food systems, education, healthcare, local elections, labor and business. She was most recently a food reporter in Washington state, where she documented a fourth-generation fishing family, covered a David vs. Goliath conflict between a national coffee chain and a small Turkish cafe, and had many culinary firsts, from ensaymadas and gilgeori (Korean street) toast to morels and black cod.