Ah, the end of summer… time for the annual “Erin eats her way across the Minnesota State Fair post.” And so, without further ado, the foods I ate on Friday were:

• A sarsaparilla custard float… think root beer float, but with sarsaparilla and frozen custard
• State Fair French Fries… an annual tradition and favorite of my mother’s
• Hotdish on a Stick (see photo)… this might be the most quintessential State Fair Food I have ever eaten. Take a stick and make a kebab of meatball, tater tot, meatball, tater tot, etc. Cover it in corn dog batter and deep fry it. Serve with cream of mushroom sauce. It was delicious.
• All-I-Could-Drink-Milk… only three glasses this year. I think they’ve gotten bigger. Plus, we screwed up our ordering and went from here to the Dairy Barn, where my stomach refused to let me order a milkshake. Sad, because those are the best milkshakes in the world.
• Stuffed Olives on a stick… onion, garlic, pimento, sun-dried tomato (given away due to allergies), and a jalapeno
• Honey taffy… actually, I’m still eating that as I brought a bunch home.
• Deep fried cheese curds… Quite possibly the most unhealthy thing I look forward to all year. Yes, you can get cheese curds in Wisconsin, but can you get them deep fried?
• Deep fried macaroni-and-cheese on a stick… you think we’d be all cheese-on-a-stick’ed out at this point, but no.
• A sample of some organic-all-natural-whatever cheese from the environmental building… it was good, but a little too healthy for the fair.
• A Happy Dog Meal… okay, I didn’t eat this. But we did buy one for Cooper. It included “french fries” which smell remarkably like real french fries, a “mini-bacon cheeseburger,” a “bacon bone,” a “cheese biscuit,” a “cheesy chicken wrap,” and a “peanut butter cannoli.” (Okay, in actuality, these were all flavored dog biscuits.)
• Chocolate-Vanilla twist frozen custard in a cone… This was to make up for the lack of a milkshake.
• A lingonberry sno-cone… A good refreshing palette cleanser after a solo trip on the Sky Ride (because my sister refused to go).
• Sweet Martha’s Cookies… two buckets of them. Mmmm… delicious with ice cold milk.