Off to the Fair!

 I’ve been attending the San Diego County Fair since I was a teenager, and have always enjoyed the vareity of food that can be found there. Roast chicken kabobs, battered onion rings, caramel corn, barbecued ribs, the list goes on. In recent years, it seems that the food vendors have been trying to outdo one another with the most outrageous fried foods or the biggest and baddest (you name it) that can be dreamed up. This has been going on for some time now, so when I ordered this maple bacon donut today, it had already become rather a ho-hum dish at the fair due to all the food vendors who have let loose their culinary creativity over the past few years.

Bacon...and lots of it!

Can't miss this place.

I have to admit, though, that the donut was pretty darn good. It may have been a bit overpriced at $8.50, but hey, this is the fair! One of the nice things about this donut was that it had been prepared just minutes ago, and was still warm and oozy. Most donuts that you get at a shop have been lingering on a rack for a few hours, but not this bacon-baby. On top of that, the maple flavor was strong, which cannot be said for a lot of maple donuts out there. Warning: If you go to the fair and decide to get one of these things, make sure you bring someone who will share the donut with you, or go for at least a 12-mile run that day. In my case, I did both.

A couple hours later, after wandering around the fairgrounds to check out some of the awesome woodwork and beautiful paintings (including one of Mama Maple’s, I might add, not to boast about her artistic talent or anything . . .), I was ready for lunch. And that turned out to be a fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich from Chicken Charlie’s, which was a bit more reasonably priced at “only” $4.75.

Fried PB&J, warm and gooey.

Three cheers for gooey things!

Would I call this a donut? Well, a donut is defined as a deep-fried piece of dough, and this certainly fit the definition. I was expecting the PB&J to be between two slices of bread and then battered and fried, but instead it turned out to be more like a buttermilk biscuit with gooey PB&J in the center. As you can see from the pictures, this treat had strawberry jelly, which I like much better than grape jelly. It had a nice crunch on the outside, and the warm, goo-licious center was a nice contrast to the biscuit. Once again, sticky thumbs up.

Want to try these for yourself? Then you better hurry, because the fair is open for only three more days—and is sure to be a busy place as everyone fights their way through the traffic and crowds to get their hands on anything and everything that could possibly be thrown into a vat of hot oil.

Have a happy Fourth of July, and remember that it is our great country’s ideal of freedom that allows us to become ever more creative with our words, our paintbrushes, and—last but not least—our culinary imaginations.