County Fair Season is Here

The Paulding County Fair began on Monday.  With the exception of June 26-28, a fair will be going on somewhere in Ohio from now until October 15.  Be sure to check out the livestock and chow down on funnel cake or elephant ears or some other deep fried treat at a fair near you.

Parish Festivals

Much like June kicks off the beginning of county fair season, May kicks off parish festival season.  Here's a schedule of festivals in Southwestern Ohio, in case you need to see carnies, drink beer and/or gamble.

Good News at the State Fair

From the Canton Repository:

Ohio State Fair visitors will be able to sip on wine and beer this summer for the first time since the 1880s.

The Ohio Expositions Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to allow alcohol consumption at two locations at the Ohio Expo Center in Columbus during the July 27 to Aug. 7 fair.

Commission spokeswoman Alicia Notestone says wine made with at least 90 percent Ohio-grown grapes will be available at the Taste of Ohio Cafi, and wine and Ohio-produced beer will be sold at the Celeste Center during adult concerts.

Notestone says the commission hopes to give new opportunities to Ohio breweries and wineries.

She says alcohol was served when the fair was held at a site that is now Franklin Park, but has not been permitted since the fair moved to the Expo Center in 1886.

They ought to sell beer and allow it to be carried around the grounds, but this is a start.  Now we need some more of the county fairs in western Ohio to start serving beer.

Ohio County Fairs

According to this schedule, we might still be planting beans when the county fairs start up.  The Paulding County Fair starts on June 13.  I pray that we're done by then. 

Best Fair Foods

Here.

The one I want to try:

Chicken-Fried Bacon

Texas (bigtex.com)

This ode to bacon won the award for Best Taste at the 2008 Big Tex Choice Awards. Creator Glen Kusak had been a fair vendor for 12 years running, but 2008 marked his first year entering the annual State Fair of Texas food contest.

We fried pickles, oreos, twinkies, hohos, a Snickers bar a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a piece of cake at a couple of our fish fries this year.  The Twinkies were the best.