Cotton candy and elephant ears are typical fare at fairs, but locally grown fruits and vegetables have become a new tradition with the Taste the Local Difference: Cooking with Kids at the Fair event at the Northwestern Michigan Fair.

This year’s event is back for its sixth year. Children accompanied by an adult can join in on Cooking with Kids any time between 3-7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug 7 in the lovely, shaded gazebo on the fair grounds. Cooking with Kids is hosted by the Northwest Michigan Food & Farming Network and coordinated by network member Oryana Natural Foods Market.

Restaurant, school and specialty store chefs will turn kids on to the tastes of locally grown food and send families home with simple, seasonal recipes. Kids will have hands-on experiences making and creating their own lemonades flavored with local fruit donated from Oryana, pasta salad fixings donated by Traverse City Area Public Schools and ingredients for fruit and veggie sandwich wraps donated by Crystal Mountain Resort and Spa.

The Northwestern Michigan Fair is located at 3606 Blair Townhall Road, in Grand Traverse County.

Food & Farming Network members who are helping out with this year’s expanded event are volunteers from the Grand Traverse and Benzie-Leelanau district health departments, MSU Extension, Progress Village/Poverty Reduction Initiative, Bear Clause Productions, Munson Medical Center, Northern Michigan Diabetes Initiative, the Grand Vision, Traverse City Area Public Schools, Crystal Mountain Resort & Spa, SEEDS, Michigan Land Use Institute, and Oryana.

For more information on Cooking with Kids, contact Flo Christopher at flo@oryana.coop. For more information on the Northwest Michigan Food & Farming Network, visit www.foodandfarmingnetwork.org. Find more on Taste the Local Difference, which includes print, online and phone app guides to more than 250 farms in northwest Lower Michigan, at www.localdifference.org.