Cheap Bastid Does Fair Food

Sometimes you gotta have a plan.  That’s what we had when we decided that yesterday (June 11) was the day we were going to the San Diego County Fair (except many of us still call it the Del Mar Fair). This is the day when Cheap Bastid does Fair food.

Yep, a plan.  A food plan.  We were going there to eat.  Yeah, yeah we wanted to check out the usual things like the Gem and Mineral Show and the Fine Woodworking Exhibition along with the Garden Show, all the commercial exhibits and of course the FFA and 4-H livestock show. 

But the star of the County Fair has become the food.  And that was our plan—how to optimize food without either going broke or having to waddle home like a couple of newly stuffed geese.

The morning of our adventure dawns.  Cheap Bastid and his beautiful bride, Mrs. CB get everything ready—starting with the special $4 tickets purchased at Albertson’s and good only on Tuesdays.  We debated whether to park 2 miles from the Fairgrounds for free at the “Horsepark” or to shell out the $10 to park at the Fair.  In decidedly “un-CheapBastid-ish” fashion we opted to spend the ten bucks.

But the real preparation was planning what to eat and when.  The big item this year is at “Chicken Charlies”.  It’s a sloppy-joe on a Krispy Kreme donut.  It’s been getting some press and sounds intriguing.  Nothing bacon—bacon is suffering from absolute over-exposure.  I have now relegated it back to where it belongs—breakfast and BLTs.  And nothing deep-fried.  I like my Snickers and Twinkies in their natural state.

So off to the Fair—each of us carefully dressed in comfortable athletic shoes, loose shirt and elastic waisted shorts.  The better to walk, move and expand.

The first lap of the fairgrounds is a scouting trip to mark our targets and identify places to sit, eat and people watch. Oops, I haven’t mentioned our “targets” yet.  We’re hunting for corndogs, cinnamon rolls, cheesecake on a stick and the aforementioned Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joe.  And…in military parlance, other targets of opportunity.

Halfway through we make our first eating stop of the day.  In total deference to Mrs. CB and her top priority we spend $6 on a slice of Frozen Cheesecake on a stick—covered in chocolate and coated in peanuts. 

Oh yeah!  This is good.  It’s cold and tasty.  Each bite gives you the flavor of the cheesecake, a taste of chocolate, a bit of graham cracker crust and peanut crunch.  Pure heaven.

Are we full yet?  Nope.  We’re sharing everything.  So what’s next?  Time for some more wandering around.  We love the midway.  Games and rides.  Tickets go for $.75 each.  Some rides take 10 tickets!  Geesh!  That would be a lot even at Six-Flags.

What’s next?  Hmmmm…we’ve been checking out the places for a corn-dog.  Mrs. CB’s passion at the fair is the cheesecake.  Mine is the obligatory corn-dog.  I’m checking size and price.  “Hot Dog on a Stick” is too little.  But right in the middle of the midway we spot corn dog heaven.  Hand-breaded.  At least 8 inches—and you can get a footlong too.  Mrs. CB points it out. 

The cacophony of the midway diminishes as I ease up to the window to order this holy grail of the battered weenie and fork over $5.  Oh yeah!  This is good.  I dip it in ketchup—yes I know that purists use mustard but I wanted just a bit of sweet to go with my delicacy on a stick.  All too soon the only thing left is the stick from which all excess batter has been gnawed.  Do I keep it as a souvenir or discard it?  With a casual flip of my fingers the stick disappears into a garbage can.  I jiggle just a bit to settle our second course of deliciousness in my stomach.

Now it’s time for the gem fair and fine woodwork exhibit.  These are always our favorite exhibitions of the fair and fortunately they’re side by side in the same building.  I love the exquisite skill and love that the woodworkers put into their art.  But we’ve got food to eat and fortunately the building where these 2 exhibits are located have the best restrooms at the fair.

We start to mosey back up the concourse when Mrs. CB says “I want one of those pretzels!”  She’s referring to a pretzel booth just outside the gem fair and woodworking exhibit.  OK.  So we turn back and approach the booth which is emitting the wonderful aroma of freshly baked soft pretzels.  There’s salted, sesame seed, garlic, cinnamon-sugar and jalapeno.  That’s a no-brainer!  Bring on the jalapeno!  Warm, soft, covered in melted parmesan cheese with jalapeno rings on the surface and nestled inside.  And it was huge!

OK, now I’m full.  And I know we’re not close to being done yet.  I’m full to the point that I just want to sit back and take a nap.  I should go over to the commercial building sponsored by Sleep Train mattresses and try out a memory foam mattress for an hour or so.  But no!  As they say in football—“stick and move”.  If we quit moving we’ll never find the holy grail of fair food.

So we keep moving.  Time to take in the commercial exhibits.  You trudge up and down aisles in 3 different buildings.  But that’s burning calories and helping process what we’ve managed to eat so far.  We people watch and look at the same displays that we’ve seen every time we’ve ever gone to the fair but which is always worth seeing again—from the Russian nesting dolls to the custom fitted toe-rings to the genuine hand-painted art just the right size to go over your sofa.

I’m still full so it’s on to the garden show and the Bonsai Tree exhibit.  We always check it out and I always think of Mr. Miyagi in the “Karate Kid II”.  Go figure.  What’s next?  We’re close to “Chicken Charlies”.  (I checked it out when we first got to the fair but the Krispy Crème Sloppy Joes weren’t ready yet).

I ease myself to the front of the line at Chicken Charlies and order the $8 sandwich.  For an item that’s being promoted on both TV and in the Food section of the paper it sure has a modest place on the menu.  It comes to me in a red and white checked wrapper.  This is certainly the best looking food we’ve ordered today.

We find a place to sit and try it out.  First bite you can definitely taste the donut.  And you get the sense that there’s something else.  The sloppy joe filling has little texture and little flavor.  All you can taste is donut.  The cheese isn’t melting because the sandwich is barely room temperature (or is that air temperature because we’re outdoors?).  It’s all sweetness.  We talk like a couple of judges on Chopped or Iron Chef.  “This needs a bit of acid to off-set the sweetness,” I say to Mrs. CB.  She agrees.  “Maybe a couple of pickle chips for crunch and acid,” she comments.  All I really know is that this $8 sandwich was a disappointment and that Cheap Bastid is totally confident that he could do it better.

What a bummer.  I was really looking forward to this much-hyped concoction.

But we now have our second wind.  The food has settled in our stomachs and we’re ready to go.  We stroll back to the main concourse, stopping but once.  We’ve just had something sweet.  But it was a sandwich.  Time for one of the other “must haves” on our list.  Cinnamon roll.  And there it is.  The cinnamon roll booth.  Sweet, gooey richness slathered with a cream cheese mess on top.  At $5.50 it’s a relative bargain.

Two forks and about 2 minutes is all it takes to make it disappear.  Now that was good!  We grin at each other and wipe the left over frosting from the corners of our mouths and then lick it off—you wouldn’t want to waste any of this!

We review our list.  Yep, we’ve managed to get all the way through it without any detours for French fries slathered in chili or a “bloomin’ onion” both of which fill you up so much that you can’t enjoy anything for the rest of the day unless you’re under 25.

Time to go?  Not yet.  We noticed that we’re not quite full.  Well, we’re full but we’re  not quite “roll me to the car and put me out of my misery” full.  So what are we going to do about it?

Cheesecake Round II!  Yes, we went back to the cheesecake on a stick booth and got another slice of our favorite County Fair delicacy.  Then we grinned at each other and started the slow trudge to the gate, found the car without much effort and drove home.  Satiated.  Full.  Grinning.  A grand adventure completed.  And that’s the day that Cheap Bastid does Fair food.

I did the math when I got home.  We spent $38 on food.  I figure that’s about a penny a calorie.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

That’s the Cheap Bastid Way:  Eat Good.  Eat Cheap.  Be Grateful!

Cheap Bastid note:  The photography for this post was all done on my cell phone and it’s pictures of the actual food we bought and ate.