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Ask Dr. Babooner

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Dear Dr. Babooner,

Please help settle a family dispute.

The weather has been discouraging and we (and many others) have put it off too long, so today is pretty much our final chance to go to the Minnesota State Fair.

We know it’s going to be horrible.

We are ALL Dr. Babooner
We are ALL Dr. Babooner

In fact we expect to encounter a perfect storm of overpopulated misery, shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder around the fairgrounds with tired and smelly strangers just like us getting completely in our way at every ride, food booth and attraction.

And yet there is no question that we will go, because we are like spawning salmon swimming upstream and we feel compelled to throw ourselves against the rocks in a vain attempt to satisfy some primal urge. It doesn’t matter that bears are waiting to bite our heads off. We must return to the source.

Speaking of Fish Heads on a Stick, there is a fair food sequence in place for almost every member of our group. We each know the treats we must have and the order in which we will eat them. But one person is agitating for a break in the tradition – Aunt Peggy says since we are going super early to avoid the crowds, we should all make space in our calorie chart to enjoy a healthy breakfast at the State Fair.

Peggy has been a breakfast scold for ages, always eating fresh fruit, non-fat yogurt and Grape Nuts to start the day, and she harps that we will not regret it if we try something healthy and energizing.

Blah blah blah.

From my perspective, stomach real estate is a precious natural resource on my one-and-only State Fair day and I don’t want to waste a square centimeter of it by eating food that bears any resemblance to any kind of nourishment that nature would provide.

There is no way that Aunt Peggy can make me consume a bowl of oatmeal on the fairgrounds. That would be a travesty. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to stand around and wait while she eats her Tofu Sausage and berates me for my selfish, gluttonous ways.

Dr. Babooner, we’re a family and we always go to The Fair together. But would it be so wrong to ditch Aunt Peggy in the Swine Barn so the rest of us can have the kind of day we expect and deserve?

Sincerely,
I Want What I Want When I Want It

I told I.W.W.I.W.W.I.W.I. that Dr. Babooner has had an alarming number of complaints this year from people who feel they are being forced by others to experience The Fair in a way that is painful to them. Dr. Babooner is mystified that any person would try to direct the Fair experience of another, since we all have traditions that are so distinctly satisfying only to our selves. There is no “right” way to do The Fair.
That said, Dr. Babooner believes in eating a balanced and healthy breakfast, and one can never experience anything new unless one takes a chance from time to time and is brave enough to break the routine. Perhaps a small but healthy meal first thing on the fairgrounds would provide a reasonable start to an unusual and difficult day, and it may have the secondary beneficial effect of placating Aunt Peggy.
Plus, ditching people in the Swine Barn is cruel and unusual punishment.
But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

37 thoughts on “Ask Dr. Babooner”

  1. Good morning. IWWIWWIWI, you might need to engage in a little deception. I think there must be some way you can order a healthy breakfast and only pretend to eat it. Distract Aunt Peggy and toss the breakfast in a garbage can. Tell her it was so good that you eat it all while she wasn’t looking. i suppose you will also need to use some deception to keep your Aunt from restricting your consumption of some of that not so healthy food you don’t want to miss.

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  2. i like that old Czechoslovakian breakkfast of 3 gut beers and some sausage.a good brisk walk at the fair will burn those beers off in no time. i went to the fair yesterday with the whole fam damily and it was wonderful. i talked my 85 year old mom into going. she said she couldnt walk that far any more so i treated to a scooter. when she got on the scooter she hated it. cant manipulate through people. we traded it in on the wheelchair she used like a walker and pushed around with her purse on it. my sister came to join us and took my mom home but by the time they went to turn in the chair the joint was closed. my mom took the wheelchair home and wants me to go back today and get her license back. geeze mom i could have gotten your license back if you had left your chair at the fair. there has to be some other way that makes more sense than taking the chair home. food and drink was wonderful. goats were showing yesterday daughtere wants goats again.

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      2. Many pharmaceuticals are easily incorporated into other venues such as grape nuts or yougert in cases where the desired response is to be a study on the effects of aunts in the swine barn while under the influence of relatives and friends

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  4. IWIWIWI could be honest and tell Auntie that he came to the fair to eat a huge, tasty, calorie laden breakfast and is going to do so no matter what, or he could lie and tell Auntie that the doctor has prescribed heavy amounts of protein due to suspected anemia and/or celiac disease. It’s his choice.

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  5. Dear I.W.W.I.W.W.I.W.I. – Explain to your aunt that you are always a bit circumspect about breakfast before a day at the Fair because you know how much you will be eating. Do not, under any circumstances, tell her you skip breakfast. Since you know that very little that you will consume once you enter the grounds will be fried, deep fried or layered in high calorie sauce, explain to Aunt Peg that you lay down a layer of fresh fruit and black coffee at home – enough to give you the energy you need for the start of the day (and to propel you to the mini donut stand) – saving your Fair Food Allowance for once-a-year treats.

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  6. Daughter is at the State fair this year, with best friend and two other mutual friends. I doubt I will hear directly how the trip goes. In her quest for independence she has become disagreeably secretive, but tells best friend’\s mom everything, so I hear about things eventually. Moms-you can’t live with them, you can’t shut them out completely.

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    1. When my daughter was 15, I scheduled a 4-hour medical assessment for her at the U of M because I was worried that she hadn’t yet gotten her period. Took her out of school for half a day, waited around for hours to get time with the doctor who lead this team of adolescent assessors, only to be informed that she’d had her period for TWO years! Now, that’s the ultimate display of “secretive”!

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  7. As I read through those breakfast choices covered by the link in Dale’s article, very few of them stray from the deep fried goodness that is expected in State Fair Food. If you stay away from the (non-sweetened) Minnesota Apples and the French Meadow Bakery, IWWIWWIWI, I don’t think you’ll have a problem with most of the breakfast fare!

    My favorite new morning item this year at the Fair was the Lutheran Latte, found at Salem Lutheran Dining Hall – Swedish “Egg Coffee” with a dollop of ice cream.

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  8. State Fair food is an homage to gluttony of the highest degree, so why break a decades-old tradition? Skip the healthy breakfast and go for it, IWWIWWIWI. Unless you can find fried oatmeal on a stick coated in Grape Nuts with yogurt dipping sauce.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  9. Put on your Ann Reed fair CD, people.
    I’m going Monday armed with my guide to gluten-free goodies at the fair. Those of you who will be there Sunday and Monday can hear Blue Wolf Bluegrass at Heritage Square in the morning and early afternoon. My husband is the bass player.

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  10. The French crepe place has a very nice asparagus and cheese crepe. The asparagus is fresh and a little crisp – probably not frozen – good for you and very tasty. Messy to eat, though. Bring a fork.

    Had a sandwich from Manny’s Tortas in the Food Building. It was a mistake to order the Cubana – everyone else’s order came up before mine. A lot of people were ordering something called the Three Pigs – bacon, ham, and probably some other kind of pork. The Spanish-speaking waitstaff kept serving up one after another, announcing “Peegs!” each time. They did give me a pineapple drink while I was waiting at no charge, a kind of non-alcoholic pina colada. It was much appreciated. BiR’s chicken torta arrived much faster.

    Strawberry smoothie – probably high in sugar, but very good.

    Chocolate-dipped strawberry from Trombley’s in the Coliseum – an excellent value at just one dollar.

    There was a booth near the haunted house that was offering coffee for $1. I asked if they could make it iced. They were also offering iced tea, so it seemed like a reasonable thing to ask. The 50- or 60-ish fellow at the window said, “Well, we got coffee, we got ice.” Pause. “Well, I guess some people like it that way.” He did make an iced coffee for me, and it was pretty good for a buck.

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  11. my daughter who is into theater went to cheer on her friend at the talent contest. we got there and wantered around with a different friend who has led a fair deprived life so we showed her our version of the ropes. cheese on a stick and a root beer on route to a walk through the food building grab a falafel off to the creative arts , the education, the art building the eco building (always inspiring) the tour of the trailers and the visions of camping in the interstate in the rest stops (after doing it in alaska it doesnt sound too bad) almost made it to the dogs and it was time to go head for the talent show on the stage by the art building. we got good seats and got to watch an 8 year old sing a new york state of mind (very well) a kid do a hip hop dance number , a kid play the back piano ditty on an out of tune piano through a bad sound system a girl with red hair do a very good walking singing tune with excellent presentation and no voice but phenomenal conviction ( these were the winners of the regional competitions around the state) and were just getting started with the last performer who was a clone of the sound of music munchkin singing the do re mei song form the movie when my daughter checked her phone and found out her friend was at the leinenkugle stage a quick dash down the boulavard away. we got there in a hot sweaty speed walk and found the contest was over and we had missed it. damn, over to the horticultural building (orchids and bonsai trees both great and seed art for the new kid) a little more wandering (the kids family made her promise to bring home a bucket of mrs fields cookies so we need to head over there) it started raining (wow
    i didnt remember rain feeling that good) hid out in the grandstand headed over to drink all the milk you can dring for a buck in the rain (no lines) and then into the poultry barn (everyone love the rabbits) that closed and we went into the goat barn (nothin better) cheese curds the horse barn the cow barn and the swine barn where there was a late night competiton where we got to watch a serious bunch of farm kids wrangle their sheep for the judge who was serious as a heart attack about his instructions and observations of the orchestrated procession of freshly shorn and ready for their five minutes of fame sheep and their masters. there were two batches of contestants 10 or 12 in the first batch, keep 6 and bring in the next group keep 6 or so of those and line em up again ( we were tired but this was epic theater with the 6’5″ 250 pound farm kid at the front of the line and 5 or six girls all with the giant embroidery with rhinestone patterns on the back pockets of the jeans that made their sheep wrangling feel like a community song. I’ll bet we stood there for 20 minutes trying to figure out what the judge was looking for (straight back? big body? long torso? ) and in the end the judge was judging the wranglers more than the sheep. he complimented the wranglers for the two or three days of showing and said that ove rthe last couple of years he was so impressed with the excellence in the way the presentations were done that he wanted to award the two best of the best to the most outstanding presenters of all. the ones who could take an average sheep and make it a finalist the one who stayed focused and committed all the way through the event ( even at 11:00 at night) what a great way to end the fair. we forgot the corn and missed the big slide with the rain but it was a great day. now do we go back to see the friend we missed (she won the whole deal at the leinenkugle stage) who will perform at the grandstand tonight? we can consider the option because i leftt the damn tickets on the dining room table yesterday and we had to buy them when we go there. i will either go again tonight or run down there and scalp the 5 tickets i have left. 50 bucks is too much to burn. i love the fair. and yeah i love the heratage stage. ill see if i can get over there in time for hollys hubby. great tunes on that stage. healthy…. i dont know about gastronomically but for the soul… nothin better

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  12. tim, I love your description of your day at the Fair; sounds exhausting…but wonderful and fun. I didn’t make it again this year, just don’t do well in the heat, especially not lately. In the 40 years I have lived in the Twin Cities, I have been to the Fair about 10 times, so I guess you could call me a regular fair goer, depending on how you define regular, but I’m not exactly a fair aficionado. I have never cared much for Fair food, over-priced and not worth standing in line for in most cases, IMO. I’m not crazy about the crowds either, but it’s a great place to people watch. Now that I think of it, most of the times that I have been to the Fair it was to show visitors from out of state or out of country what a true cross section of Minnesotans looks like. I have never had the stamina to last from early morning to late night at the Fair. I salute you and your family for your enthusiasm.

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    1. thanks ben and pj.
      when i met debbie and she found out i had tickets to all 6 or 8 bob dylan tickets at the orpheum that summer (only year he evere did that) and tickets to many of the events at the fair she looked and saw that the b52s had a concert at the fair. i had never heard of the b52’s but wanted to show her i cared so i sold my dylan tickets and said we could go to the other dylan concerts. we went to the first dylan concert. she couldnt understand him and didnt recognize his on stage renditions of his tunes like many others have commented and announced she didnt care to go to any additional concerts. we went to the b52’s ( i dont hate the b52’s but i hate that i missed a bob dylan concert to listen to that tripe) and got to go to the remaining dylan concerts with someone else and came to the realization that soul mates is a relative term. could i really be soul mates with someone who would turn down dylan tickets? (that question continues to come up form time to time). since then she has enjoyed the fact that the kids like going to the fair with us numerous times and understand that there is no way you can see it all in one sitting. you cant see it all in 5 or 6 sittings a year,. daughter tara married enver last year on august 4th, went on a honeymoon to disney in florida and came back to the minnesota state fair. a little overkill in americana for the kid form kosovo. this year he went once and said that would be all he could do because he is working form early morning to late afternoon and in this heat the outdoor construction was wearing him out. i cut him a little slack but let him know if my wife married a weenie who couldnt handle the fair we would be talking later. we picked last saturday as his day (this weekend he in in seatle at a fellow kosovo buddies wedding) when i told him we needed to leave at 10 am he said he would be too tired. afternoon would be better, i let him know in no uncertain terms that wussing out on the fair was not an acceptable choice and so we left at 12 or 1. it was a fun day but he and i both were ready for the firesworks at 10:15.when we found our seats to watch the fireworks with the idea of making the quick exit from the park onto our shuttle to the u of m (by the way the shuttle is free form the u of m and 5 bucks a head from everywhere else. great deal free not so great at 5 a head times 5 or 6 heads) pj as for the food and the crowds. thats minnesota at its finest. if cheese curds, cheese on a stick, cor on the cob, a barrel of french fries and a chocolate mlt doesn’ make you mouth water in a specail state fair sort of way i feel for you, linda god bless you for finding an asperagus crepe. i never had the inclination but it sure sounds good.
      i love the people watching and if the crowds werent ther the people watching wouldnt be there either. i love what folks deem the coreect presentation for the fair. and then they put a pig hat or a walleye hat on to top it off and wear it with sincerity and conviction. i love labor days partner. it is the best send off of summer i could imagine bar nothing, going back one last time im thinking then on to fantasy football drafts monday tuesday and wednesday this week (maybe i am just a bit obsessive come to think of it) and waiting for next years fair. life is good on the corner of como and snelling. hey they have restaurant depot over there and i hear it is phenominal,like a trader joes of culinary stuff including pans untesils and food we should do a road trip some time. thats another blog topic isnt it.

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        1. from eden prairie and southda[e and mall of america if you fg to the site they tell you where if you click the fine print they tell you its 5 dollars round trip

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      2. I agree with this, tim – “i love what folks deem the coreect presentation for the fair.” Got to do enough people watching this to notice that everyone has picked out some special piece of clothing – thousands of different versions of it. Next year I’ll join in.

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  13. This year, like other years, the only “for sure” food was mini donuts. I had dreams of having coffee with ice cream or an asparagus crepe – but when you go on a day where roughly the population of Duluth and Brainerd descend all at once, you take what’s close and has a short line. I did get cheese on a stick, though – and some good, fresh milk. And my mini donuts.

    Here is what we learned this year (some of these were “refresher course” material): the cow barn stinks less than the horse barn, horses get glitter on their butts for show competitions, the big pig is big – but not ginormous, pigs can be quite loud, sheep competition is fierce (see tim’s notes above), goats continue to be darn cute, a good boyfriend knows what all the ribbons are that his sweetie has won, sheep poop is slippery, Miss S still wants to be able to eat a butter head (all of it), and you can make a woolly mammoth (I think that’s what it was) from what appeared to be unraveled hemp rope.

    We missed the art show this year and a few other things (including, alas, Holly’s Hubby live on stage) – trying to meet up with friends took way longer than it should have, but we found them and our daughters were happy. Daughter finally got to ride the open-air sky ride that gives her parents the willies (thanks Friend’s Dad!), but that meant we missed the U of MN solar car. Though, really, if you can get a kid hooked young (even if it’s only because of the Tilt-A-Whirl on the Kidway), then you have a fair-goer for life. 😀

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