Deep-Fried Fair Fat Goodness

It's time once again for the State Fair of Texas and that means loads of deep-fried goodness and deep-fried weirdness. Those two are often one and the same. The eight finalists for the Sixth Annual Big Tex Choice Awards have been announced. Let's see what we have to look forward to, shall we?

Up first is the Deep Fried S’mores Pop Tart. I'm not overly impressed with this one. It's just a S'mores flavored Pop Tart that has been battered and dropped in the fryer. OK, they serve it with some chocolate syrup and whipped cream when it's done, but how practical is that, really? You can't stab a Pop Tart with a fork, so I would imagine that the consumption process of this is going to be a little tricky. Then again, I've never had a Pop Tart that has been deep-fried, so maybe that does something to the chemical composition (of which the entire Pop Tart is comprised of).

In the category of ANTTA (Absolutely Nauseating To Think About), we have something dubbed Fernie’s Fried Club Salad: Take a big ol' spinach tortilla and put in some diced ham and diced chicken, shredded lettuce, carrot strips, cherry tomatoes and some bacon. Roll that sucker up and deep fry it like you would a chimichanga and throw some deep-fried croutons on top of it when you're done. Give the insane individual who wants to eat that a side of dressing and you're done. I have several issues with this. Who wants their lettuce deep fried? Or warm, for that matter? Not I. I'm also perplexed by the description given of this atrocity over there at About.com/Dallas, as they seem to imply that it is served on a stick. How does that work? Why would you want it to work like that? A stick? No stick. Get rid of the stick.

Who doesn't want lemonade when they're at a state fair? And who doesn't want that lemonade deep-fried? Wait? Deep-fried? That's right! Deep-fried! Deep-fried Lemonade! Simply take a lemon-flavored pastry (whatever that is supposed to mean) that has been made with lemonade and bake it and then fry it up. Glaze it with some lemonade, powdered sugar and lemon zest and you've got yourself...uh, something! You've definitely got yourself something there!

If there's one food that says "Texas" it's a Frito pie. And if there's one thing that says Texas State Fair, it's Deep-fried Frito Pie. Somehow, a one Nick Bert has managed to take chili and cheddar cheese, cover it around in Fritos, batter it and chuck it in the grease without the whole thing falling apart. Now that's some talent right there! He'd better do it right. Texans don't like folks messing with their Frito pies. I have to assume that it tastes better than it looks, there. Good thing they're not judged on presentation.

Abel Gonzales, Jr. is no stranger to deep frying things for the Texas State Fair. His deep-fried butter won the competition last year. He also had winners in previous years with his deep-fried cookie dough and his deep-fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich. (Why add the banana? I have no idea. Deep-fried PB&J sounds fabulous all by itself.) This year he has concocted something called Deep-fried Chocolate, though I don't know why he calls it that. It is a brownie, stuffed with a piece of white chocolate and a cherry. Then that is dunked into chocolate cake batter before it hits the grease. He tops it all off with powdered sugar, cherry sauce and chocolate whipped cream. I still don't get why it isn't called a Deep-fried Brownie.

When I heard that there was something called Texas Fried Caviar, I couldn't imagine that would go over well. Texas doesn't seem like much of a caviar state to me. Turns out, Texas caviar is black-eyed peas. Now that makes sense! Simply take some black-eyed peas fried and add some "special spices" and some Old Bay seasoning (which is presumably different than the aforementioned special spices) and fry away! (I kind of think that a better name would have been Fried Texas Caviar. Everything else starts off with "fried", so why should this be any different? It's only going to confuse fair goers.)

I've saved the best two for last! The Deep-fried Margarita and the Deep-fried Beer! Bring 'em on! I think that I'd probably be more partial to the margarita, even though I am a big fan of beer. Take some sweet funnel cake batter and mix in either tequila or tequila flavored wine. Fry that baby up and dust it with some sort of lemon-lime mixture and served it in a salt-rimmed plastic glass. It sounds lovely. Although the deep-fried beer sounds just as lovely. It's basically a pretzel pocket with beer inside. Take one bite and the beer pours out, as it should. It's beer and pretzels all in one! What's not to love? You do have to be over 21 to purchase either one of these delectables, as they're not in the fryer long enough for the alcohol to burn out, as it shouldn't.

There you have it. Deep-fried goodness at the State Fair of Texas for 2010. It's a good thing that this dealio is only once a year. If people were to eat this kind of stuff all year 'round, the results would not be good. If one were to indulge in this kind of cuisine frequently it would be as a friend of mine said last night, "They might as well have chairs lined up with IVs filled with heated Crisco. Cut out the middleman." Well said, friend. Well said, indeed.

Pedicures By The Pound

Here we have the case of a ridiculously overweight individual who is shocked, simply shocked, when they are treated differently than non-ridiculously overweight individuals. Now, the way that the woman was treated differently seems to be legit, but the way that it was carried out seems to be ridiculous. After all, can you really justify charging someone an extra five bucks for their pedicure because they might break the chair with their enormous arse?

I'm not so sure that you can, but that's what happened. According to WSBTV, a one Michelle Fonville had gone to Natural Nails on Covington Highway in DeKalb County (that's somewhere in Georgia) for a manicure, a pedicure and eyebrow arch. For those services, she was charged $29. Now, when I read the $29 part, I couldn't believe how cheap that was. She had her feet done, her nails done and her eyebrows arched for under thirty bucks? That's a deal in most places.

But at Natural Nails, it's usually even more of a deal, as they usually only charge $24. When Ms. Fonville realized that she had been overcharged by $5, she brought it to the attention of the salon manager, a one Kim Tran. And that's when she got the news that she was just too darned large. See, the justification for the extra $5 was that is was a surcharge that they had imposed "...due to costly repairs of broken chairs by overweight customers. She said the chairs have a weight capacity of 200 pounds and cost $2,500 to fix." Oh. Awkward.

Tran told the reporter from WSBTV "Do you think that’s fair when we take $24 [for manicure and pedicure] and we have to pay $2,500? Is that fair? No.” She forgot about the eyebrow arch. Oh, never mind. Sorry. I digress. Is that fair? Well, those are your prices, right? How DO those places stay in business anyway? I've never been able to figure that out.

Although Ms. Fonville claimed, “I was humiliated. I almost cried. Tears were forming in my eyes”, I'd like to point out that her humiliation did not stop her from running to her local news station and telling them of the tale. Nope. She didn't have any problem doing that. I'd also like to point out that she almost cried. Almost. That's not the same as crying.

Here's the part about this that I really like: "Tran said she refunded the $5 surcharge, and told Fonville to take her business elsewhere." Awesome. But naturally, that was not so awesome if you were asking Ms. Fonville because she said, “The word has to get out there that these people are discriminating against us because of our weight. I mean come on, we’re in America. You can’t do that." I'm not so sure.

I'm not so sure that this is discrimination. I'm not so sure that charging the $5 is such a good idea, but that doesn't necessarily make it discriminatory. If the manufacturer of the chair specifies that it cannot hold more than 200 pounds, then is the salon is technically being negligent if they let people who are clearly over 200 pounds use the chair? They might be. I can just see some obese asshat getting stuck in one of the chairs and the fire department has to come and Free Willy and then the salon ends up getting sued because they let them sit in a chair that wasn't meant to hold the girth of a tractor trailer. It's not like that's unheard of. If this was a case of what the manufacturer recommended, rather than charge the $5, shouldn't the salon just not cater to those over the weight limit? (Do they really need a pedicure? Can they even see their feet? Ohh. I didn't really write that, did I?)

So, I guess the salon should have a sign in the window informing people of larger carriage that they are going to be charged an extra $5? Or should they have something like one of those things at the airport where you check to see if your bag is too big to be a carry on? You know, like if the person can't fit comfortably between the width of some device, then they're too big for the chair? Or do they just eliminate service to the overly rotund all together? If they're only charging an extra $5 and a new chair is $2,500, they're going to need 500 behemoths that want pedicures. Do they have that large (pun totally intended) of clientele from that particular segment of society? Down in Georgia? I'm guessing they most certainly do.

I'm pretty sure that this isn't discriminatory. I think that the salon owner has a legitimate concern, but I don't think that charging an extra $5 is the answer. I think that she just needs to eliminate the problem by posting a weight limit somewhere. That way she doesn't end up with any broken chairs and doesn't need to impose a surcharge. And if Ms. Fonville doesn't like it, perhaps she might consider shedding a few pounds. It's not like she has to be that large, right? (If anyone leaves a comment having anything to do with the thyroid gland or a slow metabolism, so help me, I'll stab my screen.)

Reverse Natural Selection?

Sometimes, you just have to see things to believe them. And I think that a lot of the times when that is the case, once you see them and once you believe them, that doesn't necessarily mean that you understand them. That's why you're usually left just wondering what in the world is wrong with a lot of people. And that would include wondering what in the world is wrong with the media covering such stories.

Take, for example, the family of Ardi Rizal. Ardi and his family live in Indonesia. And according to the Washington Post, there has been somewhat of an uproar after "Shocking photos of....Ardi Rizal puffing away on up to 40 cigarettes a day" came to light. Sure, sure. I know a lot of people smoke 40 cigarettes a day. I don't know how in the world that they afford it, but I know that they do it. The thing that makes this a little bit more of a head scratcher is that Ardi is 2. As in "years old". Two years old. Smoking up to 40 cigarettes a day. Wait. He's two and he...? That's right.

While I am usually a huge fan of the Washington Post, I am not a huge fan of how they covered this story. If they were trying to win some sort of a prize for presenting the subject in the most irrelevant manner possible, then they were on top of their game. Other than that, well, I'm just glad I didn't pay for it or anything (even though I still feel a little gypped). They talked to a one Matthew Myers of something called the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids which is located in Washington, D.C. Mr. Myers was quoted as saying, "This reflects a pervasive problem in many low-income countries where tobacco companies market their products to an uneducated public." Really? Are they marketing their products in such a way that it is implied that babies should be smoking cigarettes? No? OK, then. Anything else?

Unfortunately, yes. He also stated that "...anybody, at any age, can buy cigarettes in Indonesia". Wait. What now? Anyone, regardless of age, can buy cigarettes in Indonesia? Oh, now I see why that's a relevant fact! Of course. Because this two-year old wouldn't be able to smoke if he hadn't been able to go out and purchase the cigarettes that he's smoking on his own, right? Of course not! What does that have to do with anything?! Oh, nothing? Let's move on.

Now, a one Seto Mulyadi, who heads the country's child protection commission, "...blamed Ardi's two-pack-a-day habit on advertising and clueless parents." Well, that's a little bit better. Though I'm still not sure what advertising has to do with this. I'm really liking the pointing the finger at the clueless parents, however. It's probably an understatement to say that's the most likely culprit here.

But maybe I'm wrong. Let's check in with this toddler's parents and see if they strike us as being of the clueless bent, shall we? First, we'll hear from the boy's mother, Diana. "He's totally addicted. If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick." She apparently doesn't seem to see her part in all of this. She apparently doesn't seem to think that she is the parent and that she is in control and that, eventually, all of the screaming will subside. Hmm. Yep, there are definitely indicators of cluelessness here. Let's check in with the father next.

But wait. Before we do that, I should probably also mention that not only does this two-year old smoke two packs a day, he also "...weighs 56 pounds. He's too fat to walk far so he gets around on a plastic toy truck." Yeah, see, just when you thought that it couldn't get any sadder, then it does. Let's quell that sadness with anger, OK?

The boy's father, Mohammed, is the moron who gave the kid his first cigarette when he was 18 months old. Nice job, Mohammed. Now your kid is incredibly fat and addicted to cigarettes. How does that make you feel, Mohammed? "He looks pretty healthy to me...I don't see the problem." Really?! He can't walk, you dumbass! Do you see other two-year olds getting around on a plastic toy truck whilst smoking a cigarette? No? Then he's NOT OK, you nitwit!

Seriously, I know that there are different cultures and all of that, but this has so much wrong with it that I really can't even make up anything good to say about it. I guess they're not fortunate enough in Indonesia to have things like Child Protective Services or stuff like that? (That really is a question, as I have absolutely no idea about the social services of the Far East.) Oh, wait. I just read that there is some intervention being attempted with this family. "Concerned officials offered to buy the family a car if Ardi quits." A car?! That's how social services work in Indonesia? They bribe folks to do the right thing?! Grand. Good luck with that, Indonesia. Gooooood luck with that.

The video of this tragic, preventable and completely unnecessary situation is below. If it doesn't load, try clicking here. Oh, yeah, and thanks (I think) to my friend for bringing this to my attention.

Ardi Rizal - The real SMOKING BABY !! free videos" classid=clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000 width=364 height=291 type=application/x-shockwave-flash>