It's over!

The 2009 North Carolina State Fair is over, alas. I hope you had a good time. Going back to my regular eating habits is going to be weird after several days of various bacony things and alligator tail, but, as always, I have next year to look forward to.

The weather was mostly beautiful this year. There was some rain, but when it was sunny the weather was absolutely perfect -- warm, just slightly breezy, not at all humid. Those marvelous blue skies inspired me to try to take a different set of pictures this year.

A few years ago I took pictures of some of the midway signs and food booth signs for folks to use as desktop "wallpaper". I had friends complain that the pictures were too busy -- they had too much going on and were hard to use as backgrounds. So I walked around this week and took Fair pictures that have lots of blue sky. The Fair itself is at the bottom or to the side -- enough to keep you anticipating 2010, not so much that you can't...

The taste testing this year has been nothing less than an adventure. It's been bacony, collard-y (collardy?), deep-fried (to be expected) and now it's reptillian, because I wandered over to the Ragin' Cajun's booth near the Grandstand and snagged myself alligator tail on a stick, which comes in a basket with some fries. Everything set me back about $8.

The advantage of this booth is that the grandstand is only a step away so it's easy to find a place to sit down and eat. Once settled and having consumed a few spicy fries, I considered the alligator. I didn't know how to go about eating it. It had a decent amount of breading on it and the meat was fairly tough. I finally started eating it with my fingers. It was warm but not hot and I was able to start dismantling it without trouble.

Alas, I didn't like it very much. It tasted, as apparently all unfamiliar meats do, much like chicken. Tough, spicy-breading-covered chicken. And I'm not fond of chicken, no matter how tasty the...

In the parlance of computer software, an "Easter Egg" is a joke or feature hidden in the software itself, only available by performing a certain action or, in the case of games, achieving a certain goal. I found a lot of "Easter Eggs" at the State Fair this year, neat things that popped up as I wandered around.

-- "Barrel Monster" up the hill behind the Home and Garden Show.

-- Beside Barrel Monster, a giant deck chair where you can take pictures for free. I find this particularly Easter eggy because there's a giant chair on the "new midway" where you can have your picture taken -- for a fee.

-- The cutest white tiger cub in the area between the Kerr Scott Building and the "New Midway". (You can have your picture taken with him for a fee. Looking at him and making gooshy noises is free.)

-- A food booth in Kiddieland where you can get a frozen Twinkie, covered in chocolate, on a stick.

-- The women's restroom...

Ain't it always the way? Some new things get all the buzz -- the chocolate covered bacon, the deep fried butter. And yet the thing you end up liking the most is something you haven't heard much about at all!

In the deep fried candy bars booth across from restaurant row, you'll see a modest sign proclaiming that fried cookie dough is now available. Poking around I see that this creation has been around for at least a couple of years. Have I missed it all this time? No matter. $3.50 gives you a nice little basket of fried cookie dough balls covered in powdered sugar. Mind the toothpicks.

First bite. I think the cookie dough is chocolate chip. The dough is warm and tastes terrific. The chocolate chips are melted and just add to the deliciousness. The batter around the outside is minimal and crispy. Personally I would have skipped the powdered sugar as it always adds to the mess factor of a food and I'm not sure you could improve on the cookie dough anyway.

This is far...

There are two places in the Commercial/Education building where you will always see a line during the North Carolina State Fair. The first one is the House-Autry Mills booth, where you can find yummy samples. The second is a line of people looking at the entrants to the cake contest.

The cakes are always wonderful to look at but they seemed especially good this year. The Rubik's Cube cake made me laugh, and the brown and gold cake was just amazing. There's plenty of good reason to head over to that display and just stop and hang out for a while.

But when many people are done looking at that display of cakes and taking pictures, they walk away! And that drives me crazy because I just want to yell at them, "STOP! YOU'RE MISSING HALF THE CAKES!"

Okay, maybe not half. But if you go to the cake displays, turn around, and then walk over to the white upright shelf units, you'll find the junior cake decorating contest entries. Don't let the "junior" fool...