Texas State Fair aka "Fried Food Madness"

Mike and me in front of "Big Tex" the Texas State Fair mascot

The Texas State Fair is Texas's annual fair that is filled with exhibits, a car show, farm animals, and TONS of fried food.  The fair usually runs for about one month between the months of September and October.  Last year we had just moved to Texas around the time of the fair, but missed checking it out because we were vacationing in Italy. 
   This year we were excited to attend and prepped ourselves for a day full of gluttony.  Just like our friends who we attended the fair with, we ate a small breakfast so that we could partake in all of the fried food.  We had also planned to go as a group so that we could share and sample small portions of the fried foods. 
  We decided to not try the any of the fried drinks (beer, lemonade, etc) because we heard that these items were not that good and who wants warm beverages?

Fried Frito Pie~Winner of the 2010 Best Taste Award

If you're not familiar with Frito Pies, It is a bunch of Frito's corn chips topped with chili and cheese.  These fried nuggets of goodness were composed of chili and cheese, coated with a batter of crushed Frito's chips. 

Chicken Fried Bacon~2008 Best Taste Award Winner

I got this because I really enjoy onion rings/strings.

2009 Most Creative Award 

Can you see that pool of butter in the middle of the nugget? These nuggets were actually like warm buttery biscuits containing a large amount of butter. I opted for the garlic flavor. Other flavor choices included: honey and cinnamon, strawberry, and chocolate. 
Last year I remember hearing that these nuggets were made by freezing whipped butter, then battering and then deep-frying them. 

The fried chocolate was in the running for an award but didn't win one.

I thought this was a decadent mass of chocolate. A piece of brownie was stuffed with chocolate, and cherry, battered, and then deep-fried. 

There were soooo many other food items that were available at the fair but we didn't try. Here's just a smidgen that I remember: fried pizza, fried peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwich, fried grilled cheese sandwich, fried moon pies, and fried peaches and cream.
Other food items that we tried but my pictures came out blurry included: Fletcher's corndog, texas caviar (black-eyed peas). 

The fried cheesecake was composed of cheese cake wrapped like a burrito in some kind of wrapper and then deep fried.  Surprisingly this cheesecake was pretty good.  I think this was my favorite fried dessert at the fair.  

Mike and his turkey leg

So Mike decided to go rogue on us and ordered a *gasp* turkey leg amidst our "fried food madness."  That huge turkey leg (I think Mike referred to it as an "emu leg") made him tap out early from all of the fried food eating.  It also triggered a game Mike quietly played at the fair called, "My turkey leg was bigger than yours."  He kept spotting people eating turkey legs and saying, "Man, I lucked out and got a massive one!"