Great New York State Fair Musts

When you are a New Yorker, attending the Great New York State Fair in Syracuse, NY is a near-obligatory yearly outing. A celebration of agriculture, food, music and all things New York, there are a few sights and eats that you won’t want to miss.

The Butter Sculpture: What has grown to be one of the most well-known and revered traditions of the NYS Fair, the annual butter sculpture is always an impressive feat. The 2016 sculpture is Olympic themed, supporting Team USA through the depiction of three athletic figures.

Butter Sculpture 2016

2.Wine Slushies: If you like wine, then you will like wine slushies. Don’t worry about missing this fair-eat as there are at least 10 different vendors that offer this summer delicacy. Find several at the Taste NY Wine, Beer & Spirits Village.

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Enjoying my first #wine🍷 slushie at the #greatnewyorkstatefair

A post shared by Emilee Janitz (@emileejanitz) on Aug 28, 2016 at 8:24am PDT

3. NYS Animals: From Peacocks to Angora rabbits, the various barns provide much in regard to local agriculture and domestic animals. For those New Yorkers that don’t have the pleasure of living in the country, this can be a great learning experience and, also, an excuse to gawk at baby pigs…

4. Fried Dough: A fair wouldn’t be a fair without fried dough. You can find this summer treat practically anywhere you look at the NYS celebration.

5. History of the Great New York State Fair Exhibit: Located adjacent to the Dairy Cow building, this exhibit provides an interesting and well-designed history of the event, including information on previous locations and famous fairgoers. There are also replicas of past butter sculptures and 2016 fair model, a three dimensional map for those who may need extra help finding their way around.

Additional Offerings:

Rides (Ferris wheel, rollercoaster, etc.)
The Iroquois Village
Toyota Coliseum
DEC aquarium
Science and Industry Building
Infinite amounts of delicious foods

The fair lasts until September 5 so be sure to catch it before it disappears for another year!

Lobster Mac and Cheese

Drawing Dessert

Art

In keeping with my promise, today I’m posting photos of my most recent ice cream-inspired art! The same size and medium (colored pencil), this piece is joining my egg drawing in a new series of food art.

What I love about ice cream, aside from the fact that it’s one of my favorite foods, is its iconic imagery. Ice cream, especially in a cone, is as much fun to look upon as it is to eat. It is void of negative connotations.

Loving the colors, shapes and textures, I have made a lot of ice-cream inspired art in my days in a variety of mediums, including paint, fiber, pen and colored pencil.

Today’s piece features strawberry ice cream, a flavor that I am not one to eat but find to be a lot of fun to draw. I started by sketching an outline in dark purple before filling in the other colors. This is a helpful tip: when sketching the base of a drawing, find a color that will complement and blend with your finished piece. Nine times out of ten, you don’t want to use black.

After drawing a general outline, I filled it in with lighter colors and gradually introduced darker colors when adding precision and details.

Not sure what food is next, but breakfast and dessert has me feeling compelled to render some sort of entree!

I Finally Made Sugar Cookies

Food, Holiday

The semester is over!…Or at least it will be for me after Wednesday night. Only one more presentation and I can finally relax and enjoy Christmas break.

While I am clearly looking forward to this, I am also looking forward to the presentations because I will be bringing cookies to class. Because, ya know, ’tis the season.

While I had considered making tried-and-true recipes, I also thought it would be more fun to try something new. A friend recommended sugar cookies and, fairly confident in my baking abilities, I decided to go for it.

Although some people may think it odd I have never made sugar cookies before, it is honestly because I don’t much care for them. I am, however, in the minority and I know plenty of people adore them. My friend Rebecca does at least because she is the one who asked for them!

As it turns out, homemade sugar cookies are extremely simple. These cookies that I made turned out to be both crisp on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. They were also made of ingredients I already had in the house (always a plus). If you are interested, this is the recipe that I used.

The only thing that I did differently from the recipe was that I doubled the amount of vanilla that it called for. (Truly, vanilla extract is one of the most important ingredients in most cookie recipes).

I baked a dozen cookies today as a test batch and will only have to make two dozen for my relatively small class. This means I will have plenty of dough leftover for Christmas!

Only having to wait a few days (less than a week) to bake it, I am just keeping it in the refrigerator. Cookie dough typically stays fresh in the fridge up to a week. However, if it is going to be longer than a week than I would recommend freezing it to hold the freshness. Freezer bags are a cheap and convenient way of freezing dough.

As it turns out, I don’t hate sugar cookies! In fact, I would highly recommend this recipe to both sugar cookie lovers and skeptics alike. So don’t get stuck in a rut this baking season, try something new. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Happy Turkey Day!

Decorating, DIY, Festivity, Holiday

Posting once a week every Friday means that my weekly post will be falling after Thanksgiving on (duh-duh-duuuuh) Black Friday! A day when everyone will be out madly shopping as the Christmas season officially commences.

That being said, I thought I would throw an extra post out there this week to give you some ideas on how to have a creative holiday! While we all have Thanksgiving traditions that we live and die by, it is always fun to try new, creative ideas to spice up already established traditions.

Here are a few creative ideas you can add to your food-filled day:

Homemade placemats. If you read my post from last week you know that homemade placemats can make great holiday gifts. They can also personalize your Thanksgiving dinner and table. Check out my post from last week to learn how to recycle textiles into these woven settings.

Homemade place cards.
Whether you simply stencil letters onto card stock or use different colored paper and ribbons for embellishment, place cards can add a fun and sophisticated look to your Thanksgiving table.
Try a new recipe! This year I will be making something I have never eaten or made: Frozen Pumpkin Pie! Here is a recipe for one version if you also want to give it a go!

So no matter how traditional or trendy your Thanksgiving is, I hope that it’s a good one!

(Cover photo found via Google Images)

Our Own Oktoberfest

Festivity, Food

So often when life gets busy the first thing that gets cut from the schedule is fun. When there is a lot to be done I know I sometimes feel guilty “wasting time” or “goofing off”. But having busy lives does not mean you should stop having fun. It simply means you make room for it in your schedule.

Andy and I both lead extremely busy lives. This year especially, as I am balancing a part-time job and commuting an hour to grad school and he is balancing his career and major home renovations.

Therefore, this past weekend we decided to create our own fun holiday experience by having our own personal Oktoberfest, inspired by the incredible parties that go on every October in Munich.

So what does this mean exactly? Well, keeping up with Oktoberfest tradition, it meant lots of food and lots of beer! Here’s a recap.

FOOD:

For our food we decided to prepare traditional German dishes (obviously) and landed on a pretty diverse and delicious menu. For snacking and appetizer purposes we purchased some horseradish cheese dip and pretzels. However, we then got much more creative by actually making our own pretzels. I would recommend homemade pretzels to anyone as they are easy and fun to make as well as delicious.I also prepared homemade applesauce from the apples we had picked fresh.

For dinner we prepared beer brats with sauerkraut and spicy brown mustard, sweet and sour cabbage and homemade potato salad. Although the brats were just the typical packaged variety we improved the flavor by sauteing them in beer and crisping them on the grill.

And if that wasn’t enough we also made an apple streusel cake for dessert!

BEER

Beer is an essential element of Oktoberfest, so therefore it was only right that we treated ourselves to several different variations of this brew. One of our favorites and a must have is Sam Adam’s take on the beverage.

However, we recently discovered Saranac’s version and were both pleasantly surprised with the Oktoberfest brew…

as well as their creative “Darktoberfest.” The Darktoberfest obviously possesses a darker flavor and is extremely satisfying when paired with some of these hearty dishes.

And finally, after doing some research we discovered that Sierra Nevada actually partners with a brewery in Germany to create their Oktoberfest beer. We then deemed this beverage essential and I’m especially glad we did! (This beverage may now be one of my favorites).

So as the old expression goes, work hard play hard. When life gets tough make time for yourself and come up with new ways to celebrate. Fun doesn’t always have to be large groups of people and extravagant parties. Sometimes fun is as simple and spending the day cooking with the person (and dogs) you care about most.