State Fair time

I'm a hot / cold fan of the State Fair of Texas.  This year I'm cold.  First, it's a hassle to get there and park.  Second, it's full of relatively unsupervised little urchins.  And third, it's expensive, and everything you buy requires "tickets", which means you have to stand in 2 lines.

The Fair's big draw is always that year's Prize Winning new fried food concoction.  This morning it was announced that the winners included deep-fried Nutella and deep-fried Thanksgiving dinner.

"Please pass the Thanksgiving dinner balls."

 "....fried Thanksgiving dinner....is the stuffing and diced turkey rolled into a ball, mush that together there. Then we'll be dipping it into Southern-style cream corn. We're gonna roll it into a seasoned cornmeal, this gives us the texture we're lookin' for when we fry it."

 Well, at least it's efficient.  Wham, bam...5 minutes...dinner's done.

I rarely eat fried foods of any kind, but one I do enjoy is an Original Fletcher's Corny Dog sold only at the Texas State Fair.  It seems old-man Fletcher invented them back in the 1930's, and his family keeps his creation alive by selling a boat-load of them over the 3-week yearly run of the Fair.  I think I read somewhere that the family works those 3 weeks, plus probably another couple of months preparing, and they net $400,000. 

The only thing my old-man ever "invented" was updating an old-wives-tale remedy for an ear ache, which actually made my ears worse when I was his guinea pig as a kid.  The doctor had to dig the stuff out of my ears, and told dad not to ever do it again.  He might have made a good traveling snake-oil salesman, but I don't think it would have been wise for him to ever go back to the same place twice.

Maybe I'll just stick to being a semi-retired, almost legendary king of consulting / CEO for rent.  Besides, that 3-week stint at the Fair probably would require I get up way too early.  :)

S

It's the little things....

We have a new toy, the result of The Great Corny Dog Incident of '13.

It's a convection toaster oven.

It all began on a warm summer's eve last week when K and I both wanted something to eat, but not a full blown meal.  She asked, "How about a couple of corny dogs?"  Ummm....OK.  As pre-heating the big 'ol electronic hot box under the stove takes so long, K just nuked 'em in the microwave instead.  

Gag!

The breading tasted like it had been soaking in water for several hours.  It was just awful.  She said a small countertop toaster oven would have been the way to go, except we didn't have a toaster oven.  She said it just makes cooking something simple for two (or was it cooking something for two simpletons?) so much easier.  I've never had a toaster oven, and as I've written about in the past, my mother wasn't a cook at all, so this was an all-new concept for me.

K always kids me about my tendency to run to Consumer Reports before I buy anything much more than a pair of socks, and this purchase was no exception.  There were several Breville toaster ovens rated on top, but they were $180....not gonna happen!  Next highest rated was this little Oster model.  I couldn't find it at any store locally, so it was Amazon to the rescue.

It arrived yesterday and we gave it the ultimate test....yep, corny dogs again.  This time I think even Consumer Reports would have approved, if they were to ever test corny dogs.  They were crispy and delicious, just like the ones Fletcher's cooks up at the Great State Fair of Texas.  ;)

And let me just say for the record, yes, they were 100% pure beef (from select cuts of the ear, hoof, and ass) and the breading was pure natural / green / organic / free range, too.  I'm pretty sure.  

S

State Fair time

Yesterday K and I went to the State Fair of Texas.  We hadn't been in 5 years, but the weather was great and I had the day off and didn't want to spend it watching football, so we figured why not?  It was fun, eye opening, and exhausting.  


Basically the fair is just one giant food court interspersed with other stuff.  The theme of this year's fair is the same as its been for the past 20 years:  "Making fat people fatter".  If it can be battered and fried, it can be yours for only 8 coupons.  On several stages they had bands playing both kinds of music (country AND western) all day long.  *cringe*  And the people....OMG!  We saw people tattooed head-to-toe, people dressed in their favorite drugstore cowboy costumes, and even some little (and not so little) dancing girls greased up and rolled in feathers:

I behaved myself fairly well, scarfing down only one Fletcher's Corny Dog ('cause it's a State Fair tradition) and one order of genuine fake-cheese nachos with jalapenos, all washed down with some sweet tea.  For those that aren't as disciplined as myself, there's always relief via the "lunch chucker":

Speaking of the Midway, it was as gawdy and loud as ever.  Kids were bouncing around like monkeys on Red Bull, begging their parents for another $20 worth of coupons for just a few more chances to win that $2 stuffed critter, or one more turn on the Giant Human Slingshot.  It was actually rather nostalgic:

I thought I might talk K into trying the Texas Star, but she demurred:

We did make time between snacks to visit the several buildings that housed the new cars and trucks....and trucks, and more trucks.  (Hey, this IS Texas, you know!)

After all that we came home, showered to rid ourselves of God-only-knows what kind of cooties, and had a wonderful dinner of smoked baby back ribs.  Mmmmmm.  Sleep never felt so good.  :)

S