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BALLINGER – Even when you’re two-years-old, you know what you like. And Olivia Alejandro clearly liked that fruit salad.

Amy, her mother, wasn’t quite sure if she was going to get any.

“It depends on when she wants to stop. We’ll see,” she said, laughing.

Amy was visiting from Dallas, eating Tuesday at the Taste of Ballinger at the Ballinger Community Center. The annual event benefits the city’s Carnegie Library.

Little Olivia was spooning her fruit salad out of a small sample cup. I think I saw a spoon in there somewhere, but I can’t be sure. On the table between her and Amy was an open to-go box filled with other sample cups, all bearing different foods.

“I don’t know if we did this correctly, but as we got to walk around and talk to people, especially the people we haven’t seen in forever, we would just take some and go,” she confessed.

“So, I don’t know if we took way too much or how this is supposed to work, but we literally got a little bit of everything.”

No one seemed to mind, it appeared there was plenty for all who came through the door. Carla Campbell, the president of the library board, said they’d been holding Taste of Ballinger for nearly a decade.

“We got the idea from somebody, and we got all the churches involved; it’s a real community event,” she said.

Which brings up the difference between Ballinger and other “Taste Of…” events – the restaurants sit this one out.

“Well here, we have all Mexican restaurants just about, so it would all be Mexican food,” Campbell joked.

There’s a bit of truth to that, though of course Runnels County also has barbecue joints, steakhouses, hamburger/deli places and the like. But put all that aside; if there’s one truism about living in a small town, it’s that if there’s a restaurant within 15 miles of your house, you’ve likely eaten there at least twice in the last month. With that kind of familiarity, it’s a safe bet “Surprise” won’t be on the menu.

“We have so many good cooks at our churches, a lot of them have already made cookbooks and things, so they got the idea of inviting the churches,” said Connie Fryar, the library board treasurer.

About eight churches were represented Tuesday.

“Six of the larger churches; they all do a meat, and vegetable or salad, and a dessert,” Fryar said. “Then we had one church that joined us a couple of years ago and asked if they could bring appetizers, another brings different fruit salads.”

Coordination is essential with an event like this, too.

“This year we had a very good assortment of food, we didn’t have any repeats,” Fryar said. “One year we had all corn salads; you know, it was funny.”

The event had the misfortune of falling on the same night as an out-of-town basketball playoff game, so the numbers were down a little from previous years. Still, quite a few packed the room and every little bit helps to keep the library open.

“Our library operates on fundraisers,” Campbell said. “We get some money from the city, a little from the county, but we have to earn the money to keep the library open.”

Fryar said they’ve recently renovated the air conditioning system, remodeled the library’s bathrooms and are hoping for new furniture in the future.

“We’ve been very fortunate this year and last year; we’ve had lots of nice donations from people, and some wonderful grants,” she said.

There are two Carnegie libraries in the Big Country, this and the one in Stamford. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie donated over $40 million between 1886 and 1919 to create over 1,600 libraries across the United States.

“So many of them have been torn down, and some of them have been made into office buildings and so forth,” Campbell said. Out of the original 32 libraries in Texas, only four are still used for their original purpose.

Amy dined with her sister Julie Gray, their father, Mike Riley, entertained the crowd by singing Elvis tunes. Gray’s daughter Melodie sat beside her and Gray pointed to an empty cup when asked what her favorite was.

“So far it’s been the broccoli salad. It’s gone,” she said. “Then there’s a lemon cheese cake, some banana pudding, a couple of different fruit salads and a bread pudding.”

At each food station, every item had a recipe printed and taped to the table beside it. Campbell said that was for the benefit of those with food allergies.

“We have a cookbook for $5, it has all the recipes in it,” she added.

At another table, Lorene Halfmann was stumped when asked what her favorite might have been.

“I don’t know, the chicken casserole? I liked that one real well,” she said.

Her husband James one-word answer said it all for him.

“Desserts.”

A man knows what he likes. Even a two-year-old appreciates that.

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