From the New Canaan Advertiser, New Canaan, CT Thursday, September 21, 2000

FIRST FESTIVAL - Pongo the Clown, Walter Stewart's Produce Manager Paul Ryan and Walter Stewart's General Manager Paul Rinaldi are preparing for the inaugural Walter Stewart's Apple Festival, scheduled for Saturday,September 30, at the Elm Street store.

Walter Stewart's to host first Apple Festival September 30

Six hundred pounds of apples will take center stage at Walter Stewart's first old-fashioned Apple Festival, scheduled for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, September 30.

The apples will be picked at Lyman Orchards in Middletown and brought to the Elm Street market. The festival will feature juggling, magic and balloon-craft entertainment by Pongo the Clown from 11 am. until 2 p.m., free taste samples throughout the day, drawings for door prizes, free cookbooks and Model-T rides (weather permitting). Admission is free.

Visitors to the festival will be invited to compare the taste and texture of different types of apples, with or without a cheese accompaniment, and to sample Lyman Orchard's apple cider and apple pie, recently rated the best apple pie in the state for the third year in a row bv readers of Connecticut magazine. Free samples of Stewart's chili will also be offered, and freshly grilled food, popcorn, cider, donuts and candy apples will be sold.

Shoppers can mix their favorite apple varieties to assemble half-peck bags at an old-fashioned price to take home.

Stewart's will donate 50 cents for each bag sold during the Apple Festival to the New Canaan Nature Center. (The Nature Center has scheduled an Old Fashioned Cider Making demonstration from 12:30-3 p.m. that afternoon.

Families who would like to have their apples pressed into cider are asked to call the Nature Center to register by September 28; there is a small program fee payable to the Nature Center). Festival visitors will be invited to enter a drawing for a 26 inch Fuji mountain bike (courtesy of Pepsi Cola), a SoBe Beverages golf bag, and three bags filled with apple products. Free copies of "Walter Stewart's Cookbook, vol. II," will be given away with each purchase during the Apple Festival while supplies last.