FAIR AT HOME ~ Day 9

Usually at least one day during the Fair, it is oppressively hot. In the Pacific Northwest, that means anything over 92 degrees.

On those days, the big walk-through misters appear all around the Fairgrounds, livestock huddle next to breezy fans and cuddle frozen water bottles, and Rob and I head into The Big Air Conditioned Building.

The BACB houses all the home arts and craft entries on one side (quilts, canning, photography, sewing, Legos). The other side is the commercial area. The place where vendors rent a square of concrete, put up some curtains for walls, and try their best to convince you that you MUST go home with a back massager, jewelry cleaner, dipping sauces for pretzels, telescoping flag poles, bamboo bedsheets, leaf guards for your gutters, and a new cellphone service provider.

In other words, aisles of stuff you're sure you don’t need until you see it and touch it and start imagining how much more satisfying and complete your life would be if you just handed over your credit card.

Today’s high at Woodhaven was 98 degrees – breaking today's record for our town by 3 degrees.

Although Woodhaven is nicely air conditioned, hanging out on the couch looking at stuff we have already purchased to make our life complete (I absolutely need all these remote controlled candles) really isn’t in the spirit of Fairing on a hot day. So Rob and I trekked down to the best approximation I could think of for perusing aisles of products we really don’t need in a Big Air Conditioned Building.

We went to Dollar Tree.

Unlike the BACB at the Fair, our Dollar Tree
was pretty darn empty on this scorching hot day.
Maybe everyone was at my Plan B (IKEA) instead?    

I typically shop at Dollar Tree once or twice per month, almost always beelining for either the party supplies aisle (LOVE the little gift bags and tissue paper and wrapping paper) or the plastic storage bins aisle (you can never be too organized). Interestingly, these two aisles are on the perimeter of my most visited store, so I’m not terribly familiar with what lurks in between.

Committed to replicating the BACB experience as closely as possible, Rob and I started at one end of Dollar Tree and methodically strolled down each and every aisle. Including the freezer section in the back and the helium balloons and Back to School displays in the front.

With hope and intrigue and a spirit of discovery, I grabbed a green plastic hand basket from the “Freshly Sanitized” stack.  We headed in.

By the end of the first aisle, I had some greeting cards in my basket. Then I discovered brown lunch bags (I depleted my stash with our klassy wine tasting last week). All for just $1!!  We stood dumbfounded in front of the freezer section. They have frozen food at Dollar Tree??

Rob was excited to discover the large bags of ice for only a buck. My eyes got big when I spotted a box of frozen cherry Icees in cups. I have never seen those before!! Although I prefer a Slurpee, having an Icee on hand in the freezer might not be a bad add to our provisions.

But then….THEN…my eyes landed on this must-have.

I have been craving a corn dog!  I was trying
to avoid buying frozen ones but
how could I pass this up?!?

Guess what lunch is tomorrow??? And even the brand (which I’ve never heard of) is perfect!!

As we continued serpentining through the store, I made mental notes of discoveries for future purchases.  Like little bottles of condiments and foam throw-away paint brushes and super glue and nail files and pretty dinner plates. SO MANY TREASURES!

We ended up spending about 30 minutes and $10 on our excursion to the Fair At Home’s Big Air Conditioned Building. It was a perfect respite from the excessive heat…and way cheaper than a Magic Broom that deceptively only works on solid floors without grout (boy that sales guy was convincing though).

That tub of Hair Gunk was a total impulse buy. Because $1.
Now that I'm home and away from the thrill of the hunt,
I'm a little concerned that $1 hair gel will either make
my hair fall out or stay stuck together forever.

FAIR AT HOME STATS!

Today’s t-shirt: I made today’s t-shirt online about 10 years ago. Inspired by a t-shirt Rob had of various purple stains representing different wine varieties, I decided I needed a shirt capturing the food bits I bring home on my clothes during Fair week. As I look at it now, I realize I need to do a new shirt with some updates. Another Rainy Season project!

My late-nightly location during Fair

Today’s earrings: Corn dogs! My first-ever pair of Fair themed earrings. Awwww! I wore them today with no idea I would be scoring my State Fair dogs for tomorrow’s lunch! Kismet.

The other earring has a bite out of it.
Not mine; it came that way.

Today’s hand sticker: A pissy little taco. I am not sure what is up with my hand stickers all of a sudden. Perhaps they are pouty that the Fair is almost done. I get it, Pissy Little Taco. I get it.

Time today’s hand sticker finally bit it: 11:26pm and the testy little taco will not give up!

Number of steps walked: 1,313, most of which was in the BACB.  Maybe we should have done two loops?  Because that wouldn't have looked suspicious at all.

UnFair food consumed: Fiber-rich breakfast smoothie! For lunch, in hopes of finding a corn dog, we went to Dairy Queen. No corn dogs. So I had a chili cheese dog instead and helped Rob eat some fried cheese curds. Yes, this technically constitutes Fair Food, but it wasn’t really good enough or interesting enough to earn a place in the Treats parade. For dinner, a few weeks ago, we ordered a Hello Fresh meal with Fair in mind. Tonight Rob made Country Chicken and Honey Butter Biscuits for me, bless his heart.


FAIR FOOD FEAST TREATS!

Smashers!!
So when you go to the Fair pretty much every day…and you don’t drink soft drinks anymore and you are tired of boring water…an enormous cup of fresh fruit juiciness is pretty much a godsend.

With my multiple daily visits to his tie-dyed beverage tent, it didn’t take long for me and Stan the Smashers Man to strike up a friendship several years ago. A friendship that started at the Fair and then moved to Facebook and now includes sharing photos and comments throughout the year.

Wistfully salivating over the thought of my beloved Strawberry Mango Smasher…or Peach Pear… or Northwest Berries...I sent a note to Stan in July asking if he might be game to let me buy a Smasher sometime during Fair week. I offered to meet him wherever was convenient, knowing he lives a ways from Woodhaven.

A couple quick emails and a phone call later, a plan was made. It was purely providential that our Smashers date ended up being during a heat wave.

Stan refused to accept payment, so I brought along two bottles of Rob’s homemade wine as a thank you. Rob makes really good wine…and yet, I feel bad we might have gotten the better end of our Smasher deal.

Not only did Stan offer to come most of the way to Woodhaven, he brought a cooler stuffed full of my addiction. Not just one Washington Smasher. Not just two, so Rob and I could each have one. Nope. Stan brought me six Smashers in a cooler! SIX!!! Six huge, refreshing, fruity, healthy-ish gifts of my beloved Fair In a Cup.  OH. MY. GOSH.

He even gave me straws and little mint sprigs for garnishes.
I am just overwhelmed by Stan's kindness.

Sitting on Woodhaven’s patio at 96 degrees, my first Smasher (Northwest Berries) was just ice and fruit remnants in about 45 minutes.  My second cup (Mango) will be empty before bed.  I will be leaving the night light on.

A smashing day for a Smasher!  THANK YOU,
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Stan!!!

Stan, I can not thank you enough. Thank you for your delicious beverages. Thank you for essentially hand-delivering a bounty of them to me. Thank you for Fairing with me in the Umpqua parking lot. Thank you for being an amazing friend.

Fair people are the best people.

Yay for camera tricks!  We were appropriately distanced
during the taking of this photo.  It was SO hard not to
hug Stan as a hello, a good-bye, and a thank you ever so much.

Deep Fried Candy
As the Grand Deep Fried Finale, tonight we experimented with an array of candy gathered in our hunt at Dollar Tree. It was MUCH better than last night’s disappointing encounter with deep fried booze.  YAY!!!!

Our lineup (and the order in which we tried them) was: Gummi Dinosaur, Twizzler, Cherry Starburst, Hershey Kiss, Three Musketeer, York Peppermint Patty, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

We froze the candies for a couple hours before
frying with hopes they wouldn't completely melt
in the hot oil.  This worked well for most of them.

We actually kicked everything off with some deep fried banana slices; I had a brain fart and forgot to freeze them when we did our marginally successful Deep Fried Fruits night. The banana was very good! We probably needed to cook it a little longer, but dipped in some chocolate sauce, Deep Fried Bananas are a definite YES.

And this was BEFORE inspiration hit to add
chocolate syrup to the experience.

Next up was the Gummi Dinosaur.  I really wanted to deep fry Gummi Bears but feared the little bears would be too small. In retrospect, cleaning up after little bears would have been a lot easier. The Dinosaurs were messy!

Stringy, oozey, gooey, sticky. And unfortunately really tasty since the Gummi was all just melted sugar. The fried dough was a rainbow of colors and had a wonderfully artificially sweet fruity flavor. We will never fry Gummis again for fears of ruining our little fryer with layers of sticky goo. Too bad, because as fried stuff goes, this was pretty dang tasty!

Not pictured: metal scoop that was covered in burned sugar.
Still unknown: if we can get the sticky disaster off the
walls of our fryer's pot.

The Twizzler was fine. Tasted like a Twizzler in fried dough. Nothing really spectacular, although dipping it in chocolate syrup livened it up, reminding me a bit of the flavor of a Cherry Tootsie Pop.  Not bad but not worth doing again.

The Deep Fried Starburst (cherry) was a winner! The meltiness made the Starburst easier to eat, although it was super chewy like taffy.  I gnawed on it like beef jerky for a spell, a little concerned for some dental work. I enjoyed how the melted sugar flavored the fried dough so it was something like an airy cherry donut hole. With the bonus of being super pully and stringy and loads of fun to eat. I would definitely have a Deep Fried Starburst again, trying lots more flavors.

Apparently I sported a string of red Starbust on my chin
for awhile.  FAIR! FAIR! FAIR!

Deep Fried Hershey Kiss – YES PLEASE! This was so good! So simple but so elegant. It was just melted chocolate encased in fried dough. But wow, what a classic Fair treat this should be.  Add a tiny dab of powdered sugar and watch out.  One Kiss is so dainty, though. There’s no calories in dainty, right?

Deep Fried Heaven

I was excited to try the Three Musketeers bar since it was my favorite candy bar when I was a kid. I anticipated it would be really sweet, and that the fluffy stuffing would melt into a nougaty goo.  And yes, I thought this would be a good thing.  Maybe we didn’t cook it long enough, but nope.  No sweet, no melted fluffiness, no gooey nougat.  The Deep Fried Three Musketeers was actually really boring and forgettable.  Not bad, but not worth the effort or calories.

Tied for First Place with the Hershey Kiss is Deep Fried York Peppermint Patty. OH MY!!

It was a little tricky to cook the patty since the chocolate started to melt in the hot oil, pushing the patty out of the batter.  But that just meant there were pockets of minty filling oozing out.  Mmmmmm.

The mint was warm, the chocolate was melty, and the dough actually added to the experience by toning down the peppermint a bit. Those Yorks can sometimes be a bit intense, so the added fried dough made the Peppermint Patty taste a bit more adult and sophisticated. Plus, it left my breath minty fresh! Much needed at this point in the adventure.

All the white is the peppermint filling.  I didn't think to
dip the fried patty in chocolate syrup; that might have
put the Yorks alone in first place by replacing
some of the chocolate shell that had melted away.
Next time.  Because there will be a next time.

Our last candy adventure was Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. These are my most favorite Deep Fried Fun at the Fair. They are really rich, though, so I typically only have one each year. I was hoping that since we were frying up little mini cups, I might be able to increase my annual intake significantly. 

Unfortunately, the tiny size of the peanut butter cups made it hard to cook them. One cup escaped the batter completely; another popped its top. So while I greatly enjoyed the warm, gooey, salty peanut butter cup, the dough wasn’t really a part of the experience. In the dead of winter…when perhaps we are stuck at Woodhaven with a few feet of snow on the ground, we will dig out the fryer and give a bigger peanut butter cup a deep fried go.

So the Deep Fried Candy Aisle score card is:

Tied for 1st Place = York Peppermint Patty and Hershey Kiss

3rd = Strawberry Starburst
4th = Gummi Dinosaur
5th = Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup
6th = Twizzler
7th = Three Musketeer

This fryer thing was a hoot and definitely one of the best Fair purchases I have ever made.  Highly recommended for Fair Fun year 'round!

Our Deep Fried Set Up.  We didn't ever come close to
blowing anything up so we might be ready to move
the operation indoors next time.