Friday, September 27, 2013

Big Eating at the Big E


On Monday, three of my friends and I ventured up to the Big E, the biggest and best fair in New England. Sure, they have rides there. And livestock. And crafty things for sale. But what we really go for is the food. The glorious, deep-fried, salty, sugary food. I took pictures of some of the things we ate throughout the day and thought I'd share them here with you.

First up, my most favorite thing of all. The fried cheese curds. These are the first thing I have to have when I go there, and this year, they were the last thing too. Yes, we ate them twice. And got called out on it by the girl at the cheese curd stand. Poor form, lady. Don't judge your customers for loving your food so much that they order it twice.


Now we have some kettle corn from the New Hampshire house. It's just so freakin good. Even better when you manage to get a bag of still-warm, freshly made corn. YUM.


Confession time: for the first two and a half decades of my life, I didn't eat maple syrup. I have no earthly idea why. It is one of the four main food groups, after all. I just thought I didn't like it. Then I think at some point I suspected that I probably did like it, but figured I eat enough crap already that I didn't need another sugary delight added to my list of personal kryptonites. Then, maybe three years ago, I gave in. I tried it and I loved it. Now I can't get enough of maple anything. Not just maple syrup, but maple bacon. Maple porter. Maple candy. And this, maple cotton candy. It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!


Connecticut has the best house at the Big E. All the most magical stuff is there, although this year it was lacking the place with all the chocolate-covered things, including bacon. Major fail. But it did have this, maple bacon ice cream. Sooo good. I also had a sample of their pumpkin pie ice cream and that was pretty incredible too.


Also in Connecticut is this amazing pizza, which I had for the first time at the Big E two years ago. This peanut butter bacon provolone pizza has been added to our annual list of must-haves. It's so different, and so good, that I've recreated it twice at home. Stay tuned for a post on that in the next few weeks!


At this point, I was getting pretty thirsty, and right outside the Connecticut house was a stand with freshly made cherry limeade! I LOVE Sonic's cherry limeades, and while this wasn't carbonated like Sonic's version, it was pretty darn good.


I freakin love donuts. Love them. The Vermont house has apple cider donuts. Other years, we've gotten lucky and gotten a bag of donuts when they're just freshly made and still hot. This year, they weren't as fresh, but they were still tasty.

 

Next up is something we only had a sample of, but it was awesome. A pulled pork parfait. Normally, it would definitely be an item I would want to buy and eat a lot of, but I already had my eye on another pork item, which is coming up shortly. As delicious as this was, I'm glad I didn't fill up on it so early in my eating day.


A staple at any fair is the corn dog and at the Big E, there are two options - the 6 inch and the footlong. My lovely corn dog models:


We needed a quick break from all the fried food, so it was time to stop at the Pickle Barrel. Giant half sour pickles, with lots of garlicky goodness. So delicious. And zero WW points!


I didn't try this next thing because I don't like bananas, but the Baconana was one of the new items this year and one of my friends was really excited to try it - a frozen banana coated in chocolate and rolled in bacon. Unfortunately, she said it was underwhelming and not what she was expecting.


Another new item was the deep fried strawberry shortcake. This stuff was Good. I would love some right now, actually. I can't really tell you how it was made, but whatever they did, they did it well.


My final picture is of the new item I was most looking forward to - the Three Little Pigs: spicy pork sausage, pulled pork, and bacon on a six-inch grinder. It was everything I wanted it to be and more. I washed it down with a cold Hofbrau Hefeweizen and couldn't have been happier.



It was another successful year at the Big E. I managed to eat my fill, but without overdoing it TOO much. It's probably a good thing that the Big E only happens once a year, but I'm already looking forward to next year's adventure!

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