It’s fair and festival season.  For the past 25 years, the last weekend of July has marked the Hillside Festival, a weekend-long outdoors concert at Guelph Lake.  I’ve never been.  I’ve had lots of friends attend and have often felt like I’ve missed out on hearing some great bands.  Part of the reason is that I’m not a huge camping fan; it always seems to rain when I camp.  And then I whine to whomever I’m camping with.

Prior to an ultimate frisbee game on Monday night, I was warming up with a friend who attended this year’s installment of Hillside.  As we jogged she told me all about the weekend: The bands were great, but the best part of the weekend was the food.  She described a set-up where many local restaurants have temporary booths and were serving up selections of their normal menus to the hungry concert-goers. 

This conversation made me think about last year’s Salmonella outbreak linked to the Taste of Chicago.  Temporary kitchens can be problematic for the staff who work in them when it comes to controlling food safety risks.  Equipment may not be readily available, line-ups add to the time pressure, spaces can be cramped and handwashing sinks might be hard to access (or even find).

Coupling my conversation with a link that Doug came across about fair food safety in Wisconsin led to today’s infosheet, which can be downloaded here.

After the infosheet was created, Doug sent on another link about a Shigella outbreak in Oregon — which has been linked to visiting the Oregon County fair.  Depending on the information that follows in the upcoming days, maybe next week’s infosheet with focus on that outbreak.