Oh, this is fun! I have a few State Fair tastings under my belt now, and sales are going really well. My first tasting, however, went something like this…(don’t laugh)

It’s opening day at the fair. I breeze through backstage (happily waiving my credentials in the car window) and we get to the Food & Fiber building. Scott & I unload our goodies, and select our tasting table. I cannot believe how many people are there. Shoulder to shoulder, everyone shopping and eating and watching cooking demonstrations. Lots, and lots of people. So Scott stands guard at our tasting table and I go park the car, which takes about 15 minutes. I come back and see Scott already handing out tastings. What a trooper!

As I get closer to the table I see a line. A very, very long line, about the length of 1/2 the entire building all waiting for a little Babycake. Later I found out someone insisted Scott give them a taste instead of “just standing there,” so he obliged. Then the floodgates opened. Good thing I had brought enough tastings for two hours, or so I thought.

Heart racing, I nudge in next to Scott and start passing out nibbles of Rum and Cocoa Framboise Babycakes. Idle conversation? No. Connecting with the customer? Uh, no. Eye contact? Yeah, right…I have 4,000 people waiting in line. I gotta hustle or I’m gonna get mugged!  We, ok I, was handing out tastings as fast as we I could put them on a napkin. I could not believe the line of people. 20 minutes later we were out of tastings. Done.

We took a breath, looked at each other with that ‘deer in the head lights’ look, and started cracking up. What the heck just happened?!? In his best Iowa accent Scott says, “Holy Schneikies.” (I’m about 99% sure that’s the gentleman’s version of Holy Sh*t!) Anyway, we assess the situation over Fletcher’s Corny Dogs, Twisted Taters, and a couple of German beers, and I remembered what I love most about my tastings. It’s the meeting, greeting, and feeding people. It’s the relationships I make, connecting with people, telling my story, and rattling off my list of fabulous ingredients. All of which I totally forgot about in those 20 minutes. Geez, goofy.

My subsequent tastings have been a blast, as planned. Yes, there are still tons of people in line but I think it’s a good time for everyone. I mean really, eating your way around the fair? What could be better?