Fair Food n' Stuff

It was with a heavy heart that we found out that Chicken Charlie, the premier fried food vendor and innovator would NOT be bringing his brand of deep fried goodness back to the Fresno Fair this year. I don't remember when he first started appearing, but he's been a staple for many years now. I found out it was a combination of bad timing, a new 2nd trailer, and a new baby that was keeping him away this year. Hopefully he'll be back.

However still hopeful and ready for anything, my family of four went to the fair on opening day, to check out the food, the exhibits, and to see if my two baked goods entries (double chocolate cookies, and tropical cupcakes) had won anything.

The teenager of course took off to meet a friend with a 20 in her pocket. The rest of us immediately pounced on Garlicky's, a whole menu of garlic infused food..who could resist that? We settled on the Garlic Dog, basically a garlic infused sausage cooked corndog style. We gobbled it down before we could take a pic..but it just looks like a corndog. It had a mild garlic flavor, but hardly worth the 8 dollar price tag.
Then the eldest suggested we go see if my 2 entries had won anything..it took forever to spot my cookies (they keep moving things!), but they hadn't won. We found my cupcakes right away to find a red ribbon. We then headed towards the fine arts building so the eldest could check her exhibits, 2 photos and a drawing. Sadly no ribbons there. While we were waiting on her we went to the Indian Taco booth and ordered one. Deep fried deliciousness with chili, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and sour cream. Here's a partial pic.

I was starting to get full! And I was already exhausted from the heat, so I suggested Gelato, which we all thought was a good idea. The eldest and I shared a strawberry cup, and the hubs got Lemon Ice.. both were absolutely delicious, especially on a hot day. Yes I know I promised lots of pics, but you all know what gelato looks like... the strawberry looked and tasted like fresh strawberries and the lemon ice was tall and cool and refreshing.

I was curious about the latest "Discover the World" exhibit so we walked there, and here are some pics of the interesting animals. Btw, if for no other reason, visit this area because it's one of the coolest(tempwise) parts of the fair

By this time I was really tired..still needing something cold and needing to grab a bag of kettlecorn to take home. We grabbed the kettlecorn, and headed for another ice cream stand, this time to grab a giant frozen chocolate covered banana. (After making absolutely sure those were peanuts only..because it would be stupid to die at the Fair)

So there we are.. my Fair experience for 2012! Whee!