I got out of the holler yesterday and went about an hour away to stroll around in the muddy grounds at the Mountain State Art & Craft Fair in Ripley, West Virginia–a huge, wondrous affair designed to highlight West Virginia cultural heritage. I went for the funnel cake.
I’m not much of a window shopper, but I love walking around every year at this fair. There’s always really cool stuff, like these pretty bird baths. Don’t you think my chickens need one for a water dish? I loved these bird houses, too. I managed to walk away without buying one.
There’s always a lot of neat carved stuff, like these old-fashioned dulcimers, and look at those gourds made into chickens! I don’t know how I walked away without buying one of them.
People are there performing heritage crafts on-site, like this guy making candles. They were simmering apple butter, too. This is how I do it when I make apple butter. I get out my big copper cauldron, fire up the wood, and make a day of it.
My cousin was there, as always, grinding corn and selling his fresh cornmeal by the four-pound bag. I made sure he was using his grinder correctly, adjusted some mechanical things, and hefted around a couple two-ton bags of corn for him. I don’t know how he would get through the fair without me.
Then I came around a line of booths and the heavens opened up and the angels sang.
Funnel cake!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing like a huge plateful of delicious fried fat topped with sugar to make coating your feet in mud walking around the fair all worth it.
I also managed to hit every single food booth giving away free samples. It’s a total meal, like if you went to Sam’s Club to have lunch from all the sampler tables. Not that I ever do that or anything, so I’m just imagining. I had a sample of some creamed honey at this booth that was like the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life and I don’t know why I didn’t buy any.
I wanted to get there in time to see the sheep-shearing demonstration, but I just missed it. I’m not sure why I wanted to see the sheep-shearing demonstration since I don’t have any sheep. Could be because I’m obsessed with sheep. These three were already back in their holding pen by the time I arrived.
This one looked particularly irritable about it.
Maybe he was still upset about this.
This is the one thing I did buy. Not that I needed another cutting board, but I’ve looked at these gorgeous hardwood cutting boards at the fair before. If I still want it two years later, then I know I really want it, so I gave in and bought one.
I really liked this plaque, and maybe in a couple years if they bring it to the fair again, I’ll get one.
But for now, it’s true. I’m lucky to live here, and that’s enough. Well, you know, I did need that cutting board. And the funnel cake. And I’m thinking I really need that creamed honey next.
And maybe those sheep…..
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on July 6, 2008
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I can’t believe you passed on the honey…! Nice cutting board, though. Maybe 52 will take the hint and buy you some honey, if he hasn’t already.
BTW, the funnel cakes are a lot like our Beaver Tails: deep fried dough sprinkled with a variety of toppings. I’ve had all of 2 or 3 in my entire life (they are very popular in Ottawa, our nation’s capital), and boy, they were GOOD. We have a Beaver Tail seller here, downtown, during tourist season, but I’ve resisted.
-Kim
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good and maybe I am missing out.Real good for you! LOL
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Funnel cakes, eh? I’m going to skip breakfast, and go directly to funnel cakes!
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I am going to order creamed honey.http://www.ebeehoney.com/creamed-honey.html
:flying:
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You are clearly a woman of great restraint. I :love: those gourd chickens and the dulcimers. And the honey! Oh, yum.
That cutting board is gorgeous…if I was ever at a fair and they had hardwood cutting boards, I’d buy one in a second.
Is that the cousin who though his wife had bought him the shiny red tractor?
And the funnel cakes! There are a great many things I would do for a funnel cake. I love funnel cakes. I went on a roller coaster just so my sister would buy me a funnel cake (when I was little). I think you could motivate your characters to do all sorts of things against their own best interests if they were doing them for funnel cakes.
A story about funnel cakes. Sigh. I’d totally read that.
I’m going to have to dig out my recipe for home-made funnel cakes.
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Ooops…totally forgot to comment on the naked sheep. We drive by a farm on our way home from the city and the three sheep living there are in desperate need of haircuts. Maybe the next time I go by, they’ll be naked, too.
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I was thinking that, too, about making my own plaque! I’m no artist, but it’s a fairly simple one. I could probably do it.
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Tammy
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:J
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Sounds like it was a fun day! With fun things to buy! :mrgreen:
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I know you had a good time.
I watched them make Beniets in New Orleans on tv the other day. I think they are the same thing only they are rolled out and cut into squares before frying them in cotton seed oil. But they cover them in powdered sugar too.
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(BTW, that’s a bowed psaltery, not a dulcimer, although they look somewhat similar. It’s a medieval instrument and the music it makes is lovely, a cross between a fiddle and a harp, I think–or maybe a dulcimer and a harp.)
I fell for the homemade ice cream myself. Although the smell of funnel cakes was very, very tempting. Did you see the bee beards? Awesome! I posted a photo of that guy on my blog.
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http://post-itplace.blogspot.com/2008/07/where-have-i-been-today-and-contest.html
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I’m also the proud owner of 2 – 4 lb. bags of your cousin’s cornmeal. One bag is in the freezer, and one is on the counter, ready for me to print out your recipe and make corn bread tomorrow. I love to make soup or beans, but my corn bread is pitiful. Maybe this time with the right cornmeal, and the right recipe, it will be wonderful.
PS: You won’t believe it, but I passed the funnel cakes on the way down the aisle, got distracted, and never did go back for the funnel cake! How can you go to a fair and forget to get a funnel cake???
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All these people who don’t know what funnel cakes are…where do they live!
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