Outlaws, Gymnasts & Food Trucks Battle It Out This Weekend In CT

CONNECTICUT — Outlaw Robin Hood and gymnast Simone Biles will be competing for Connecticut residents' attention during a weekend packed with food trucks and fairy dust.

It's no secret that Connecticut loves its food trucks a bit too much, and nowhere will that obsession be on more display than this weekend at The 3rd Annual Food Truck Battles Festival. Spread out across five acres of the Woodtick Recreation Area at Wolcott Festival Park in Wolcott, 50 food trucks will compete for the state crown. Festival goers are the judges for this 3-day food fight, and that ought to have been enough, but the mobile cooks will be joined by five bands, six comedians, thrill rides, 100 crafters and other vendors. Festival hours are Friday 4 to 8 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

This is also the first weekend of Robin Hood's Medieval Faire at the Harwinton Fairgrounds, so grab your gugel and a turkey leg, and prepare to party like it's 1066. Thrill to the joust, or the bevy of bazaars and buskers delighted to lighten your load by a shilling or two. The fair will be held every Saturday and Sunday from May 18 to June 30, from 10:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Tickets are available online here.

The country's leading women's gymnasts will be soaring and tumbling into Hartford this weekend for the 2024 Core Hydration Classic at the XL Center. It's the last chance the athletes will have to qualify for 2024 Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships, held two weeks later in Fort Worth, TX. And that's where USA Gymnastics will name the U.S. National Team members who will compete for Olympic Team slots at the 2024 Olympic Trials in Minneapolis next month. Tickets are available online here, for the competition that will play across Friday and Saturday.

There will be less drama — and hopefully not as much soaring and tumbling — in downtown Stamford on Saturday for "Brews on Bedford." Over 20 local, regional and national craft breweries will gather at Latham Park from 2 to 5 p.m. to pour out their wares amidst a festival atmosphere of live music, lawn games and plenty of food vendors. Tickets are available online here.

Later on Saturday, and just a few towns over, the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra has promised to pull out all the stops for its last concert of the season. Their performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 3 will hit with an enormous orchestra, children's choir, women's choir, and a mezzo-soprano solo. The NSO will be playing at their home field at 125 East Avenue in Norwalk from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets are available online here.

The Fairy & Magic Festival in downtown Putnam, Main Street and Union Square from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday is pretty much guaranteed to be enchanting. How can it not be, with psychics, live miniature horses, over 60 vendors, and free admission?

We're familiar with the perfect match that is peanut butter and chocolate, the heaven-made marriage of beer and pizza, and the alchemy between bacon and eggs, but a pairing of cheesecake and hard cider? That was new to us, but fortunately not to Staehly Farms & Staehly Farm Winery in East Haddam. The gastronomic geniuses there have put together such a pairing event for Friday evening, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Your ticket (available online here) scores you four cheesecakes matched with a sampler of four different hard ciders, alongside a Q&A with the owner of the Manchester Cheesecake Company and the assistant cider maker for Yankee Cider Company.