Yes, the Jackson County Fair’s over, but what’s your favoite food at the fair?

For years, my have-to-have food at the county fair has been the porkburger from the Jackson County Pork Producers and Cattlemen’s Association. They’re tasty, meaty and filling.

I’ve also been a fan of the lemon shakeups that the Young Farmers sell in the Show Arena, although for some reason they didn’t taste quite the same to me this summer. Maybe the weather wasn’t hot enough.

Last week, though, I expanded my culinary horizons, although some might argue I didn’t move too terribly far, since I mostly stayed within the pork group.

Taking the advice of our 4-H diarist, Luke Schnitker, I tried a breaded tenderloin from the Immanuel Lutheran Church food stand. The breading was light and seasoned just right, and the piece of meat was thick and juicy.

Generally, I prefer breaded tenderloins pounded to the thickness of an anorexic amoeba. Such a pounding provides much more surface area upon which to affix the breading and soak up the fat.

But the thick cutlet of pork at the Immanuel stand was quite good and satisfying.

I also tried out the Nutty Bars at the Psi Iota Beta stand. It was a fairly cool day, at least for the fair, so the nut-covered chocolate coating hung on to the ice cream, which in turn hung onto the stick. No mess and it was tasty.

Hannah, our older daughter, was satisfied again this year as every year with the chicken strips at Immanuel’s stand. How they’re any different from the chicken strips she’s constantly consuming out of our freezer or a fast food joint, I don’t know, but she craves the Immanuel chicken strips at the fair.

Our younger daughter, Sarah, did try something new, however. She hounded us for days to try the cotton candy.

“You won’t like it,” I said. “It’s a pretty yucky.”

But she persisted, and we relented on Thursday night.

What resulted were one taste, one awful look and three words: “Daddy was right.”

Yes, I was right about that, but she still pretty well ignores my advice on what would taste good. Like watermelon. And cantaloupe. And porkburgers. And corn on the cob slathered with butter. And bisquits and gravy (in my family, we thought gravy was a beverage.)

But given my girth, maybe it’s a good thing the girls don’t follow their pop’s taste buds,

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