self-portrait with two first ladies 4

Friday night, Matt and I played tennis, then had dinner at Bali. You never really hear much about that place, but it’s fantastic, both food and drinks.

Afterwards, we went to achieve a long-planned supernerdy mission: The Douchebag Pub Crawl. (If you play Foursquare, you’ll understand.) We went to Sneaky Pete’s, NBA City, and Gameworks, but totally didn’t get our badges. SIGH. At least we got to shoot some zombies.

Afterwards, we made up for all the douchebaggery by going to Bradstreet. I know I’ve told every single one of you how unbelievably awesome that place is, and obviously you’re not listening since you haven’t been yet. You are missing out, big time. As tempting as it may be, don’t order off the menu.

We got home late, of course. In the morning, my leftovers from Bali made a spectacular brunch. We watched the Arsenal/Man U game, which made Matt very angry. You know, in the way he gets angry at sports for all of 5 seconds.

Then I baked some bread, because we were out.

Around 2pm, we headed to the fair with the rest of the state of Minnesota. It was insanely crowded, and usually cold. That keeps the smell down, at least!

A lady watching the butter sculpting was drunkenly raving about what they might do with the butter once the fair was over. Pancake fiesta! I pretended to be engrossed in photography so I didn’t have to have a butter-based conversation.

At the International Bazaar, we had beer on a stick. I’m not a huge fan of Summit (their beer; I do appreciate the fact that they’ve donated stuff to us for 3-Day fundraisers!), but the beer on a stick was too much of a novelty to pass up.

Tipsy on just that much beer, we went to find my blanket and its ribbon. Exciting!

The creative activities building is fascinating. I like that you can have award-winning bread. Or cookies. Or vinegar.

I suspect I could hang with a few of my recipes; I’ll consider that next year.

I’m not sure if they intentionally make it so goofily photogenic, or if that’s just orderliness.

We stopped at the Pastamore booth to try the balsamic vinegar samples. The people working there wondered how we’d heard about them, so we told them about Heavy Table. They were so thrilled to know about it that they gave us a discount on our purchase: aged balsamic, pomegranate balsamic, and lemon-infused oil. They were pretty great.

We visited all the buildings along the east end of the fair, then circled back so Matt could try the sunnies in a boat, and the maple soda. He chose to represent for Pronto Pups, even though he didn’t actually eat one.

The crowds on machinery hill were at least not so terrible. Heading back towards the heart of the fair, we were floored at the number of people there, all of them walking about half a mile per hour.

In the middle of the fair, previously unbeknownst to us, we found Fan Central. All the local sports teams besides the Twins had big displays inside. We were thrilled.

We went to the Wolves counter to buy tickets to the Cavs game (LeBron and Shaq inside Target Center at the same time? I might die of awesome!), and they took so long figuring out how to place the order that they ended up giving us a couple free tshirts in apology. We were just excited to get those tickets plus a pair to another game for half price. We then wandered around the other teams’ booths, then headed over to visit the Gophers building.

After a stop for corn fritters, that is.

Sadly, the U of M ticket office had an incorrect version of the season ticket waiting list, so I was unable to check my standings this year. It’s become more of a joke than anything; I don’t really need season tickets, but I suppose I’ll buy them when I’m finally eligible at 90 years old. It’s cheaper that way.

We had beergaritas. They were alright. Mostly we just had to have beergaritas. How often do you get that chance?

We paid the obligatory visit to the crop art, of course. It’s as bizarre as always.

Afterwards,  I had the chickpea roti from Harry Singh’s, and Matt had the pig cheeks from Famous Dave’s. Then we took the Skyride to the other side of the fair to see the Wailers.

It was freezing; for someone who’s cold all the time anyway, I was way too underdressed in a light hoodie, capris, and flipflops. But there was awesome reggae, and a great crowd. It was really amazing to see them. It reminded me of why we were so struck by Jamaica: that irie stuff is no joke.

We took the bus back to the U, drove home, and got about half an hour into Ronin before we were passing out on the couch. Many hours in the cold = sleepy, apparently.

Sunday morning, we got up and made another awesome breakfast. I had an omelette made with callaloo and mushrooms, and a piece of toast from the bread I’d baked. Then we headed to Canterbury for the last day of racing!

For the first time this season, I actually won on a couple races. I ended up only $3 down on the day, instead of the usual $20. We got to sit in the sun and enjoy what’s probably one of the last nice days of summer.

We came home, and I picked a bunch of green beans from the garden. I mixed up beer batter and we fried them, then got to work on chiles rellenos. I was a little worried that Matt might not like them, but he did. My first two weren’t great, but the second batch was pretty much perfect. We ate them with the salsa I made the other day.

Then we watched poker, and suddenly it was time for the weekend to be over. Sigh. Thankfully, it’s only a few days til CAMPING!!

P.S. You can see the rest of my fair photos on Flickr!