Minnesota State Fair 2023
This year I joined my Aunt Heidi, her husband Frank, Uncle Lance, Christa, and Eric for my first-ever visit to the Minnesota State Fair! To beat the traffic and get good parking we left to get there at 7 AM which is not a fun time to be awake on the weekends but we managed. Didn’t have much planned for the day other than checking out some new food items this year.
After getting our Pronto Pop breakfast in we went to Shanghai Henri’s to get the Crispy Lutefisk Steam Bun. For those Norwegians out there that had to try this horrible fish chemistry project at family holidays know to stay away from this stuff but I actually enjoyed it. Along with the Asian sauces was that pungent fish flavor that reminds you of dried fish or fish jerky. I know that sounds gross to most but I enjoy this weird stuff.
Needing a drink to wash down the lutefisk we ran over to the Schells booth to grab their Grainbelt Blu slushie. They power about a 3/4 of a pint of Grainbelt Blu and then top it off with a slushie making it a refreshing drink for a warm day that lets you be a kid again gulping down a slurpee. While walking around with our adult beverages we stumbled upon a pelts and taxidermy booth. I had to snap a picture of these cute guys in the canoe.
With full bellies, it was time to check out the vendors at the grandstand. It was fun to look at all the stuff but I’m unfortunately not in the business of buying overpriced knickknacks. I did catch a few laughs looking at comedic items that say “Ope!” and “You Betcha”. Took this picture outside of the grandstand with Lance on the left and Heidi and Frank on the right.
At one point I could feel my Norwegian ancestor calling me and from across the way, I spotted a Lefse stall. Knowing what I had to do I grabbed a couple with butter and white sugar to share with the others. Lance said my Grandpa Milo would be proud of me having Lutefisk and Lefse :).
Also, had fried gator bites that reminded me of chicken gizzards, and of course, I had to have a bucket of Martha’s chocolate chip cookies. Maybe I should retitle this blog food I ate at the state fair since that’s mostly all we did was eat lol. By the end of it we had walked about 8 miles and I snapped this picture as we were about to leave. You could tell everyone was getting tired! From left to right is Me, Frank, Eric, Christa, Heidi, and Lance.
