Fried Green Tomatoes.
Deep-fried Pralines.
Roasted Corn on the Cob
Deep-fried Marshmallows.
Pineapple Whip Ice Cream.
Guess where I've been?
The Texas State Fair.
I could have had deep-fried alligator, deep-fried cookie dough, deep-fried peach cobbler, deep-fried okra, deep-fried turkey legs, deep-fried banana cream pie, deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or deep-fried funnel cake, but I didn't. There's only so much lard a body can handle.
I did have the best corn dog I've ever had.
But, alas, no scone. What is a state fair without Fisher's scones with raspberry jam? A Texas fair, I guess.
The weather was nice, the crowds just right, the music loud, and the midway was, well, a midway. I appreciated the Ferris Wheel a lot more having just read The Devil in the White City about the Chicago world's fair and the first Wheel.
At 18 months (nursery age!) little Kyra couldn't ride anything (thank goodness) but we enjoyed the petting zoo, the usual and the exotic collections of animals, and playing farmer in the children's barn. (Pester Valerie to post pictures of Kyra's first cotton candy.)
I had never been to the Texas fair before. I didn't make it to California's when we lived there. Way back in Washington I "did the Puyallup."
Fairs are noisy and dirty and crummy. They are crowded and expensive and exhausting. But they are full of interesting things and people, and you always learn something, about animals if not people. And about yourself.
I prefer a museum over a fair, a steak over a corn dog, the symphony over blue-grass. But once in a while, it's kind of fun to go where the buffalos roam.
Grass-roots comes to mind. To go to a state fair is to get back to basics, to living off the land, with other living things, and making things by hand. It's about real people, who work hard and take pride in what they do. It's just so ... American.
And where else can you find Dr. Pepper Beef Jerky?
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5 comments:
I don't know, I might have had to try the aligator... Sounds like you had a great time!
There's such a thing as a good corn dog?
No scones?!? It's just not a fair without scones. Maybe next year you need to come up here during the Puyallup Fair! Not that I've been, but I hear it's great.
I can't get past "the fair is crummy and dirty"...
Kelly took my kids this year and let them try rides I would NEVER have let them go on, eat what they felt like, see the animals and watch as Kelly was hypnotized (don't get me started!) And scones here are NOT like scones in the Northwest, so I just didn't feel the need to go.
Fun to read about your experience and I would love a bite of Pineapple Whip Ice-cream!!
You summed things up nicely and I agree with Jenn, I have a hard time getting past the crummy and dirty. It's fun to go someplace totally different for a change, and a fair definitely qualifies as different for me, but I still never go.
How very fun that you got to go. This is the third year in a row I have missed going. Lou loved going to the fair even more than I and we rarely missed until he got sick.
My love of fair's goes way to back to when I was a little girl and my daddy and I went every single year to the Los Angeles County Fair, which is bigger than the California State Fair, which I went to once. My mother was not a fair goer, rarely went, thought they were, whatever she thought, probably to "crummy and dirty."
Some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to the fair and the Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey Circus with my daddy...every year.
The Texas State Fair disappoints only in that the animal barns are not nearly large enough for all to show, so they rotate them in and out every few days. I love to walk every single row, talk with the owners, etc. It just feels so good!
I loved the Texas State Fair. I only went once. I climbed the rock wall, ate a lot of junk food (cotton candy and polish sausages being at the top of my list, probably from Viking Fest days), watched Alan Jackson perform live, etc. It was a lot of fun.
I totally understand, however, that it may not be your kind of thing. I probably wouldn't go back, but it was awesome, one time experience.
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