Jon loves fairs and wishes we could go to them more often, but they usually happen in August and it just doesn't fit in with the schedule. So when I heard that the Virginia State Fair was during the week of my birthday, and that we were asked to assemble an order for a special dinner at the fair, and that the dinner was on my real birthday an that we were invited as guests, I decided we should go.
The order was for lots of things that don't grow at this time of year, and we had to say no to most of the things they requested. I suggested that the next time the chefs should ask the farmers what was in season before they made their menus. But whatever. We saved and sorted out red onions, peewee potatoes (meaning the smallest potatoes we could find), beets, we dug some ginger special for this, we prayed that the basil would hold out into September, etc.
We haven't been to this fair since before we had kids, and I barely remembered anything about it. Jon has memories of the terrain, and the sheep dog demonstrations, and I do remember the dark and dusty display of melting vegetables with mysterious ribbons on them (how in the world do you judge a tomato or a handful of green beans?).
We walked all around the midway, looked at all the food options that have gotten fancier over the years, and more ethnically diverse. Still plenty of fried dough and deep fried stuff and cotton candy. We went to the barns and found not very much going on. No regular sized horses, no draft horses, no cows. A lot of very clean and fluffy goats and a whole row of snoring pigs.We wondered where everyone was. We found the row of vintage tractors -- which we love because we know some of those tractors very well. It amused us to see a rusty Farmall A with a blue ribbon on it. I guess we could enter any of our tractors, as they are, and they might get some recognition.
The other attendees were mostly schoolchildren, and some families, and a lot of retired-looking people. It was not Northern Virginia -- there were no Indian or Chinese or any kind of Asian kids. Not even a notable contingent of Central Americans. Just black kids and white kids. Really different from our part of Virginia. I loved seeing all the happy mixing and mingling and outright silliness of school kids.
Just because it would be something I would remember, I said I wanted to go on the Ferris wheel. Jon was surprised because I don't like leaving the ground for any amount of time, generally. Certainly not on a carnival ride, but also not on a boat or anything that moves differently from the earth I am standing on. It was perfectly fine, and Jon barely fussed about the expense at all. It was ridiculously expensive for five minutes of looking out over the fairgrounds, but I liked it.
About halfway through the day we went back to our car and had a good nap. We could do this because the tickets had been given to us, as well as the premium parking pass, so we weren't wasting our resources. It was free, and we needed a nap.
The best part of the day was the dinner, though. We were recognized at the door because we were wearing our spiffy PVF sweatshirts, they welcomed us warmly and gave us a little wristband. Contrary to what I expected, it was a walkaround and find your dinner kind of meal. There were chefs posted in different rooms of this mansion event space, plating their bite-sized offerings. It was a great way to eat a fancy meal, actually. You could have as much or as little as you want, you didn't have to make conversation with anyone, and it was all delicious. About half of the stations were wine or beer, so we missed out on about half the point of the dinner but that's okay. Our farm name was posted on these little signs that announced the chef and the ingredient source, so we introduced ourselves to the chefs that had used our basil and potatoes, etc. They were all very nice, saying appreciative things about the vegetables. One of them said, "you did a good job with the order." I thought that was funny. We had yummy fried rice, egg rolls, chicken salad sliders, pumpkin soup that Jon said didn't taste at all like pumpkin so he liked it a lot, tomato pie, roasted potatoes and beets, oysters, ice cream from the MooThru and the cutest little carrot cake cupcakes in the world.
It was a memorable way to spend a birthday and we got home to find that everything had gone exactly as planned while we were gone. Everyone did an excellent job doing all the work. That was the best present ever.
We did take pictures and when we remember how to post them, we will do that.
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