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In no particular order, here are my top five favorite festival foods:

Fried potatoes and onions with sausage

Cotton candy

Funnel cakes

Chocolate covered marshmallows

Ice cream

It's hard to name five, because I had to leave out popcorn, lemonade and lemon cremesicles, candied and caramel apples, Dippin' Dots, vinegar fries in a cup, foot long hot dogs all the way, and barbecue anythingbut I also know why the above are popular with most people walking the grounds.

One of the first things that hit me with one sniff in the air is that of onions and potatoes fried up in a huge tin vat of some kind. I wander over to that section of the strip and watch sweaty cooks dressed in what used to be white aprons toss these morsels of chopped potatoes and diced onions in the air. It often seems to me that they billow back down to the pan as the chef waits for them to brown and mix together, then adds in a bit of seasoning salt and a few hand-dashes of pepper. Then, they turn to another table and takes a knife, skillfully dicing what we call those "good old country smoked" sausage links and lets them cook separately, then mixes them in with the potato and onion mix in the last stage just before scooping it into a serving tray for waiting customers.

Cotton candy "dangles" in the air like sweet nothings. It's not the smell of cotton candy, but the wispy sweet taste of itlike eating a sweet cloud filled with moist dew. It is a wisp of pink and blue sugar confection with a taste of light folds that melt away instantly, as soon as your lips and mouth touch it. I call it a "fun sweet tease" that sometimes tickles my nose on its way in.

Funnel cakes, that undeniably most fattening fried crispy confectioner's sugar-drenched fruit-topped and delectable crowning snack of any festival. But where would a festival be without them? I always take a nihilistic view of life when ordering a funnel cake because it bears up a mouth-watering combination of crunchy fried bread dough, top with soft sugar and a big dollop of rich sweet cherry or raspberry filling on top (whipped cream your delight) that drives all kinds of wild taste sensations flowing to the four corners of your being.

Chocolate covered marshmallows are my favorite at festivals because I only eat them only one other time of yearEaster. I can never resist walking like a zombie through a crowd at my favorite festival and finding the General Candy Store with the big house fans blowing to keep everything cool in the summer heat, because I know they are going to have chocolate-covering something in there and I can zero in on the marshmallows without remorse. Maybe I have a "thing" for stuff that melts in the mouth, including Dippin' Dots?

Last, but not least one of my all time favorite festival foods, ice cream. I have a fetish for Rocky Road
and French Vanilla, but I haven't completely abandoned by childhood favorite, Butter Pecan. There is something about the flavor combinations of nuts, chocolate and marshmallows in Rocky Road
and the smooth, mellow, almost spicy taste of French Vanilla that is over the top in the world of ice cream flavors.

With that said, I could go on and on about my other "favorite" Festival foods, but these are my top five and I can't leave a festival without having had at least a taste of all of them.

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