Category Archives: Local Life

A look, in photos, of latest area events, local everyday people and places.

Steeping in Fair Memories: Cooking Up Firemen’s Fair Goodness

The following piece was originally published on Aug. 27, 2015. It’s fair time again, so it’s time to take a look back at how things were and are done a pivotal place at the fair — the kitchen and dining room.

By Elaine Van Develde

Someone’s in the kitchen at Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair grounds.

And while they may have, at one point another been with someone named Dinah, as the old ditty goes, it’s a definite they’ve been with someone named Mike, Dale, Sue (x2), Raquel, Ethel (x2), Mary, Anne, Amanda, Skippy, Hodgie, Mary Ellen, Joe, Evie, and, oh, yeah, Andy and a few others.

And they certainly haven’t been strummin’ on any ol’ banjo. They’ve been way too busy — cutting, peeling, filling, flouring, husking and just plain cooking.

Except there’s nothing plain about what’s cooking in the fair kitchen, who’s cooking it, when, where, why or how.

Mike Connor and John Riley get ready to start another fair night 2024
Photo/Elaine Van Develde
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Fair Reflections: An Ode to Opening Night of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair

Our annual reprise in celebration of opening night of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair … 

All’s fair. The night before. The decades later. It’s something a Fair Haven kid will always see … a shooting star that they grabbed and tucked away in their heart, holding onto the glistening, magical light.

The night is still. A light is on. Trucks are out of the bays. Cartoony faces and ghosts in empty seats on unassembled carnival rides stare back in the dark. Someone’s cooking at the Fair Haven firehouse. It’s fair time.

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Retro Fair Taste of Take-Out Goodness

Fair Haven Firemen's Fair take-out booth of 1995 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair take-out booth of 1995
Photo/Elaine Van Develde

It’s that time again. Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair time is drawing near. The end-of-the-summer tradition that’s been celebrated for more than a century in the Rumson-Fair Haven area. The community eats it all up. That and the food.

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Cooking Up ’50s-Style Fun on Starvation Island

It’s all fun and island-hopping games until they have to start a fire.

Yes, there comes a time when end-of-summer Rumson island-hopping coolness sets in, parents rang the unheard dinner bell and a bunch of hungry, wayward, marooned kids try to cook that fish they caught and toast their own little buns.

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Old News: All’s Fair in the Secret of a Clam Chowder Recipe

Fair Haven Firemen's Fair's chowder recipe in the Asbury Park Press circa 1965 Clipping Photo/courtesy of Dave Luker
Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair’s chowder recipe in the Asbury Park Press circa 1965
Clipping Photo/courtesy of Dave Luker

The following story was first published on Sept. 7, 2016. In honor of the upcoming Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair on Friday and all its tradition, including that famous clam chowder, here it is again … 

The recipe for the famous Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair Manhattan clam chowder was considered a highly-guarded secret. People flocked to get their fill at the fair, because they could only get it once a year. It was a secret taken to the grave with former Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair Chairman James Acker.

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Retro Sea Bright Beach Clubbing

Sometimes ya just have to go clubbing … in Sea Bright … before the age of 10.

After all, what good Rumson kid didn’t? Not many, if any. And back in the summer of ’69, little Claire Hurd was one who went clubbing … to Sea Bright Beach Club, of course, with the best of them. It was just the way Rumsonites rolled in the summer. Still do.

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Retro ‘Night Out’ Mayoral Dunkin’

Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli gets a dunking at Night Out 2012 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli gets a dunking at Night Out 2012
Photo/Elaine Van Develde

Reprise … in honor of the best of National Night Out times …

Every year there’s a Fair Haven National Night Out.

It’s a night, celebrated on the national level, designed to familiarize residents, from kids to seniors, with police and other emergency responders in town. That Night Out should have been last week in the borough, but it was rained out. No mind. There are plenty of Night Out memories to recall.

There are games, demonstrations, looks at emergency equipment, food, smiles and handshakes — and a dunk tank.

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Retro RFHers’ Donovan’s Reuniting

RFH Class of ’78 reunited for the 25th reunion
Photo/Lisa Mazurek D’Amato

Yes, it’s reunion season. So, we’re taking you back again to a hoot of a 25th for that RFH Class of ’78 at an iconic spot in its original little-shack- on-the-beach form — Donovan’s Reef.

Before Sandy, a “DO” at Donovan’s meant something entirely different for RFHers reuniting. Rather than a symbol of “We can do it. We can rebuild.” it was more like a simple “Let’s do the Donovan’s thing!”

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Retro RFH Bridge to a Reunion Invite

A bridge RFH reunion invite
Photo/Doug Borden

Well, it’s a summer of revived RFH reunions and RFHers love a good reunion and embrace them by reuniting however and whenever they can.

As far as getting the word out, though, things have changed quite a bit since those first 10-year reunions for the classes of the 60s, 70s and even 80s and 90s and before. But, there’s one iconic mode of invite that has been missing for quite some time. The painting of the bridge!

There was a time when communication was limited to phone books, landline phones, snail mail and word of mouth. Of course, there were paper invites. But, there was nothing better than getting the word out by just reverting to old school days and painting that bridge.

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