Sunday Fun(?)day

This past Sunday started off as a great Sunday... 

I went to yoga and then hit up the Farmer's Market with the cousin.

Boom. Produce.

I don't know why this fella bothered using a knife to cut that cantaloupe... he could have just used his perfectly chiseled jaw (swoon).

And we found the famous Chef Eloy! I bought some of his mango salsa. PHENOM. This guy is awesome! He sells his homemade salsa himself at a little stand every Sunday. 

Then, I went to work. First stop, the Loudoun County Fair:

Posing with... a pig?

We saw some chickens... this is one of the varieties I want! A Plymouth Rock hen!

and some goats!

The entire ride up there, I was telling the entourage that I wanted to touch an animal. I petted the crap out of this cute little goat.

And there she stood, drawing us to her like the Hope Diamond...

The jalapeño corn dog. The king of all corn dogs.

So sad it's almost over... and Maddy dominates the corn dog game with a custom made bacon-wrapped jalapeño corn dog. 

The Master.

Then, it was finally time to get on with the actual work part... I was asked to be a judge for the cake contest... I thought, "Gee, this is awesome, I'm getting paid to eat cake..." then I showed up and saw this:

What I'm guessing is 30-40 cakes. 

And I had to taste EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THEM.

A cake judge's best friends: water and pretzel thins.

There were ten categories ranging from chocolate/Devil's Food (read: CHOCOLATE EXPLOSION) to Pound Cake (this category is basically code for brick cake and is my least favorite category as a judge).

The first bite! The first of nearly three hours worth of bites.

Judging the decorated cakes (the second to last category)... soooo close to the finish. At this point, this was my best attempt at a standing position. 

All in all, I think of the 30-40 cakes we tried, I'd say only two really knocked my socks off - a German Apple Cake and a Peach Cake. I ended up spitting out three of the entries, and the others? More often than not were brandished with the following words:

Dense = so hard I almost broke my spoon cutting into it. Seriously.

Sandy = literally, like eating sand.

Oy. = ranges from cakes that were oozing to the cakes everyone has seen on Pinterest a million times to the ones that tasted like potpourri...

NO NO NO NO NO = the worst of the worst. One cake I couldn't shake was a cake that tasted (and I swear this is an accurate description) like old Crisco/fry oil that had been re-used for ages and passed down from generation to generation, mixed with a bit flour and mashed into a rectangle shape. WHY.

Next year? I'm going to try to jump ship and judge a category that doesn't require so much tasting...

Check out these gorgeous flower entries!

Zero tastebud violations.

Gorgeous eggplant!

Haha. Thanks for the memories, Lo Co Fair... Wyld Life indeed.

Check out the schedule HERE to see what sort of events are going on this week! I'll be back for the rodeo on Thursday night!