FAIR FOOD AT THE TOPSFIELD FAIR

Ok, so if you read my entry about things that I wanted to do during the fall, you'll notice that one thing I wanted to do was visit the Topsfield Fair. I was excited to go see various animals (with the hope of holding a little chick or bunny in my hand) and Tom and I were both looking foward to eating some truly unhealthy fair food.

I haven't been to a fair in a long long time. The last time I went was probably 15 years ago. Apparently state fairs like this started as a way to promote agriculture and farming. (There was some article in the NYTimes a while ago describing the decline of state fairs cause such a small number of people are actually farmers). At any rate, the Topsfield Fair is more like an endless buffet of really really unhealthy food, with some small farm attractions and a number of rides thrown in. The reality is, people come here to eat, and I don't have a huge problem with that (it's only once a year after all.) It reminded me a lot of the Charlotte's Web movie where the rat is at the fair after it closes and does a whole song and dance about a smorgasbord.

So onto the food. We walked around a bit before deciding what to get. There were just a whole lot of options and I had a hard time figuring out what to start with. But Tom was very smart in spotting this sausage vendor and I was able to get a chicken sausage.
I've been lamenting the fact that they have stopped selling chicken sausages at Fenway Park this season. It was the one thing I'd always eat when I went to a game. But this chicken sausage was so much better It was juicy and very fresh (not some mass manufacture sausage). Plus, they were very generous with the onions and peppers. I enjoyed this a lot. If only they hadn't put fennel seeds in the sausage (I'm not a fan of fennel or anything licorice tasting). Ah well.

Tom started off his eating with a corn dog. He'd been looking foward to having one for a while. And I must admit, I was a bit envious. I love corn dogs, too! No worries, though. When I go home in December, I plan on having 2 corn dogs from Hot Dog on a Stick, where they make their corn dogs with turkey dogs!
So after the meat, I was ready for some fried foods. We started off with some German Fries (aka waffle fries). These were pretty good I found them kinda soggy and wished they were more crunchy. But still good.
We also walked around to check out the fair. My most favorite part was the newly hatched chicks. Unfortunately, they don't actually let you touch them. But they were soooo cute! Some of them were so new that they were still wet from coming out of the egg and were stumbling around with egg shell still attached to them cause they were so weak. I also enjoyed seeing the little piglets and the babe bunnies, which were less than 10 days old.

After a while, we were pretty tired, so it was back to the food. Tom got a chocolate chip cannoli (which I didn't photograph). It was grossly expensive though. Something like $6.25? I thought that was waaaayyyy too much, but oh well. Meanwhile, I was having a dilemma. I was pretty full, but how often do you get to go to a fair? I debated whether to get some dipped ice cream, but finally just settled on a lemonade.

The last thing we had was fried dough, spinkled with cinnamon and sugar. It was pretty good, albiet greasy. I was discussing this with Leah last night, and we both prefer funnel cakes to fried dough. Same concept, but with funnel cakes, you have the holes, which allows the battter to get crispier as it cooks. Actually, I think the fried dough is a New England thing, cause I've never seen it on the West Coast before. We just have funnel cakes.

By this point in the day, we were pretty much done. I think we both could've eaten more, but it's at the point where you know if you eat anything else, you'll regret it for the rest of the day. So we headed home, with our tummies full. I perfect outing for a lovely fall day.