NC State Fair 2010

It's time for the North Carolina State Fair! Between the State Fair and the Renaissance Fair, fall is one of the best times of the year. Once the weather breaks and the sweltering heat stops, it's time to eat to your heart's content, hit the rides until you feel sick, win some prizes, then start all over again. The newest feature at the website is that you can search for any of the rides/games/food that you want. That way you can build a map of all the places you want to go on your visit. If you are iPhone-inclined, they also have an app for that. Here are my favorite food finds from this year's fair:


We started the day light with an ear of roasted corn. The ears are roasted en masse until the husk is charred. They are served up plain or dipped in melted butter. Then you have your choice of various toppings, including but not limited to salt, pepper, lemon-pepper, poultry seasoning, Parmesan cheese, and mayonnaise. The corn tastes great and it may be one of the healthiest items you find at the fair, certainly the only one that came directly off a plant.


Chocolate-covered bacon was a big hit at last year's fair and it is back and as good as ever. The bacon itself is crisp and salty-sweet. It is dipped in a thick layer of good chocolate, then topped with sprinkles or other decorations. It is a little expensive for a single piece of bacon, but you won't be complaining once you bite through the chocolate shell. Just be sure to get your bacon from Steph's Strawberries as some of the other versions fall short on Steph's level of quality.


GGB of Raleigh has their first stand at the fair, selling the world's largest gummies. They are famous for their 5lb gummy bears and now offer a variety of other treats including a 3lb gummy worm that is about 2 feet long, gummy shot glasses, gummy tongues, and smaller 1lb gummy bears on sticks that come in about 10 flavors. Unfortunately, my stomach did not let me try these intriguing confections, but if you can find some friends to share, this would be a great novelty.


One of the most intriguing new offerings at this year's fair are Koolaid pickles. Before you gag at the thought, hear me out. The vendors take a jar of Mt. Olive bread'n'butter pickles, dump out the brine, and put in some red Koolaid. The outside of the pickles is a bright red color, but the interior of the pickle is that same odd shade of green. I've never been a fan of bread'n'butter pickles, but this version was actually quite tasty. The Koolaid sweetened the pickles up just a tad and made their flavor more interesting. If you're feeling adventurous (which you should be at the fair), buy a set of these pickles and see what you think. If all else fails, you can just throw them at one of the game stalls and see if you win a prize.


State Fairs from Texas to North Carolina are known for bringing the best and worst in fried foods. The Lone Star State takes the cake (or Twinkie) when it comes to fried food. Vendors compete for the best new fried food, inventing such odd offerings as fried Coca Cola, fried beer, and even fried butter. Many of these new ideas get to the NC State Fair, and the popular ones like fried Oreos become permanent parts of the menu.


Can a funnel cake be gourmet? Yes, yes it can. Funnel cakes have long been part of fairs. A batter is streamed into fry oil and allowed to cook until a puffed nest forms. Some vendors top them with a thick layer of powdered sugar. But the newest addition to this lineage is the gourmet funnel cake, coming in 6 flavors like apple and chocolate obsession (pictured above), which is a chocolate funnel cake topped with chocolate syrup, chocolate chips, powdered sugar, and whipped cream. It is truly decadent and very difficult to stop eating. One drawback of most funnel cakes is that after a few bites you're pretty much tired of the taste of fried batter, but these gourmet cakes keep you wanting more even after you've cleaned your paper plate.


The newest of the things-you-thought-they-would-never-fry category are the fried Chips Ahoy and the fried Honeybun. The Chips Ahoy, much like the fried Oreo, becomes much softer in the fryer, but it brings a lot less flavor than that chocolate cookie. All you end up with is a piece of fried batter surrounding some chocolate chips. The Honeybun, on the other hand, was marvelous. There is a lot of fried batter to get through with it, so it is best to split this behemoth. The Honeybun is heated in the frying process, making it taste absolutely delicious and wonderfully moist.


The last new item that is definitely worth mentioning was by far my favorite food at this year's fair. It is the *brace yourself* Krispie Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger. If it sounds gross, wait for it. Burger + bacon + random unnecessary toppings + cheese + 2 Krispie Kreme donuts = pure bliss. If you've ever had a McGriddle from McDonald's, this monster is very similar. It is mostly sweet with a bit of savory in the middle from the burger and cheese. The bacon unites it all (because let's face it, bacon is magical and can bring people together). Like many foods at the fair, I split this with a group of people, but this was the only food I was sad that I could only eat my share and not the entire thing. This burger was transcendentally wonderful and if you can't get to the fair to have one this year, you should make it at home.

The fair, overall, was a monumental success. Not only am I still an ace at the water-shooting games, but I went home feeling fully satisfied that I had eaten the best of this year's fair. If you live in the area and have time between now and Sunday, go to the fairgrounds. It does not matter if there are throngs of people. All that matters is that you have the chance to enjoy this unique slice of the American lifestyle.

Humble Pie

Late at night last week, we were a-wondering through parts of downtown Raleigh. We had no real direction, but our motivation was growling stomachs. After scoping out a couple menus, we ended up at Humble Pie. The restaurant has a huge letter H sign out front (which really just says H Pie). Inside is a casual, cozy atmosphere. The food overall panders to no one particular cuisine. We saw hints of Southern, Gulf Coast, Asian, Mexican, and others. This is what I think of as modern American cuisine: no flag-waving burgers or fireworks-shooting apple pie, but rather an amalgamation of the best of what the world has to offer. Pan-global would also be an apt term I suppose, but it's just not as catchy.


I ordered the oven roasted mahi mahi. The fish was cooked perfectly with a relish made of roasted red peppers and capers for that nice touch of brininess. It's odd that we don't want fish to be too fishy but we don't mind when it is salty like the ocean. As a more mellow accompaniment, there was a side of smoked gouda potatoes au gratin. I absolutely adore smoked gouda. I almost ordered this dish specifically for that cheese. And these potatoes did not let me down. They were creamy and buttery, with that smokiness perfusing every bite. I had a lot of fun eating this dish, bouncing between the smooth and the sharp flavors until it was all gone.


We also ordered the grilled andouille sausage. The sausage was very good with that fiery fattiness that we expected. Grilling the sausage brought out more of the smokey flavors. The roasted corn sauce helped you soothe your pallet a bit before biting into the surprisingly delicious jalapeno-cheddar bread pudding. My only minus for this restaurant is that the portions were a little small. We left feeling just about sated, but that soon passed as we walked around in search of dessert. We certainly enjoyed everything we ate at Humble Pie, though, and think it is a great restaurant that fits right in in downtown Raleigh.

NC State Fair 2009

This is the last weekend of this year's North Carolina State Fair. I just have to say that I love fairs. There's something about the atmosphere of fun, overeating and slight nausea that appeals to me. The theme this year is "A Whole Lotta Happy," which pretty much summarizes the constant euphoria I feel as I wander my way around the fairgrounds.




The State Fair always has a unique combination of disparate elements: fried foods & BBQ, slightly rigged games, rides with an okay safety rating, and a celebration of agriculture (pictured above). Every year, farmers compete to have the largest produce imaginable. The first picture shows pumpkins ranging from 221 pounds to the blue-ribbon-winning 376 pounds. If those pumpkins were made into jack-o-lanterns, I'd be afraid that they'd eat little trick-or-treaters. In the watermelon picture, the melon on the right in the foreground was about normal size, if not a little large, and the one of the left was just monstrous. The Japanese may be making square and heart-shaped melons, but we're making them the size of Godzilla. These giant sizes also extend to other squash. It is difficult to have some perspective from these pictures, but the butternuts in the back are the size of a large baby. Also at the fair were prize-winning sweet potatoes, snow peas, and apples, as well as Oreo cows, mules, mini-donkeys, cows for milking, sheep, a sow with her piglets, ducklings, and chicks. For city folk like me and my friends, this was a nice foray into the agricultural world so we can see not only where food comes from, but also the amazing power of selective breeding and genetics.



As they said in Charlotte's Web the movie, "a fair is a veritable smorgasbord." And whenever I go I do glut like Templeton the rat. If push comes to shove, the fair can be described in two words: fried food. I wish I new how to combine two photos into one, but for now the above pictures show what one stand was selling in terms of the deep-frieds. One problem about going to the fair is you cannot eat everything you want, otherwise your stomach might burst. One tip is to bring friends with you with whom you can "share" or "pawn off" your food.


For starters, we had to get some protein in us. One of my staples at any fair is the foot-long corn dog. There's something beautiful about a hot dog on a stick surrounded by cornbread and dipped into ketchup and mustard. The smoked turkey legs, if you can handle them, are also a must at least once in your life. They exude a delicious smokey flavor that you almost don't mind shoving your face into a huge piece of meat. But don't fill up on any one food as there is an entire world of flavors yet to be sampled.



Sweet potato fries are absolutely wonderful no matter where you get them. Other fried sides that have become staples are French fries, funnel cakes with any number of toppings (from cinnamon apples to maple syrup to chocolate), and elephant ears. Many stands just say they have "fried dough," and nothing could be simpler or sweeter than the warmth of sugary dough with some powdered sugar slowly melting on it.


Fried candy is one of my favorite items at the fair. Every year they unveil a new, wonderful fried food. This year's newest feature is fried Ho-Hos (pictured above bottom). They were pretty good, if not a little difficult to eat, but my favorite fried snack cake will always be the Twinkie with it's plume of warm vanilla flavor. Also pictured above are fried Oreos, which become softer after being fried and nearly melt in your mouth. Lastly is fried PB&J, which is, in reality, a fried Uncrustable, but that does not mean it was not one of the greatest things since fried sliced bread. Then again, I am a sucker for peanut butter. They also had fried cheeseburgers and fried pecan pie, both of which sounded good but a little too much for us to handle at that point in the day.


Keep your eyes open at the fair because there is food and fun to be had that most people don't see. On our way through the fair, we came across a stand selling apple fritters in an ice cream cone. Intrigued we bought some and they were marvelous. They were fried apple strips that tasted of apple pie in one bite.




Chocolate also has it's time in the limelight at the fair. Chocolate-covered bananas are a little difficult to eat because they are frozen first, but it was pretty good. I think they can't let the bananas get too ripe for fear of falling apart, but it still tasted good. Cheesecake also works wonderfully when dipped in chocolate and shoved on a stick. It helps that the cheesecake was from Cheesecake Factory, but the chocolate added another layer of sumptuousness. One note is that not everything at the fair is good. One over-popularized item was pig lickers (chocolate-dipped bacon). I think this suffered from a lack of trying: pre-cooked bland bacon covered in a lackluster chocolate sauce. The two flavors never actually melded. I may have to try this one at home just to show that it can be done.



Lastly, the local 4H clubs have competitions in many categories including sewing, canning and baking. Pictured above are some of the awesome cakes that were showcased, including the winning box-of-chocolates cake. I wish I had known about this when I was a teenager.

The state fair was, simply put, awesome. Word to the wise, do all the rides you want before you chow down on fried foods and play games before you leave so you don't have to carry a giant moon/banana around the park (what can I say? I'm just good at the water shooting games). If you've never been to a state fair, you've not enjoyed America at its best with deep-fried, capitalist, fast-paced fun.

42nd Street Oyster Bar - 7/30/2009

One of the first restaurants I tried when I visited the Triangle area over a year ago was the 42nd Street Oyster Bar on Jones Street in Raleigh. My mom heard about it somewhere and I've since grown to adore this restaurant. Before we even get to the food, let me describe the restaurant itself. There are three seating options: 1) a normal table, 2) a table at the full bar, or 3) at the oyster bar. If you want freshly steamed oysters, shrimp or mussels, you have to sit at the bar. Normally this would mean parties greater than 3 have some trouble talking since they're sitting linearly, but 42nd Street has a solution: booths that butt up to the bar. There's live music at night Thursday through Saturday. The restaurant can get a little full, but it's definitely worth it.


The first item you receive, often before you place your drink order, are these delectable hush puppies. The puppies come piping hot and have a slightly oniony taste to them. The sauce on the side is actually just straight-up butter, but the extra addition of fat is the perfect complement to the fluffy/crunchy puppies. They key is not filling up on the endless baskets of these fried treats.


As expected of an oyster house, the main attraction are the oysters. You can get them raw or, as above, steamed to varying degrees of doneness (Dad liked his medium-rare to make them slightly more solid). The oyster quality does not seem to change during non-r-containing months and none of the oysters leave you feeling cheated because they are too small. Most normal people will probably like the half-peck size, which is about 15 or so oysters. I was not familiar with the peck increment of measure, so I thought I would offer what advice I could. They also have fully steamed oysters with various toppings (including Rockefeller) and freshly prepared oyster stew. At the oyster bar, you can watch the stew prepared by a chef who cares for his creations as if they were newborn children.


My favorite dish to get is the seared ahi tuna special. The tuna is seared perfectly (mostly cold and ruby red on the inside while just barely warm on the outside) with sesame seeds and two sauces, one ginger- and the other wasabi-based. The sauces pack some great flavor but do not overwhelm tasting the delicate tuna. On the side, I picked rice, cooked with clam juice, and the cole slaw. I must mention that this slaw is the one that awakened my taste buds to eating slaw again. It is a perfect balance of creamy, sweet, vinegary, and crunchy. Another side I've had are the mashed potatoes which are some of the creamiest I've ever tasted (undoubtedly because they use cream and butter).

For those who prefer their seafood fully cooked, they have many other options including fried (with some very good calamari) and steamed. One special that I want to try next time I go is the cioppino, seafood cooked in a tomato sauce. 42nd Street clearly draws a good crowd, but I'm amazed at how few people know about it in my area of Durham, so take the trip to the capital for a great seafood experience.

Cooking, Baking, Restauranting...Pretty much just eating anything I can get my hands on - 6/29/09

What a week! I managed to do a lot of cooking and eating this week and I'm not sure where it all came from. Let's start with what I made first.


Lunch this week, as a continuation of my soup series, is chili con carne. The recipe was from Cooks' Illustrated. After browning chunks of beef, you cook some onions and bell pepper (or jalapeno). Then, you stir in some cumin, oregano and garlic, then water, beef, diced tomato, and minced chipotles in adobo sauce, simmering it for 1 hour covered, 30 minutes uncovered. At the very end, you whisk in some cornmeal into 1 cup of the chili, then whisk this mixture back into the soup, simmering it until it thickens up. I was very surprised by the consistency of this soup. Most chilis I've had contained beans, but this one omits them in favor of thickening the soup using the cornmeal. The chipotles in adobo are a very easy way to bring some heat and a nice smokey flavor without resorting to liquid smoke. The beef stayed tender and everything else seemed to melt together into the background flavor. This chili was both surprising and outstandingly delicious for something homemade.


Dinner this week is a chicken fricassee with some citrus flavors. Briefly, the chicken is seared, then some root veggies and citrus are cooked in the same pot. Tomato paste is added, then flour, then some chicken stock, orange and lemon juices, white wine, and honey. The chicken is added back in to finish cooking. On the side, you cook some potatoes and blanch some veggies (I chose yellow squash and Mediterranean zucchini). Oddly, you remove the original veggies and citrus, then thicken the sauce using an egg yolk and milk. All of this is combined again to yield the final produce. Everything tastes good, but the citrus disappears into the background. I think adding in some citrus zest in at some point could help make the flavors more bold. But this makes for a fine dinner. The citrus lightens the heavier chicken with its skin on. Plus, lemon and orange are the perfect flavors for the summer.


A great deal of the ingredients used in the foods above came from this week's CSA assortment: corn, blueberries, potatoes, onions, zucchini, squash, cucumber, tomato, and three kinds of melon.


For cake decorating this week, we learned more piping techniques, including some specific to birthday cakes. Since my lab did not have any birthdays this week, I went for an "I <3 Cake" cake. The cake was supposed to be flavored by rose water, but that flavor did not come out. Instead, the major players were the apricot jam filling and vanilla icing. Cake writing is a little difficult, by the way, if you don't have the right size tip for one, but also because you have one shot to do it right (sizing, spacing, shaping). And always, always, ALWAYS remember to spell everything correctly. Here are some examples of what can go wrong with cakes: Cake Wrecks.


The SO (significant other) did some cooking this week too that was quite astounding. It started with some pork that was combined with pureed pears and plums. To this was added some cream cheese, cilantro and hazelnuts, among other ingredients. Wrap it in a tortilla, stick it in a pan with cheese and more hazelnuts, and bake it in the oven. The flavors for this dish were definitely out of left field, but they all combined together for quite a sumptuous dinner. Add a side of fresh cucumbers and raspberries and a cup of dilled sweet potato soup, and you've got one killer dinner.


As for eating out this week, I remembered my camera for most of our meals. First up is Pepper's Pizza on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. This was the second time I ate at this restaurant, and I've enjoyed it both times. The pizza pictured is one we made ourselves. They have some great ingredients and pre-formulated options, but we were in a creative mood. Half of the pizza was Italian sausage with fresh garlic (fantastically garlicky without being overbearing...but then again I don't know if you can have too much garlic), and the other half was a NC-style Hawaiian using pulled pork and pineapple (a great variation on true Hawaiian with ham and pineapple). Plus, they have great music while you eat. While we were there, they were playing Michael Jackson's album Thriller to honor his untimely passing. If you want some non-traditional options for pizza and you're in the area, give Peppers a shot.


While in Raleigh, we hit up the Flying Biscuit. This restaurant serves delicious, truly Southern food (breakfast all day to boot). I ordered my first chicken-fried steak and what an awesome dish it was! The crisp outside juxtaposed against a moist and delicious cubed steak, paired with a wonderful gravy made me want to wrap myself in the steak and never leave. The green beans were a good side, though a little oily. The homefries were seasoned with a house ("moondust," I believe) seasoning that made these tubers really pop. In the midground (between foreground and background), you can see their biscuits, served with strawberry jam. True to their name, these biscuits are light, airy, but totally indulgent with some good saltiness to them. Lastly, in the background, you can spy their sweet tea, which is one of the sweetest you can find without any sugar at the bottom. The South has risen again at this wonderful restaurant. Word to the wise: if there is a wait for a table, the bar seats in a first-come-first-serve fashion, so feel free to grab a stool and enjoy your food while others are still waiting outside.


In the Chapel Hill Timberlyne plaza is a rare find: an Ethiopian restaurant by the name of Queen of Sheba. If you've never had Ethiopian, try to find a restaurant and give it a shot. This one was very good with great service. To start off, we had an Ethiopian soda (flavored with spices and honey) as well as a sweet tea that was also given some depth by some warm spices. We had the vegetarian sampler, which had yellow lentils, a pea flour sauce, tomatoes, green lentils, and potatoes in a horseradish sauce, all atop and with a side of injera, the sourdough-ish spongy flat bread. Everything was fantastic. I love having lots of options when I eat, and this was the best way to get that. All of the flavors melded with each other but could still stand alone. They have many meat options too for compulsive carnivores. To finish, I had a cup of Ethiopian coffee, supposedly made with some butter, sugar, and more spices. The coffee was positively black with a rich and bold flavor that lacked that bitter aftertaste of many coffees. Overall, it was a marvelous experience that could not be beat.