Keep your eyes peeled for Fair Food or Food Trucks to enjoy as a family!
As we deal with the loss of the State Fair this summer we have new ways to stay connected to one of the biggest draws of the Fair--The Food!
Fair Food
This year there will be no Great Minnesota Get-together for us to enjoy. Many seniors can remember the last two that were canceled and how that may have impacted their lives. Chances are they may recall missing the social aspect of the Fair, the entertainment, or maybe the unbelievable choices for food at the fair. No matter what they remember, be sure to take some time to get together with your senior loved ones and seek out your own memories!
Technology can do many things for us and one of those benefits, that would have been unheard of the last time the State Fair was closed, is locating the food vendors! The last time the Fair was closed was 1946 and it wasn’t war related. It was caused by the polio epidemic. Computers were in their infancy so there was nothing like Google or smart phones to help us get over the loss of our summer pastime. This year you can find fair food by hanging out at this Facebook page--Fair Food Finder--and/or reading the various posts on the page from the vendors. You can read about mini-donuts, gyros, or Liftbridge’s Mini Donut Beer.
Brick and Mortar Fair Food
Like Liftbridge you can find Que Viet in their restaurant digs year around. Que Viet is popular at the fair, with long lines forming early for the Vietnamese iced coffee and giant egg rolls on a stick so give their Johnson Street location a try. Blue Barn will be launching the Little Blue Food Truck this August to travel around the Twin Cities offering their Fair food. Blue Barn’s Fair Food was featured at their own restaurants over the fourth of July holiday. The Donut Family is serving Original Mini Donuts, cheese curds, cotton candy, and more in North Saint Paul Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Find them at 2275 McKnight Road North. Manny’s Tortas are resurfacing at Mercado Central which had closed during the riots. Fair food has also been reported available along Highways and at shopping malls. Keep your eyes open as you move about the cities.
How About Food Trucks!
If you worked downtown before the Pandemic you likely have tried one of the dozens of food trucks that roared into the cities at lunchtime. With so few workers left downtown during the pandemic, many of these entrepreneurs have had to look at other venues to tide them over until life returns to normal.
Food trucks by nature are difficult to find as they hunt out the hungriest bunch of people they can find. If you feel like hunting, it might be good to look around Craft Breweries as they seem to have found naturally hungry people close to their local watering hole--see our senior-friendly micro brew blog from last year. If that method seems a bit too hit or miss you can do some searching on Instagram or Facebook for starters. The Instagram site is run by the Food Truck Association while this particular Facebook page has over 164K members to help search out Fair food far and wide. You can learn a lot going through the various posts on how people like various trucks and where they are located.
Wait, There’s More!
Leave it to Minnesota ingenuity to combine Fair Food with driving! You can buy tickets to the first-ever, and no offense but hopefully the last, Food Parade. So get your senior friend in a car, hit the food parade, and then find a park to social-distance at a senior-friendly garden.
Once again we have to make some changes to get in our very important family time during the pandemic. Keep in mind, where there is a will to stay connected, there’s a way! Food is a wonderful way to bring back memories from the past as the aroma and taste can trigger great memories.