Warning: lots and lots of pictures ahead!

Today we had our annual visit to the Minnesota State Fair! When we go to the Fair, I don’t buy any merchandise. I don’t go look at the exhibits. I don’t even go look at all the cute animals. My goal for the Fair has always been eating, and eating only.

I’ve been waiting for this day the entire month of August, so much so that not only did we buy our discounted tickets (and our Blue Ribbon Book) from work a few months ago, I also made a list of foods I wanted to eat this year.

Now this isn’t your ordinary list, you guys. First I went on the official State Fair website and scrolled through the entire list of food vendors. I found all the foods I would like to try and added them to my list, and I wrote down their location. Lastly, they’re also organized in roughly three categories: new foods this year I’d like to try, our regulars, and those in the Blue Ribbon Book I want to have, complete with their corresponding coupon number. And if that’s not OCD enough, I typed it up on Microsoft Word… and the list ended up to be an entire page long. #NerdAlert!

Here’s a complete list (with pictures) of things we’ve had today.

We started out with the portobello mushroom bites from Minnesota Wine Country

And just like every other year, we got some cheese curds from the Mouse Trap in the Food Building

I tried out this year’s new food – Comet corn from the Blue Moon Dine-In Theater. These are basically caramel corn made with liquid nitrogen. They were good – super crunchy and fun to eat. The liquid nitrogen smoke just makes it that much cooler.

Walleye cakes from Giggle’s Campfire Grill were also on the agenda. Walleye, smoked salmon, wild rice with dipping sauce. Yum.

Jalapeno cheese corn dogs, another new Fair food this year. I was pleasantly surprised at how good these were. It’s a jalapeno and cheese infused corn dog dipped in spicy batter, served with sliced jalapenos and cheese sauce. It wasn’t too spicy, but had enough of a noticeable kick to make it tastier than a regular corn dog. I probably could’ve went back for another one. I’m glad I didn’t though.

It was a hot day and all I wanted was ice cream…. we started out with an orange creamsicle float that was uhhhhmazing!

Then some sweet corn ice cream that I had to have again this year…

…and we ended the day with some more ice cream! Izzy’s, an ice cream place owned and operated locally, came out with a new flavor this year for the fair – mini donut batter ice cream!

Mini donut chunks + cinnamon + ice cream. Oh. My. Gah! Hands down, best ice cream at the Fair. I’d like a whole pint of that to-go, please.

I think I’ve had enough ice cream to last me a while though.

I wasn’t brave enough to try these though. I’ve never had Spam before, and Spam curds just don’t sound all that appetizing at the time. Maybe next year…

Not only did we eat new foods this year, we also did something we’ve never done before at the Fair – we sat in the audience in the Kare 11 Barn during the 5 p.m. news!

Julie Nelson and Randy Shaver – two of my favorites!

And I got to meet the cardboard version of Sven!

When we came home and watched the news, we spotted ourselves in the audience.

Yep, I sure looked pretty embarrassed in that last frame. Maybe going to the Kare Barn to sit through a live recording wasn’t such a good idea after all……

So I ended up not eating everything on my list, but maybe that’s better for our wallets and my body. I’m pretty sure I could’ve crossed off a few more things if we had stayed another couple hours more. I’m already looking forward to next year’s State Fair! I wonder what kind of new foods they’re going to create…… :)

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