It’s Almost State Fair Time: Where Turkeys, Hotdish & #Felfies Collide

I just realized that this year will mark my 20th straight year of working at the Minnesota State Fair. I’m not even sure what to say to that except … yikes!

And since it’s Thursday (otherwise known as #ThrowbackThursday or #TBT), this is what I looked like. Again, yikes! 🙂

Twenty years ago my first week on the job at the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association happened to coincide with the first week of the State Fair. Instead of getting to know my office and job description a little better, I found myself cleaning out the freezer at our concession stand, Turkey To Go, setting up our consumer booth with recipes and flyers, and attending a State Fair worker training. All of it seemed very foreign to me at the time – did I really get a journalism degree for this?? – but it all began to make more sense once I got through that first year.

The Minnesota State Fair is the ultimate place to connect with a variety of consumers, share information about turkey farming, distribute information and recipes, and show people turkey is more than just the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal.

These days, I spend at least a couple of days at the State Fair, talking about turkey, chicken and egg farming. Now that Joe is older, he usually comes with me and then we get to spend some time walking around the fairgrounds after I’m done working. (You can read about some of favorites from 2013 here!) It has become an annual tradition and one of our favorite days of the summer.

One of the booths we always try to stop by and check out is Minnesota Farm Bureau at 1305 Underwood Street – right across from the Food Building (mmm, let me digress for one moment …. cheese curds). It’s a great place to get more information about all kinds of agriculture, plus there are always real, live farmers there to answer your questions about food production (like my friend, Sara, who blogs over at Faith, Farming & Cowboy Boots)!

This year Minnesota Farm Bureau has several fun contests and activities planned:

• It’s time get your #felfie on! Stop in at the Farm Bureau booth, snap your picture with a farmer and – voila! – you have yourself a #felfie! Then post it to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using hashtag #MFBFfelfie and you could win a $50 gift card to your local grocery store.
• Free thermal lunch bags & mini spatulas! Take an interactive quiz about agriculture and you can walk away with either a free thermal lunch bag or a cool mini spatula. (You know how much I love to bake, so I’m a big fan of the mini spatula myself, but the lunch bags come in awfully handy as well.)
• Check out the hotdish-themed garden! And don’t you dare mention the word “casserole” or you might be met with a blank stare. Okay, just kidding about that part. Maybe. Just make sure you pick up a free fan favorite hotdish recipe at the booth.
• Drive a tractor!  The coolest “Ag Cab Lab” will be set up, which allows you to sit inside a real tractor cab, grab the wheel and virtually plant and cultivate fields.
• More fun stuff! Farm Bureau will be doing a prize drawing for a rain barrel as well as various children’s books.

After you’ve taken your #felfie and planted your fields, I hope you will plan to stop by the Minnesota Turkey booth in the Dairy Building (where those amazing dairy malts are) to pick up our new recipes and say hi! I’ve been working with our staff to completely revamp our booth and we’ve got some really cool graphics banners that help you track how turkey gets from the farm to your table and showcase the history of Minnesota’s turkey farmers.  Here’s a sneak peek at one of the banners:

Hope to see you at the State Fair!