Friday, March 29, 2024

Sweet scent of kettle corn perfumes Harvest Moon Festival

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It was hard to miss.

The scent of sweet caramel wafting across a packed parking lot along East Pearl Street.

The sun was out. The air dry and cool. Throngs of people walked around booths offering artwork, jewelry, baked goods and, yes, kettle corn. Just another fall weekend on the Historic Granbury Square and the Harvest Moon Festival in full swing.

 Dewayne Stobaugh was elbow deep in a stainless-steel kettle stirring corn kernels in hot oil.

“They’re about to pop,” Stobaugh declares by way of warning.

Steam is rising out of the hot vat, the unmistakable staccato pops multiplying.

Stobaugh pours the fresh batch of kettle corn into a metal table. His helper, Dana Richards, expertly tosses the still-steaming popped corn. A line had formed. Patrons were asking for the apple corn — sweet, tangy and delicious.

Southern Reflection Kettle Corn was a hit.

 “It’s a great business,” Stobaugh said. “No kidding.”

So, how did he get into this racket?

 “I got into this by accident, really,” he said, in April of this year.

He was a woodworker by trade. A Texan all his life — born in Fort Worth, then found his way to Granbury. 

Then he met a guy “who did kettle corn,” he said. “He made $3,500 that day. I made $400.”

The rest, as they say, is history.