Food and dining briefs

MCLOUD — The annual McLoud Blackberry Festival, which began in the 1940s as a way to celebrate the end of harvest season, returns this weekend to Veterans Park at 6th and Park streets. Activities include a carnival, car show, poker run, tractor show, fireworks, children's games, live music and food vendors.

Festivities open from 5 p.m. to midnight Friday. The festival parade is at 8 a.m. Saturday, and activities through the day with the annual Blackberry Pageant and living-history demonstrators showing their skills at blacksmithing and rope-making. The cobbler-eating contest returns along with a blackberry baking contest. The festival ends with a fireworks show at 10 p.m. For more information, call 964-6566.

JAY — The annual Huckleberry Festival is Saturday, celebrating the wild huckleberries that thrive in the area. The huckleberry is more intense in flavor than the common blueberry. The festival will feature arts, crafts, a quilt show, homemade goods and various vendors. Sign up for the annual Huckleberry 5K run or take it easy and meander through classic cars and street rods in the festival's car show.

The event begins at 10 a.m. Saturday morning with the Huckleberry Festival parade. Events will be citywide. Area bakers will compete in a huckleberry pie contest, while a variety of pies will be sold in the festival's pie auction.

Visit the hog fry for barbecue or pick up a bag of popcorn from an area vendor. This old-fashioned festival will also feature horseshoe pitching, a turtle derby, tricycle race, water balloon relay race and a root beer chug-a-lug contest. Free ice cream with huckleberry sauce will be served in the Jay town square. The event ends with fireworks after sundown.

For more information, call (918) 253-8698 or (918) 253-8698.