Corn Dog Girl
How’s this for a life style? You go down to the barn, get out your traveling corn dog stand, and your traveling pizza stand, and your supply trailer with batter and cheese and stuff and off you go over the mountains to the Mendocino County Fair, or the California State Fair, or the Fresno County fair, the Rodeo, up and down Northern California, filling hungry giant California bellies with fresh deep fried corn dogs, lemonade (“our lemonade made with real lemons”) and gooey slabs of cheesy pizza.The County fair wasn’t even open yet. We were just wandering around watching setup, watching the 4-H Ag kids putting the last bean in their all-bean display about the top 10 crops of Mendocino County – (trees are number one, grapes number two, apples number ten, pot number nothing), stopping by the Methodist Ladies Homemade Apple Pie and Ice Cream Stand to see if it was open yet and the corn dog business was already jumping. The workers, the 4-H Dads, the guy from the cowboy hat and saddles concession, and even some of the Methodist apple pie ladies were standing around waiting for their custom fried corn dogs to come out hot and brown.
Corn Dog Girl told me they've been deep frying up corn dogs for many a year. Her partner started out in 1970 with icies and they went pretty well, but when he added hamburgers, the business took off. It was hard decision, moving into corn dogs but once he decided his future was corn dogs and lots of them, he never looked back.He built the sign one rainy winter. Pretty cool too. Yellow. Purple. The letters light up one after the other in a hungry sort of way.
Hey, they’re just a carny couple, right? Hardscrabble life in a trailer behind the ferris wheel, right? Wrong, On corn dog profits, they just bought a twenty acre ranch in the Sierra foothills.
Labels: Across America, Just For Grins, Photos by Patrushka
posted by Christopher Newton at 6:41 AM
13 Comments:
The last time I had a corn dog, which I think was at the Santa Cruz boardwalk about fifteen years ago, I hated it. I think I've been missing out. Any corn dog stands 'round here?
Mmmm, corn dogs. They taste great at the fair.
My husband (recently retired) is toying with the idea of getting a hot-dog cart. Maybe he should go with corn dogs instead. ;)
Ever the iconoclast, you have succeeded in breaking all preconceived notions of the carney lifestyle. Makes me wanna run away withe circus all over again.
Wait. I'm in the circus. What was I thinking?
Pass the mustard. No, the yellow kind
Those people that sell food in the hot little stands work harder in one day than I've probably ever worked in my life. Standing over a deep-frier in the scorching hot weather from sun-up til way after sun-down...they deserve a ranch!
so corn dogs is the way...thank god i found out now before i stumbled to far along the path of medicine...
great now i want a flippin' corn dog....
Hey Tim - go for that M.D. - with more and more people eating corndogs, you'll have plenty of work. Maybe you could even hire Leo to run a corn dog concession for you at the circus.
BTW, very cool list of books, movies, and music on your profile.
Pig connoisseurs will notice I've tacked another photo to the end of this post - just thought it needed a capper. That girl with the corn dog is a genuine original Haight-Ashbury hippie. I can vouch for her personally.
I'm trading MY 20 acres for a corndog!! You can buy those things frozen in the grocers. Jess nuke 'em...yum-yum!
For those who want to make their own:
CORN DOGS
1 egg, beaten
3/4 c. milk
1/2 c. cornmeal
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. sugar
Preparation :
Mix together all ingredients. Dip dogs in the batter and fry in hot oil until brown.
Or you can order pre-made from
Pronto Pup
But I just don't think it would be the same without the fair ambience.
(Although, I do still carry a scar on my leg from a napalm-like burn when a burning marshmallow fell on me that I had been roasting NOT ono a camping trip, but in front of the family fireplace!)
As for me...Every since reading The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair, I just can't face a hot dog, no matter what it's wearing!
I would concur about the hotdog thought opined by Bella. Maybe if the corndog were made with a Hebrew National dog or a Wilno Kosher?
Incidentally, with the High Holy Days just around the corner, I'd like to take this moment to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Maybe next year in Jerusalem? Where's Rebbe Foghorn been hiding? Where you at Fogster?
Belle, you've got to stop living in the past. Don't look back. That's my motto. The Jungle was a hundred years ago. Nothing to worry about any more with the FDA and the meat inspectors to watch out for us. It's the spinach that'll getcha.
You crack me up! Yeah, I know things have changed. I still think hotdogs are nasty. Now, I've eaten plenty of other ODD things (chinchilla, moose meat, cobra to name a few) but NO hot dogs!
I can't stand hot dogs either, but once in a while, I get a nice pack of Polish sausages and treat them like hot dogs.
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