Fair Time!!

This week was county fair time here in Cusick, WA. Our tiny town in eastern Washington boasts the distinction of having the Pend Oreille County fairgrounds! So, of course, it's a big deal!! Our church has a booth at the fair that has free games for kids, like popping balloons with darts, and a bean bag toss. We give out lots of free candy and toys and also get a chance to tell the kids about our school-year time club, Awana. It is a lot of work and a lot of fun! While we're at the fair, I also sneak in a few entries. I have entered things in the county fair since I can remember! When I was growing up in Oregon, we always went to Clackamas County Fair and my siblings and I would enter everything from paintings and photographs to collections, flower arrangements, scrapbook pages and salt clay figurines! It was so much fun to go to the fair during the fair weekend and see our stuff on display (hopefully with a bright blue ribbon on it!). I still enjoy walking around our little county fair and seeing everything on display. Home-baked and hand-made items are special and unique, and of course, in a small town, you recognize a lot of the names and their tell-tale handiwork. This year was my first year ever entering baked goods! The day of entering, I had a blast in the kitchen whipping up a few of my most trusted and tried recipes. Our fair is very fun to enter things in, in part because they operate on the Danish system of judging, which means that you don't really compete against one another (except for special prizes), rather you are judged by a standard and awarded points, which add up to either blue (very good or perfect score), red (good), or white (needs work) ribbons. This means that your work must stand on its own merits and is also nice because you don't have to feel like you're in great competition with your friends and neighbors! Anyway, I have to brag a little and say that in both knitting and baking, I came away with eight blue ribbons and one red! I'm so excited. I hope to do more baking entries next year.

If you'd like to try them, my baking entries were:

Deep Dark Old Recipe Bran Muffins

Pumpkin Gingerbread

Snickerdoodles