Everybody’s favorite small-town festival is back, celebrating everybody’s – well, a lot of people’s – favorite vegetable. The always fun-loving Empire Asparagus Festival has returned, and moved up in the calendar to this weekend. This Saturday, June 4, the tiny town on the southern edge of the county welcomes revelers for a quirky-good time with asparagus-inspired food, music, and poetry! That’s right, poets of all stripes and ages are welcome – nay, encouraged – to submit their sonnets, free verse, haikus, even limericks, so long as they are in praise of or at least inspired by the early spring vegetable favorite. At 2pm the submissions will be read to the assemblage (hopefully by the poets themselves), with the audience response determining the “Best in Show.”

The festival kicks off when runners take their marks at the beachside pavilion for the 10am start of the Kick-yer-Assparagus 5K Fun Run/Walk. The course runs from the beachside through town and up the Wilco Road hill to the Empire Bluff trailhead, then back down the hill to the starting point.

Beginning at noon, revelers can feast on bites and bits from submissions to the Recipe Contest at the Empire Township Hall, before voting on the tastiest treats. For more than just a bite, food vendors will include Mel & Fell, Art’s Tavern, Pleva’s, Tiffany’s Café, Shipwreck Café and others. Featured among the beverage vendors will be Right Brain Brewery, Lake Ann Brewery, and St. Ambrose Cellars. And music, of course. Performers will include 5th Gear Band and Amelia Vanderberg.

For more information, go to empirechamber.com.