One Day In August

The only reason we come to this thing every year is for Sweet Martha’s Cookies. They’re the most decadent and chewy chocolate chip cookies served in an overfilled gallon sized bucket. It’s the only food you would ever want straight out of the oven in ninety degree weather. We have to stand in line for ten to fifteen minutes just to order the bucket and to saunter off with chocolate nonchalantly dripping down our chins and into the crescents of our nail beds. One can’t just get a bucket of Sweet Martha’s first thing upon entering the gates of the state fair. The mountain of cookies must be eaten immediately to whittle it down far enough for the lid to close before walking long distance, but did anyone really want to rush eating the ooey-gooey, delectably soft cookies that just fit oh so perfect in your mouth? Absolutely not. My family has a routine. We make our way to the fried pickles stand to get our hands on the crispy golden medallions first. They are served so hot they deserve the undivided attention from those who desire them. The first bite burns. The crust of the pickle is lightly spiced with cayenne to open the taste buds in preparation for the crisp, steaming, sliced-pickle inside. With a generous dip into a side cup of ranch it cools down momentarily before melting the sauce into a dripping mess. It’s a flavor bomb in your mouth and despite the piping hot contents no one ever finishes the pickles more than twenty feet from the stand. After the pickles we desperately try to clean ourselves with water and napkins before weaving through the thousands of people in the crowd. We search for the lemonade stand that makes its way into the coupon book every year. It’s a classic. Freshly squeezed lemons churned with sugar water so well measured it’s hard to believe they make the deliciously sweet and tart drink to order. We see the bright yellow sign lit up like an arcade game and buy the biggest size at the window. We take turns gulping it down en route to our next destination: the deep fried candy bar booth. This one is more for mom, who talks about it year round. The time had come for us to get her the godforsaken Snickers bar. At first glance it’s reminiscent of a corn dog covered in snow-white powdered sugar but inside of it houses a delicious lava surprise of milk chocolate, caramel and peanuts. It’s so rich we can only buy one to share but sometimes we dare to try the fried Oreos or Reese’s Cups as well. The Minnesota state fair takes up many blocks; it’s basically the size of a small city. It has its own roads and signs. The stands are built to stay; they shut down when the fair is over but do not move. Going to the grounds any other time of year would be like entering a vacant amusement park or mall where everything is omnisciently set up for crowds of people not there. Everything about this experience is specially curated for a once in a lifetime memory and when everyone gets to flood through those gates it truly does not disappoint. We meander through the crowds passing the birthing center where a dozen cows, chickens, pigs, rabbits, goats and ducks have given birth. We pass fun houses, the giant slide, arcades, roller coasters, the bazaar, every radio station the state of Minnesota could possibly broadcast and of course food courts. We get our favorites as we make our way through them: greasy, salty cheese curds from the notorious Mouse Trap stand that serves a single $6 order from a conveyor belt. These take the longest for us to finish at the fair. If you eat them too fast there’s a couple guaranteed bathroom stops in your near future. And what kind of state fair food court visit would it be without going to Axel’s for bull bites? Despite Axel’s being a famous restaurant outside of the fair serving bull bites literally every day of the year, we have to eat something respectable and recognizable to our stomachs: cajun seared beef tenderloin tips with a bearnaise dipping sauce. The steak is so tender it falls apart with one bite but makes you chew until it’s baby food to get every lick of flavor. The bearnaise sauce is just the cherry on top to the savory treat, adding a salty and creamy texture to the spiced bites. We pop them into our mouths one by one relishing in the delightful juices. Once the bull bites are gone we usually need something sweet again and this time it’s just for me. My family orders a funnel cake from the stand next to Axel’s to eat on our way to the marshmallow shaped booth with a graham cracker roof. Not a lot of people visit the Smore’s booth which makes it more special for me. With $4 from my mom I get my smores served in a delicate, silver, foil package fresh from the oven. Unfolding the foil feels like Christmas and the first bite like getting what I asked for. The marshmallow is always melted all the way through. It’s sticky yet delicate. The chocolate — warm and oozing into the creases of my face. I finish it quickly but it’s enough to satiate me until next year. At this point we take a break for rides and shopping, maybe taking time to get more lemonade because water is boring, this is the state fair! We might even experiment with some alligator on a stick or a pot roast sundae along the way. When the routine is basically completed we make the grandiose descent to Sweet Martha’s Cookies. The line never lets up, even with ten registers open the stand is bombarded with people all day. This doesn’t phase us, or anyone, because once you get your hands wrapped around that warm bucket it’s only a matter of seconds before any grievance you had completely disappears. At the register there are sheets of cookies, probably holding fifty small circles of joy, appearing and disappearing as buckets of cookies are being filled at lightning speed. Behind the counter are racks of trays continuously going in and out of the giant ovens with someone hand delivering a fresh tray to each register almost every thirty seconds. Mixers the size of humans blend the secret recipe on a superfluous but mesmerizing display for all to see. At the register they use a special scooper, something shaped like a triangle with a closed tip so they can slide almost ten cookies using the side and funnel them into the bucket from the tip. They fill each bucket until the cookies fall off and it can’t hold anymore: it is one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen. One of my greatest pleasures with being lactose intolerant is being able to hold the bucket of cookies while my family held their paper cups filled to the brim with ice cold milk. That first bite always belonged to me but the cookies have always represented the desire to share. After that long wait it was almost impossible not to. We’d cross the street to find an empty space on the curb, stepping on the lost but not forgotten cookies that didn’t make it. At the end of a long day of eating and playing we finally sit with our cookies, passing the bucket between us deciding if it’s really time to leave. But once the bucket has seceded far enough for the lid to fit we know it’s time and our day-long food extravaganza will come to an end, for this year.