you may or may not recall that my friend bev is crazy about entering stuff in the state fair. she used to stick to baked goods and other foodstuffs, but then she branched out into other things, like collections of…i can’t remember the collections she says she’s been entering, except that on saturday she called me to see if we had any animal-shaped salt and pepper shaker sets, because she wants to enter them maybe next year.
this year bev entered eight things in food, and four of them placed, four did not. i don’t know if any were first place winners; i’ll have to find them for myself when we go to the hobby building.
these were all things she had to enter before the start of the fair, but then she also entered or will enter things for the different specialty contests. a few years ago she got first place for some kind of butterscotch somethings, and last year she won for some kind of pizza; i think it was a pizza she’d never even made before. bev is very creative and also takes risks, state fair-contest-entry-wise.
this year she was going to enter the SPAM contest. i called her one day and left her gobs of great suggestions for tasty SPAM creations, like spam flambee, spam cookies, and spam shakes.
she didn’t take any of my suggestions, though. instead she created SPAMTASTIC turkey tetrazzini. she said she used her turkey tetrazzini recipe, which she LOVES, but instead added turkey spam instead of regular turkey. SHE DIDN’T EVEN TASTE THE COMPLETED DISH before rushing it out to the fair yesterday afternoon. entries had to be submitted between two and three, and she got there just before the deadline so it would be piping hot. because who would want to taste lukewarm spam tetrazzini?
last night she returned to see the results and they read off a bunch of numbers and she was chagrined because hers wasn’t listed. but then she realized they were reading off the JUNIOR numbers…and then they read off the winners – third, second, and first place – AND SHE WON!!!!! WHOO, BEV! WAY TO GO!!!!!
afterwards she really wanted to take some of her award-winning tetrazzini home with her to eat, but since nobody else was doing that, she didn’t. she said now it’ll just sit there in the case looking more and more yucky as the days go by.
she got a hefty cash prize and i said DO SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF WITH THE AWARD! YOU DESERVE AT LEAST A NICE MEAL OUT OR SOMETHING!
she said she’ll probably use it to fix her basement.
so if you happen to see bev, tell her to GIVE HERSELF A TREAT! because of all the people i know, she does that less than anybody.
we went to the fair on sunday morning to see the chickens, because they don’t hang around for the whole run of the fair. i wasn’t going to take any pictures because i took lots of them in years past, so i didn’t even take my camera. but then as i was walking around i started taking pictures with my phone and then all of a sudden i had taken yet another whole gob of them. i can’t resist photographing the chickens.
here’s the FEMALE GRAND CHAMPION CHICKEN. she’s probably not nearly excited about her blue ribbon as bev was about hers, plus what’s a chicken going to spend the money on anyway?
chicken feed.
a big black champion.
these two ENORMOUS CHICKENS look like they’re doing a synchronized move. tandem feeding competition.
this was the BIGGEST CHICKEN EVER.
this one, not a champion, was a curious chicken. he came marching up to the bars of the cage to look at me.
i love the feathers of this one. so many of the chickens had fabulous feathers.
here are some of the more splendiforous plumages. they remind me of one of the costumes nearer the end of “priscilla, queen of the desert,” when i think the guys were dressed as some kind of australian birds.
i imagine these four champions are conferring about pooling their winnings and taking a trip to vegas.
this chicken was SO TIRED that he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
mom wondered how they judged the chickens, and here was a contest. that kid second from the left kept running something loud up and down the cage, trying to get the chicken to do…something. the guy on the far right was more zen-like. there were three judges sitting there watching, and there were drawing some squiggly lines down their papers. maybe they were just doodling, hard to say.
in addition to the chickens, there were also ducks and geese on display. i didn’t see if there were any champion waterfowl, because i didn’t like to see them in cages. chickens seem to be used to being in cages, but a duck should be swimming. i don’t think there are domesticated ducks. one of them was all alone in his cage and kept pacing around and didn’t seem very steady on his feet and i just wanted to SET HIM FREE.
these black ducks were clearly planning their escape.
we didn’t see anything except the poultry in the orr building on sunday morning. it was still very hot outside, so we got our hands stamped to come back later.
that’s all for right now because it is beautiful and cool and delightful outside and it’s time to GO FOR A BIKE RIDE.
ok then,
tuesday morning grace.