Well, I finally fulfilled my year-long dream of going to the Texas State Fair the other day.  Life is short.  So one of the things I like to do is to make a Pail List.  Not quite as grand as a Bucket List, but some stuff I would like to do in the next 12 months.  Number 1 on that List was to go to the Texas State Fair.

The verdict?

Boy!  I hadn't been that disappointed since that Father's Day when I thought I was getting a special "gift," and Mrs. Fly fell asleep.

To be honest, it was a perfectly fine State Fair.  There were a lot more boardwalk games than I thought, and there were about as many rides as I thought.  They had better entertainment than I thought - they actually had performers that you would have heard of, like Randy Travis and the Bangles.  I wonder if they are going to sing a remake of their 80's hit - "Walk Like A Fat-Tex-an."  And they had a lot of animal-related activities for the kids.  But not really the kind of place to sneak in some equine luvin' so I just skipped the animal attractions, lest I start jonesing

What was the (other bigger) problem?  The food.

I have no one to blame but myself.  For some reason, I thought there were going to be vendors from all over the area, selling their awesome championship brisket, chili, tacos, and all the other foods that Texas is known for.  They had like 100 food stalls.  Unfortunately, about 80% of the food was either fried food or food that a quadriplegic could grill better in their backyard.  I guess I always thought the State Fair was where the locals duked it out for blue ribbons and bragging rights.  Nope.  This actually seemed a little too commercial - it was pretty obvious a number of the larger food companies rented out 5-10 booths each all around the Cotton Bowl.  This wouldn't be that bad if the food was awesome.  But it wasn't.

Here is a sampling:

Chicken Fried Bacon (past award winner).  How can anyone not like bacon?  One thing I noticed about Texans is they love anything chicken fried (fried in fried chicken coating).  Mrs Fly added some Tabasco to the ranch dressing - I'm married to a god damn spice mutant.  This was somewhat interesting.  It's not as greasy/fatty tasting as you would think.  Unfortunately, on one of the pieces, the oil didn't taste very fresh.  The bacteria in my intestines responsible for diarrhea thanks you.

Kraut Balls (this year's award winner).  It's basically saurkraut... can you guess?  That's right!  Fried in batter.  It was okay...  until I realized there was no dead animal in saurkraut.  I need some cow NOW!

By far the longest line was for some company whose name I can't remember who sold "original corn dogs."  One of the oldest tricks for finding good food in a foreign land (and Texas) is to just follow the crowds.  Let the locals tell you what's good.  It was pretty good.  You really can't go wrong with dead animal meat with supplemented with dead animal fat surrounded by dead animal casing, and wrapped in enough batter to soak up as much dead animal grease as possible.  Good, but not exceptional.

Fried Frito Pies (past award winner).  How to wash down all that fat and grease?  That's right!  More fat and grease!  I had never heard of this before, so I had to try it.  Basically it's a ball of chili and cheese wrapped in crushed Frito chips and deep fried in batter.  It was actually quite good (a little too salty) and we were enjoying it... until Mrs. Fly found an eyelash (we hope) in the basket.  She kind of freaks out about stuff like that.  But hey!  That's more for me!  And chili adds such an awesome olfactory experience to diarrhea.

We saw some fried butter (last year's award winner), but by that point I wasn't sure if my anus could take any more, so we went home.

BTW, the portions were larger, but I'm a big believer in eating street food while walking, but Mrs. Fly has to sit.  So by the time I got the food to the table...  you can guess the rest.  It doesn't seem like it takes much to win recognition (an award) at the State Fair.  Now on the Bucket List...

Open a food stall with Mrs. Fly at a future Texas State Fair.

[x] Old Man has too much free time
[ ] Talked to Mrs Fly about this
[x] Mrs Fly needs to do most of the work
[x] Killed any chance of getting a special "gift" any time soon