State Fair of Texas - grace grits and gardening

State Fair of Texas: Fair Food

October 20, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Check out my State Fair of Texas fair food pics… My favorite new food = Pulled Pork Cuban Roll. Disclaimer: I tasted most of these creations, but for a few I grabbed random people and snapped pictures of their food.

Deep Fried Red Velvet Cupcake (with fried chicken on top…)

Fried Thanksgiving Dinner

Pulled Pork Cuban Roll

Blurry Corn Dog

My favorite lemonade!

Fried Chocolate Pie

Texas Fireball

Cinnamon Roll

Pig Toes

Texas Tornado Twisters

Today’s the last day of the State Fair of Texas. There’s still time to overindulge in these deep fried concoctions…

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing: Food, Glorious Food! (Oliver)

Go Texan! Buy Local.

October 15, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Soon I’ll be heading to Helena, Arkansas to spend time with a few of my fellow Arkansas Women Bloggers. If you know anything about me, you know I love going home to the Delta.

Since I’m the only Texas girl attending this event—(yes, I claim dual citizenship…)—I thought it would be fun to take a bit of Texas with me to share with my blogger friends. And, since I happened to be in the Food and Fiber Building at the State Fair of Texas when this genius of an idea struck me, what better gift for these ladies than locally made Texas goodies?

I began snapping pictures of various products in the Go Texan General Store, grabbing business cards and tasting samples when available. The Food and Fiber Building is known for bountiful samples…plus while grazing, there are educational exhibits to peruse about cotton farming. (Need I say more?)

Later that night I contacted four of the businesses represented at the State Fair. Would you like to donate something to a great group of Arkansas blogger gals?

Every Single Business enthusiastically agreed to provide something for my blogger friends. These small businesses blew me away with their generosity providing marvelous candies and soaps and lotions and lip balms.

I was reminded of how important it is to buy local. These are the local businesses that keep our country ticking, even when it isn’t…

Feast your eyes on these gorgeous offerings.

Berdoll Pecan Candy & Gift Company
Cedar Creek, Texas

Seriously? Candy corn + Chocolate = Heaven.

Go Texan! Buy Local. Main Street Soap Company

Main Street Soap Company
Richland Hills, Texas

I wonder if I could trade rosemary for soap?

Goat Haus Dairy
Bryan, Texas

I slathered goat milk lotion all over my arms at the fair and considered drinking it…

Two Girls Toffery
Addison, Texas

I’ve had a thing for toffee since my first trick-or-treating Heath bar. THIS is slap yo momma greatness.

There’s still time to buy these goodies in person at the State Fair of Texas General Store in the Food and Fiber Building. (The fair runs through Sunday, October 20.)

Or, visit online by clicking on the company names below:

Berdoll Pecan Candy
Main Street Soap
Goat Haus Dairy
Two Girls Toffery

Are you making out your Christmas list yet?

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

P.S. There are many, many other Go Texan companies represented at the State Fair. For a complete listing, click HERE.

(The companies mentioned in this post provided gifts for a blogger tourism event at my request. I received no monetary compensation. All opinions and comments are my own.)

Carnival Sideshow Oddities. Then and Now.

September 30, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Step right up folks! What I’m about to describe will shock and amaze you. Remember the sideshow freaks at the carnival? Living Frog Boy, Magical Fire-Eater, Atasha the Gorilla Girl… I grew up during that wonderful time before political incorrectness when human oddities were the main attraction rather than the norm.

Every year Momma and Aunt Lavern took my sister, cousin and me to the Mid-South Fair in Memphis. Every year we made a beeline for the freakshow tent.

One year in particular we spent half an hour staring at the Alligator Woman. She was old and wrinkled and covered chin to toe in tattoos which made her look downright reptilian. Multiple tattoos? Unheard of beyond the fantastic carnival world.

In the next tent, the World’s Largest Man lounged with rolls of naked flesh spilling around the room a la Jabba the Hutt. We stared. I couldn’t eat my corn dog. Finally Aunt Lavern broke the awkward silence. So, tell us what you eat for breakfast? He recited his daily menu of a dozen eggs, two pounds of bacon, a loaf of bread, a jar of grape jelly. Mortified, I dropped my corn dog in the sawdust-covered floor. Today Jabba could get his own realty television show or at least fifteen minutes with Dr. Oz.

Ahhhh the good old days…

Before our very eyes, the sideshow has morphed into display booths where people peddle wares including the latest choppers and grinders and slicers and dicers you didn’t know you needed. How on earth have humans cooked all these years without a tool guaranteed to provide hours of delight while magically transforming radishes into flowers?

Take a seat in the corner booth and straighten your frizzy humid Dallas mane using the latest hair gadgets as seen in Elle Magazine…

And in another booth at the State Fair of Texas…don’t miss out on the latest snake oil…a free Botox injection. Seriously. Botox handed out like Girl Scout cookie samples.

Sadly, for the same outrageous cost as a funnel cake, our only organized sideshow option is wedged between the kiddie rides and candied apples—the world’s smallest turtle and his cousin the albino. Who cares! Bring back Dickie the Penguin Man. If you want turtles to draw a crowd at the fair today, you’d have to serve ’em chicken fried with a side of cream gravy. Then the line would circle Big Tex.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Verne Langdon’s Carnival of Souls

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.