The 1st Annual Fran's Fair Awards for 2015!

And that’s a wrap for Minnesota State Fair 2015. Today’s pictures added to the album. Without further ado, I present the completely subjective, heavily biased 1st annual Fran’s Fair Awards:

Food Categories

Disappointments - There’s always a few food disappointments mixed in at the Fair. Let’s get these out of the way first. For food, this might be the year that Sweet Martha’s lost a little of its charm. For nostalgia, tradition and setting, eating Sweet Martha’s at the Fair can’t be beat, but on its own merits as a chocolate chip cookie, it has some work to do. They’re too sweet and so undercooked. For drink, it was the maple bacon beer from Giggle’s. That should be good, but just wasn’t.

With that out of the way, onto the good stuff!

Best Main Entree - The Peterson’s pork chop takes it. It’ll make you say “I seriously want to eat two more of these right now.” Honorable mentions for the always good Turkey-to-Go and the new Mancini’s grilled pizza, and a surprising honorable mention to the About-a-Foot-Long Hot Dog. I was expecting standard fair dog here, but it had a really great casing and nice taste.

Best Snack - Tie: First, the peach from the Produce Exchange. Enormous and incredibly sweet. The Colorado peach wins out over the Sweet Dream, but they’re both great. Second, the Roasted Corn. It was especially sweet this year. Honorable mention to the Mouth Trap cheese curds.

Best Dessert - A lot of contenders here. The Butter Queen Coffee Ice Cream at the Hamline dining hall was excellent, but I liked the Honey Sunflower ice cream at the Honey stand in the Agriculture building even more. But ultimately, both of them take a back seat to the ice cream waffle sandwich from the West End Creamery - you just can’t beat the warm-cold combo!

Best Breakfast - I gotta go with the Maple Bacon Caramel roll from the Farmer’s Union. It was as good as advertised! Honorable mention to the Wild Rice Egg Benedict Muffin for trying something different.

Best Drink - This has to go to the nitro infused coffee at the Farmer’s Union - more on that later. Honorable mention to the mini donut beer, which seemed like a gimmick when it was introduced a few years ago, but it has proven to hold its own over time. I don’t know how they do that “it just tastes like a good beer…no, wait for it…wait for it… holy cow that’s a mini donut!” thing.

Best Food Value - $2 All-You-Can-Drink Milk. Yes, it went from $1 to $2 this year. It’s still the Fair’s best value. Next year try it half and half (1/2 chocolate, 1/2 white). Not as heavy as the chocolate milk, but still feels like a treat.

Weirdest Thing I Ate - Easily the fried pig’s tail, with nothing else coming close.

Biggest Regret of Food I Didn’t Get To This Year: The Chicken and Waffles at Blue Barn.

Non-Food Categories

Best Music - Admittedly, the sample size is small this year, but getting to hear Minnesota folk artist Charlie Parr at an outdoor ampitheater on a cool late summer evening was a real highlight of the fair for me.

Best Non-Musical Entertainment - Horse speed events in the Coliseum.

Best Kid Activity - Getting invited into a goat pen by an owner who was eager to share his love of his goats. He invited kid after kid into the pen, while telling the adults all sorts of interesting stuff about raising goats. He even gave Henry a 4-H ribbon. Honorable mention: Sitting in real tractors and browsing the toy tractors at the John Deere store.

Best Art or Craft - For sheer craftsmanship probably the handmade sailboat that was in the Fine Arts building - I marveled at that thing for quite a while. For creativity, I’m going with the seed art.

Best Educational Exhibit - The Fair Heritage Museum in the West End. Honorable mention: The Dirt, in the Agriculture Bldg.

Best Non-Food Value - Free sunscreen at every information booth. Thanks!

Grand Prize - Best Thing at the Fair!

2015 Minnesota State Fair Grand Prize: In a shocking upset, I’m giving the nod to the Nitro-infused Coffee. If you told me before the Fair that a drink would win this I would’ve thought you were crazy, but it’s the thing I keep thinking about and wanting after the Fair is over. It was so good! I’d never heard of it before but after a little research it turns out this is trending all across the country this summer. Looks like Spyhouse does it in Minneapolis, Quixotic Coffee over in St. Paul, and Red Cow does it in south Minneapolis right in our neck of the woods! The 2015 Fair will forever be remembered as introducing me to this fantastic new way to get my coffee fix.

See you next year!