Head, heart, health, and hands

It's Fair Week around these parts, and tomorrow and at least one other day this week, I am going. It's a summer ritual I look forward to: taking Audrey to ride the kiddie rides, checking out the vendors in search of freebies (yardsticks, fridge magnets, balloons), looking at the animals and other projects the local 4-Hers have spent so long working on...

Oh yeah...and EATING.

My title for this entry (which is what the 4 Hs of 4-H stand for) is ironic, because the food at the fair is going to get me in trouble with all of these. It will make my hands greasy and sticky; it will fill my heart with cholesterol; it will generally endanger my health because of the weight I will gain; and it will mess with my head because at the end of the week, when I look at the scale, I will be thinking, "DOH! Did I really need that second elephant ear?"

And if you don't know what an elephant ear is, my friends, I'll tell you: it's a deep-fried, sugar-coated ticket to Weight Watchers. Here are some other things I'm looking forward to indulging in:

• Fried veggies (onion rings, peppers, broccoli, and mushrooms...at least they are veggies!)
• Apple dumplings (and YES I WILL have ice cream on top)
• Ribeye sandwiches
• Lemon Shake-Ups (this is not the same as lemonade...no way.)
• Roasted sweet corn
• Deep fried Snickers bars

What? Oh, you have never HEARD of deep-fried Snickers bars? I hadn't either, until they made their first appearance here a couple of years ago. Yes, it's decadent. Yes, it's redundant. Yes, it's got about 10 million calories and probably ten thousand grams of fat. But you have not lived until you've tasted one.

If Snickers aren't your cup of tea, then you might try a deep-fried Twinkie instead. I haven't (so I can't tell you what THEY are like), because there is no CHOCOLATE in a Twinkie, so why waste all those calories and fat? I think I have even heard tell of deep-fried Oreos, but have not run across them.

YET.