It’s that time of year again! The Indiana State Fair is always one of my favorite things to attend and sort of serves as a last hurrah of summer before the pre-fall mindset kicks in. Thanks to Indiana Grown, who gave me a free ticket, I got to attend last night and try out all kinds of new foods, drinks and relived my late teen years by attending the Pop 2000 Tour which was hosted by none other than Lance Bass of ‘NSYNC.
This year’s theme is Heroes in the Heartland and it’s a fun one – in addition to recognizing our every day heroes like our farmers, military, police and first responders, superheroes have taken over and each day features a different character.
So on to the star of the fair: the food! There are sixteen new items on the menu and while I didn’t try all of them, I did sample a few of the hotter items and have a full review of everything I ate and drank.
Let’s start with the Blue Raspberry Lemon Twister. It’s a lemon shake-up but with a gorgeous blue raspberry twist. I give this one 5/5 and could have drank the larger size. Definitely order one to go along with your Angry Pretzel Poppers.
My lovely friend Rachael (a.k.a. Forensic Fashion Notes), tagged along to help me eat all the things. Here she is trying out the Angry Pretzel Poppers with Mad Ranch Sauce. OMG. These are a must for this year – they do have some heat to them because of the jalapenos, but they are not overly hot. 5/5 on these as well.
Next up was the Relleno de Papa, which was essentially a fried mashed potato ball with seasoned ground beef inside. It comes with or without rice; I went rice free since I wanted to save room for other food too. I give this one a 4/5 because I like spicy and it could have used a little more kick for my personal preference.
I needed a break to let my stomach digest for a few minutes, so after that, we headed over to the Ag building and looked at all the local vendors in the Indiana Grown Marketplace. So many cool things!
Then, it was over to the 4-H building! I was a ten year 4-H member and it was exciting to see some exhibits from Gibson County (my home county) take home top prizes 🙂 These kids are really creative and 4-H is such a great program to be a part of.
Appearing on the free stage last night was the Pop 2000 Tour, featuring Tyler Hilton, Ryan Cabrera, Aaron Carter and O-Town. If none of those names ring a bell, you probably weren’t a teenage girl in the early 2000s, haha.
We watched most of the acts, leaving when Aaron Carter came on to go get funnel cakes and then going back for O-Town, who brought out Lance Bass at the end for a rendition of “Bye, Bye, Bye.”
Our funnel cakes are A MUST: I got Birthday Cake (repeat from last year) and Rachael got the Red Velvet.
Are you going to the Indiana State Fair this year? There’s a WHOLE list of other foods I didn’t get to try, notably the Rollin’ Mac Daddy Egg Roll, Poutine and Bison Hush Puppies. Let me know if you try any of them and what’s unique to your state fair if you live outside the Hoosier state!