bear

I was talking with a friend about fairs yesterday, and now I'm both sad I'll be missing out on the Big E (because even though I'll be in New England next week, I'm flying home the day it starts), and enthusiastically making grandiose plans with said friend to go to the Minnesota State Fair Great Minnesota Get-Together next year, despite neither of us living in the Midwest.

I didn't grow up going to fairs; they were the province of children's fiction to me. All I knew about fairs was that there would be fried foods and thrill rides of questionable safety and contests ranging from biggest pumpkin to fattest pig to who could eat a whole pie the fastest; thanks, EB White. So when Scott basically dragged half our dorm to the Eastern States Exposition my freshman year, well, I fell in love.

Every time I went, we'd spend the majority of our time eating our way through the State Houses. Comparing clam chowders between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, comparing lobster rolls between Maine and Connecticut, eating all the maple sugar candy from Vermont, blueberry everything and loaded baked potatoes from Maine, the Finnish pancakes from Massachusetts, frozen lemonade from Rhode Island to wash it all down, along with cider and cider donuts and fried dough and kettle corn and fudge everywhere. (And of course, apple pie with cheese!) I don't think I could do a full 12 hour day there anymore, but when we went back in college and postgrad, we spread all of that eating across the entire day, and that gave us time to digest enough to go on spinny rides and not barf :)

Fast forward more than a decade since the last time I managed to make it out to Western Mass during the Big E, and the algorithm keeps showing me fair food from the Minnesota State Fair, the most recent post from Molly Yeh included. Even though my phone hasn't left the state of California since May, and the last time it was in Minnesota was over five years ago when we visited the SPAM Museum on our way across the country.

I strongly suspect it's because there was a week in August where everybody was talking ALL HOTDISHES ALL THE TIME. I knew about hotdish before that; I did date a Minnesotan, after all, and then Molly Yeh brought them into the broader cultural consciousness (at least in my foodie circles). There's even the Hot Dash in March every year where there's a hotdish festival at the finish line!

So now there's been an even more mainstream Hotdish Revival, thanks Tim Walz. Even if the ones I'm finding more intriguing are, like, Samosa Chaatdish. Or Little Moga-Hot-Dishu. Or Molly's Chinese Hotdish. Or this Tater Tot Hotdish Bowl with kimchi and bossam, though of course if I were going to turn it back into a proper hotdish of course there would be rice involved. Or Hot Tot Berbere Tater Dishinator (scroll down to Keith Ellison's contribution). Though I am not yet seeing a Filipino-inspired hotdish, peeps, does this mean I have to figure one out myself? Or a Hmong Hotdish, from Yia Vang of Union Hmong Kitchen and Vinai.

Which brings me back to drooling over the New Foods List for the fair, burnishing its reputation every year, best known for how over-the-top chefs go to make the most delicious, talked-about fair food item. I'm looking at you, "smoked sausage slices wrapped in bacon, filled with cream cheese and drizzled with barbecue sauce," the kettle-chip ice cream sandwich, the sweet corn cola float. But I'm also delighted to see:

• Union Hmong Kitchen's mov nplaum ntshaav (Hmong grilled purple rice) with nqaj nyuj qhaa (traditional shredded beef) on a stick (the real spirit of fair food) from the aforementioned Yia Vang


• the native fusion manoomin and nixtamal with wóžapi and bison meatballs (you've got Ojibwe, Lakota, and Mesoamerican influences in one dish)


• the bánh mi and lobster roll éclairs (I'm wondering how well choux pastry stands up to the heft I usually associate with their respective sandwiches)

And lutefisk bao?! I will bring my empty stomach and a Game Plan next year, Minnesota!

Happy belated birthdays, hotsauce and stevieg!

SO GORGEOUS OUT ALL WEEKEND. So glad to spend this time out in the sunshine with people I love. :)

- aforementioned shindig to celebrate david_grana defending his dissertation

- hosting a barbecue Friday night! Learning *how to* actually go about barbecuing, thanks to the visiting rustnroses. ;) jennifer and david_grana brought over Brawl; stevieg and elyssa joined up in time for ice cream at Christina's. :)

- hyounpark wakes me up Saturday morning with, "It's absolutely gorgeous out, let's go have lunch at Judie's!" Judie's is out in Western Mass. We have to be back in Allston for Seder at 5:30 pm. We drive out anyway. Viva Pioneer Valley Food Runs ;)

- richenza has reset the bar for Seder food rather high. *g*

- Her friend T. makes really freakin' funny faces; when I have resolved camera-computer issues, I may share some of those expressions. ;)
- Not enough yarmulkes, so the two rabbis' sons in the room declared the roof a blessed head-covering for all of us. *ggl*
- We failed to MAAAAAAA at fractalspackle this year during Had Gadya. :(
- craftattack_rss made horseradish jelly, which was actually pretty damned good. I'd eat it on all other nights.
- The Manischewitz shots *bounced*. Next year, we'll go one better - make them in Star-of-David cookie cutter molds, so we'll have properly Jewish Jello Jigglers for Pesach Time.
- sandboxdiva was the only newbie this year and thus the only one required to eat gefilte fish, though amusingly enough, said fish is popular enough that we actually didn't have enough. Buh?
- No, you can't have Peanut Butter Pesach Time if you're Ashkenazi and observant. ;)

- Brunch at Z Square Sunday morning before mrieser went back home to DC. Making horrible duck puns on a "Make Way For Ducklings" postcard being sent out to an absent friend.

- Bestowing cider donuts from Atkins on rustnroses, knowing she had a six hour drive to be endured.

- Puttering around Cambridgeport yesterday afternoon - finally dropped that book off at jennifer's that I've been meaning to for awhile; visited with jpallan and acerbic and camieal for awhile and had girly time that resulted with me learning how to put my hair up in a French twist.

- Second Seder at Craigie Street Bistrot last night. YUM. When local asparagus comes in, I am so duplicating the asparagus dish I had last night; I'll just need to learn how to make gribenes. Which tasted rather like chicharones (fried pork skin, about as nonkosher as you can get!) to me. *ggl* (noghri and other local hungry Jews, they are offering a vegetarian version as well - don't know if they've still got spaces open for tomorrow, the other night they're doing this, but if you've got the time, it's well worth it. :) )

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I've also gotten to catch up with many others this weekend via the amazing device known as a cellular telephone. Dear self, stop being neurotic about thinking you're interrupting your friends' lives and being intrusive when you want to call. And also worrying about not being a conversationalist. Srsly.

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7/2/23: It is so delightfully fun reading between the lines here, with the secret hyounpark and I would be holding onto for a few more days. Mostly at my request, because there were people I definitely wanted to tell in person, or at least on the phone, before going public. But "let's go to Amherst for the day!" "Um, we have to be back for Seder and Chris found Passover Coke in Brookline so I was about to go meet him ..." Ha!

And then glowing, glowing, beaming at each other, sitting through most of the seder with the new sparkly on my finger waiting to see who would notice first if I was subtle enough. (My memory says Steve was the first to notice, quirking an eyebrow and wistfully smiling at me, but Micha was the one who, basically as soon as we were two cups in and dinner had been served, went, "Do you possibly have some news to share?" :D Though it's been long enough my memory might be mistaken!) Seeing more friends at Z Square Sunday morning who hadn't been able to make it to the seder the night before; squealing with them. More girly squee with the spr0tties; Heather shrieking as I ostentatiously handed her a bag of cider donuts with my left hand and she noticed the new adornment.

It was a good weekend. :)