Fair, Weather, Friends

There was only one place Saturday where you could down a Philadelphia cheese steak and guzzle ice-cold Norwegian beer while doing a Chilean jig called the Chicken Dance.

There was only one place where you could gorge on tacos while listening to German oom-pah-pah music and shopping for antique French chairs.

The Orange International Street Fair, a three-day event devoted to culinary and cultural variety, has become a Labor Day weekend tradition.

And once again, fair organizers expect to draw half a million fun-lovers and snack-seekers to downtown Orange, despite soaring temperatures and the lure of cooler beaches.

The 24th fair continues today, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with 68 crafts booths arrayed around the downtown plaza, along with 10 stages featuring constant live performances.

“It’s just all different people, all different ethnicities,” said Steve Martin, an Orange resident happily stuffing his face and meandering along the rows of second-hand shops for which Orange is most famous. “We talked to the mayor,” he boasted. “She’s kind of an antique, too, but a nice lady.”

Over at the German tent, meanwhile, a band called Europa was ordering the crowd to yell “Hoy hoy hoy” each time band members sang: “Zicky zacky.”

The instructions seemed overwhelming for some, either because of the heat or the heady effect of all that frosty beer, but the band was hopeful that livelier crowds would be along later.

“Tonight you come back,” ordered John Kolbrich, the bandleader, who wore traditional German split socks and short pants made of black leather. “There’ll be so many people doing the Chicken Dance, you won’t be able to walk through here.”

Ethnic dress represents a major part of the pageantry and color of the international fair, which brings together 80 nonprofit organizations and 1,200 volunteers, including the Italian-skirted Dee Acierno, who will sell you sausage sandwiches as fast as you can eat them.

Friday night, Acierno sold 1,070 sandwiches from her tent, and before Saturday was over she expected to sell another 5,000.

“We’ve got the best Italian sausage sandwich this side of the Mississippi,” she announced, ladling a thick coat of marinara sauce over a sausage the size of a baseball bat.

“They’re delicious; they’re killer,” said Lorna Golden, who couldn’t wait to bite into one but couldn’t tempt her niece, Bridget Finn.

Bridget, a 10-year-old with red hair and a wry sense of humor, continually cast dubious looks at her ravenous relation.

Not everyone loved the fair. Some antiques merchants complained that regular customers were being scared away by the noise and traffic.

Bettie Woody, one of the merchants, said she dreads the street fair because it attracts looky-loos who wander into her store and drop food onto expensive upholstery.

In fact, she planned to close up several hours early and flee.

“I want charitable organizations to receive stuff,” she said. “But it doesn’t have to be in the center of town.”

Another merchant, Katherine Gray, said she found this year’s fair more tolerable than those in years past, because the crowds were smaller.

“The issue is the man who comes in with a boa constrictor around his head and neck,” she said. “And the next man comes in with a parrot on his shoulder, and the boa constrictor bothers the parrot, which bothers the German shepherd standing next to this man, which bothers this old lady. It becomes a circus atmosphere.”