The State Fair

October brings the North Carolina State Fair to Raleigh, NC.  Last year I had the pleasure of judging the bakery products and my efforts were rewarded with an unlimited pass to the fair.  I didn’t have plans to judge food this year, and it’s a good thing too.  My appendicitis hit on the day I would have had to judge bakery products.  Boy, would that have been terrible!

Because we’d be in Aruba for the last five days of the fair, and I wanted Colin to experience it, we went for a few hours just four days after my surgery.  The day was beautiful, and I would have enjoyed it a lot more it wasn’t for my appendix issue.  Colin and I enjoyed sampling Italian sausage, Polish kielbasa, a fried Snickers, and kettle corn.  We didn’t make it to the Wisconsin cheese booth, nor did we get to try any of the other fried candy bars.  Sampling foods is best when you go with a large group – that way you can take a “bite” out of each item.  Not wanting to hurt my intestines (or abdomen in general), we took it easy on the food.

This year I really enjoyed seeing the talent exhibitions – mainly the cake decorating and paintings and photographs.  With the recent E. Coli outbreak that might be linked to the petting zoo, I'm glad we didn't go there!!  We did see some livestock and lots of agricultural products though.

The highlight of this year's fair for both Colin and I was the Polish kielbasa.  The fried snickers were pretty disappointing.  And the fair in general was okay.  Hopefully we can go back next year with a group of people to try a more varied sampling of food and I won't be recovering from surgery!!