The Heavy Table has a great post today which combines all of the secrets from yesterday’s live tweets (follow @heavytable to keep in the loop) with photos to help your imagination along. For those of you who can’t make it, this post will give you a picture of the best-of eats on day one of the fair. If you’re like us, and you’ve LIVED IN MINNEAPOLIS FOR A YEAR AND A HALF WITHOUT GOING TO THE MN STATE FAIR, this post will convince you that you are CRAZY and that you should GO TODAY. Incidentally, we’ll be heading to St. Paul this evening, tomorrow evening, or both, and we’ll definitely keep this list of suggestions in mind (along with the google map, thanks guys!).

From what our friends at The Heavy Table shared, it’s the beverages I’m most excited about. I’m currently craving the $1 Cider Freeze, the trio of Summit beers on a stick ($7.50), and Stanly’s Sugarbush Maple soda ($4). The last of these looks to be the most promising. As The Heavy Table puts it, Stanly’s is

A local alternative to soda… not just “as good as a Coke” good, but “far, far better than a Coke” good. It’s got an almost creamy flavor, a maple kick, and a refreshing hit of carbonation.

Based on the prices shared here, it looks like we’ll need to carry plenty of $5s and $1s with us in preparation for this 4,000+ calorie snack-feast.

Image: Becca Dilley, The Heavy Table

June was a great month here. Thanks to everyone for the friendly features! If you missed any, check out these neighborly mentions:

Anna at Door Sixteen, a fellow WordPress/DreamHost and (!) ad free blog, spent some time transforming her IKEA Frösta stools just like we did back in April. If you read that post, you’ll remember that my project was originally inspired by something I read on D16. Anna took it a step further and gorgeously painted the seats of her stools in deep black. My mind is now on what color I might use if I were to do the same…

Tom was excited to see on both June 25 and June 30 a couple of hellos from James Norton over at The Heavy Table, a food blog here in the Twin Cities. Their regular Morning Roundup part of “The Churn” is a great way to find out what’s happening in local food and food writing. If you haven’t seen Tom’s entries on his Báhn Mì from scratch and taste-testing Red Savoy Pizza, then please—scroll down!

Over the long weekend we’ll be focusing on the theme of travel and filling you in on what’s been going on in our kitchen that we haven’t had a chance to share just yet. As always, there will be plenty of food, projects, and online finds to keep you going. Thanks for visiting!