Breigh and I spent the day at the Texas State Fair a couple of weeks ago with my brother and his family (our annual fair friends) and this year our surprise guest was my sister and her husband who made the drive all the way from Tickfaw, LA (yes that’s a real town!) to spend the day at the fair with us. I suppose I should have one of them writing this blog because I think they would be suited to say if the fair is worth the 8 hour drive. Our drive was about an hour thanks to the ever heavy fair traffic but once in the gates, we were overwhelmed with the smell of fried foods and money being spent.
For those of you who have never made it to the Texas State Fair, I must tell you that the highlight of the fair is making the trip around the fairgrounds to find the winners of the annual food contest. Categories such as “Best Taste”, “Most Creative”, etc are awarded and it although it’s not a written rule, it does appear that the foods that are awarded must meet 1 of 2 criteria… “Fried” and “On a Stick.” This is why I always go with my brother… he is the only person I know that truly enjoys the glory that is eating a ridiculous amount of calories within one day on overpriced food. We also split everything – which essentially means we eat half the calories that we would if we went alone!
This year however, I felt the new foods left something to be desired. First of all, the “Most Creative” prize went to Fried Beer. This was disgusting. This is the first thing that Robert and I both agreed should just be thrown away. I was not even able to swallow the one that I tried. The best way to describe it is really salty, under cooked pretzel dough shaped like a ravioli and then filled with beer that tastes like really cheap, flat, warm beer that has been gargled with and then spit back into the ravioli. Yeah, it was THAT bad.
Probably my favorite of the “new” foods was the Fried Club Salad which was essentially a club salad wrapped inside of a spinach tortilla and deep fried long enough to give it a crunch. It was served with your choice of salad dressing on the side. Very yummy but the salad portion of it almost felt like I was not doing the typical “fair food” justice. It had a hint of “healthy” to it… that’s just absurd!
In addition to the food tastings, the kids rode some carnival rides… and so did the adults – but only one. And no one puked…. But for a moment – I think my siblings came close! We also stopped at the Birds of the World show which is an annual tradition. You get an up close view at a lot of really beautiful winged creatures. After the show, Breigh and I had our picture taken with an owl. Yes the owl is real… when I turned my head, he was staring right into my eyes, which I will admit was a little daunting. But he didn’t bite my ear (thank goodness) and we got a good picture out it!So, that’s our State Fair day in a nutshell. As always, the part I look forward to the most is spending the time with some of my family. In our busy lives, as distance separates us, it seems all too common that many months will pass before we are together again. So I love that, for that one day, we are close, we remember how alike we are, and we have fun. Life is Good.
