Minnesota Fair Season

It's fair time in Minnesota! Where I grew up in central Minnesota, we had a great little county fair. I live in a much bigger town now but our fair here is pretty awful, which I attribute to our rocky terrain, therefore, a lack of a farming community here. This year I discovered that Barnum, which is in Carlton county just south of Duluth, has a fair very much like the one I remember as a child.

We traveled to the Barnum fair in mid-August, then to the Twin Cities for our state fair last week.

So now that we've seen the fairs of 2012, we've had the pleasure of seeing that despite the drought, there is a harvest happening somewhere out there. Though it has suffered and that we could see in agriculture entries at both the county and state level.

Here are some gems of the State Fair, including the Princess Kay of the Milky Way butter head sculpture, which is agreeably kind of odd and funny. But let me tell you, people love it! And if you're a fan of Cheese Curds, I know how to make them and you can find my recipe here!

We watched a demolition derby at the Barnum fair, which is basically bumper cars using real cars and the last car alive and running wins. It's insane! Our goal is to find the biggest, loudest demolition derby out there- preferably one where they serve beer. If you are aware of something that fits this description, let me know!

And we saw lots of beautiful farm animals; the thing we look forward to most at the fairs. Besides the food!

At the State Fair, we ran into some Grunzkes that I didn't know, recognizing them only because they had family shirts made for when they went through judging with their sheep! That was probably the most exciting part of our State Fair visit, which says a lot. Our State Fair is awesome. But we Grunzkes are a lively bunch and we get pretty excitable when we discover distant family that share our name.

I wrote a piece about the Minnesota State Fair and my experience in the 4-H program as a kid. The story is currently featured on the Daring Kitchen website. Here's a teaser and a link:

A Minnesota Tradition

It's an exciting time in Minnesota when we hit the dog days of summer. Our dog days are not defined by a period of lethargy. When we aren't mowing the lawn or squeezing in every possible drop of fun before the snow flies, we are bringing in the harvest. The county fairs are in full swing and we put in for our vacation days to migrate the short distance to our own state fair. The roots of farming and agriculture run deep here in Minnesota. It's no surprise our State Fair has grown to be one of the biggest in the country, 2nd only to Texas, with a current annual attendance of nearly 1.8 million people.

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Do you non-Minnesotans have any county or state fair traditions? Let's hear all about it!

State Fair Style Cheese Curds

My family just got home from a week in New Glarus, Wisconsin, where we toured their local vegetable stands, meat markets, and cheese shops. An award winning brewing company, Hoesly's Meats, Carr Valley Cheese...I could live there!

When at the Carr Valley Cheese retail store, we picked up a couple pounds of fresh cheese curds. They were addicting enough straight from the bag but as the Minnesota State Fair is right around the corner, we've had these deep fried cheese curds on the brain. That, and every cheese curd we ever order at a restaurant is a disappointment - and it's a food we tend to crave. The MN State Fair cheese curds are basically world famous, guessing, and are a ridiculous ideal to attempt at home so my hopes weren't real high. We combined some recipes found online with good cooking sense and came SO close...but of course nothing beats the real thing.

We fried our cheese curds in vegetable oil in a Dutch oven and it worked really well. The breading on these was a touch less greasy and crispy as the fair's-a tiny bit too bready for me. After freezing a batch of battered curds and frying them straight out of the freezer, we came even closer to the real thing. Next time, a bit less flour and baking powder, and perhaps we'll have a blue ribbon winner!

State Fair Style Cheese Curd Batter:

1 cup flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup flat beer (it doesn't have to be super light-we used a cherry wheat)
1 pound fresh cheese curds, at room temp
1 quart vegetable oil

Heat oil to 375 degrees in a deep pot on the stove*. Shake your cheese curds in flour, then shake them well to get excess flour off. They need a very light dusting.

Mix together your flour, baking powder and salt, then blend in the eggs and the beer until smooth. Dip each cheese curd in the batter, drain excess batter off, then drop into the hot oil (better yet, freeze solid and fry straight from the freezer). Cook in small batches - do not overcrowd the oil. Fry for about a minute, turning the curds around in the oil until they reach the dark golden color you're looking for.

Drain on paper towels and lightly sprinkle with fine salt. Serve immediately, and enjoy!

* To test the oil, place the tip of a wooden spoon handle directly into the hot oil (holding the spoon vertically so the end of the handle touches the bottom of the pan).  When your spoon handle sputters and bubbles in the oil, it's hot enough to fry in.  Don't worry, you won't burn your spoon.  If you try to fry your breaded cheese curds in hot oil and it is violent and the cheese oozes out of all sides of the batter and browns too fast, your oil is too hot.  You want a little oozing, but not a lot, and frying them straight from the freezer will help create a few of those oozy little crunchies.  If you place your breaded curds in the oil and they barely bubble, it's not hot enough.