The fun continued when we headed
back to the fair over Labor day weekend. I requested we go back because I wanted to attend the
Illinois Food & Wine Products Show. Turned out to be a great decision!
As we walked in, we were tempted by some fried treats but decided to pass:
Instead we loaded up on free samples at the food and wine expo. There were about 20 booths and every single booth was giving away samples - generous ones at that! We had
salsa, noodles, pizza, meatballs, etc... By far the coolest thing we had was
yellow watermelon!
After all the food we tried some wines. There were 8 wineries present and a lot of them we hadn't tried yet. Tickets were 50 cents per taste.
Pheasant Hollow Winery's Black & Blue was really tasty. Turns out they teamed up with
Uncle Joe's to make a
delicious pasta sauce. This is what came home with us:
Next, we checked out the Cupcake Competition. Competitors brought 24 of their signature cupcakes, displayed them on stage and presented them to the judges.
 |
| Cute stage right? |
And the winners were...
1st - Coconut Pecan Cupcake (9 yr old contestant!)
2nd - Chocolate Stout Cupcake with Brown Butter Creme Frosting
3rd - Cherry Dr. Pepper Cupcake with Cool Whip Frosting
The best part was when they invited us up for samples. Here's a look at our tasting plate:
Nom nom! Just as that ended, a food demonstration was starting up. Our chefs gave us a few more good things to eat:
On the way out,
my fear of farm tools was validated by some serious machinery:
Yikes!
