Vendors Celebrate Final Day of Food Truck Festival with “Makin’ Bacon” Challenge

Founder says this year is the festival's most successful one yet

FARGO, N.D. — The Fargo Food Truck Festival is closing its doors on a high note.

Its founder says this is their most successful year yet.

More than 9,000 people have come out to the North Dakota Horse Park over the past few days to indulge their cravings, from deep–fried cheese curds to Norwegian dumplings.

But it may not be just the food drawing people in.

Different challenges like the Red River Corgi Races and ax throwing were also on the menu.

“Honestly, just coming and trying the different things every day. I see several faces that have been here three days – all three days, so, every day we reinvent ourselves, and there’s more than enough trucks. I don’t think a normal person could eat them all, even in three days,” said the founder, Mike Sechmitz.

This is the 6th annual Food Truck Festival.

It started with just seven trucks the first year and now has 20.

To celebrate the festival’s final day, vendors are taking part in some friendly competition.

The “Makin’ Bacon” challenge allows them to let their creativity flow by creating unique dishes with bacon as the main ingredient.

“I always giggle ’cause he’ll wake up the next morning and he’s like, ‘You know what? I got a new idea.’ I swear, he just dreams these things up in his sleep, and the next day, he puts it all together, and there we go,” said July Blazejewski.

July and her husband, Jeff, own Chef Mobile of Fargo.

They’re one of 13 vendors participating in the festival’s bacon competition.

“Well this is a chocolate–chip, butter–scotch chip, candied bacon cookie round. It has candied bacon on top of it and inside of it with some caramel and chocolate drizzle on top,” said Matt Dellaneva, manager at the Original Fargo Cheesesteak.

Each truck receives about nine pounds of bacon to work with.

“So the bacon twister is kind of a spin–off from our traditional wonton twist. So, the filling is going to be shredded pepper jack, I’ve got a little bit of a secret bacon jam in there with some fresh jalapeno and some cream cheese, little secrets. And then we served it with our ‘bacon–me–crazy’ sauce,” said Blazejewski.

For some, it’s their first time competing.

Others have some experience.

“Last year, I won the bacon award for the S’mort, and that was a bacon peanut butter s’more with chili pepper,” said the Kart owner Kristi Kaushagen.

This year, Kristi is sticking with keeping it sweet.

She’s serving a candied pecan bacon twister; a mixture of pecans, bacon and vanilla ice cream.

But she says winning isn’t everything.

“I always like to win, but I like people to like my food.”

No matter who the winner is, one thing is certain.

“Uh, Fargo’s hungry. Fargo is hungry this year. It’s been awesome,” she said.