The Fair
Alright, I’m probably way more excited than I should be. Since moving to my current town a few years ago, we’ve gone to the Monmouth County Fair every summer. Besides the typical fair food, the live music, and the municipal trucks I can jump around in, there was the Home & Garden tent put on by the Parks system. After entering the fair, we pretty much veer straight towards this tent every time.
Inside this tent are all the entries for the home and garden competitions. There’s quite a few categories - arts and crafts, flowers, vegetables and more. Due to my passion for gardening, I was always drawn to the vegetables table where I would scrutinize each entry and swear I could do better. Well this year, I put my peppers where my mouth is and submitted 3 cayenne peppers for the peppers division, class “other”.
Submission was done on a specific Friday during the fair weekend, so I had to get there pretty early before work. Once I parked and got out of the car, I waited on line with my little fanny pack of cayenne peppers alongside farmers pulling up in pickups filled with flowers and veggies which was pretty comical. A nifty little perk and incentive to submit was 2 free passes to the fair so a pretty sweet deal.
Well, the fair weekend comes along and we visit on Sunday. We bee-lined straight to the Home & Garden tent. I was pretty nervous and really doubting my lil red peps, but once we got to the peppers section I immediately spotted my entry. Clipped to the little paper plate that the peppers sat on was a Blue Ribbon. I’d won first place!
Now, I don’t want to let this get to my head. But, I was pretty stoked. I came in as a first-time submitter and only entered to 1 class. But, I won anyway. And after reviewing the entire peppers class, I think I had a pretty big advantage with some bright red ripe cayennes amongst all the green jalapeno, bell, cubanelle, and poblanos. If you’re familiar with peppers, you know they take a long time to grow and ripen. We’re about to enter August and I’m still waiting for my Chocolate Ghosts to ripen. However, because I start my peppers early and indoors, I have a leg up on the fair that typically happens around end of July.
All that to say, I’m coming back next year and I want to SWEEP the peppers division. I think I can do it. I’ll let you all know next year.
Mash
hey if you’re actually reading this, I’m building a harvest and distribution platform called Mash ( mash). I’m using it to keep track of harvests, products, labels, and recipes. Check it out if you’re in need of something similar or you’d just like to ask for some hot sauce (please, I have way too much!). thanks, bye!