Keep Your Senators, Give Me Deep Fried Twinkies!

photo uploaded to flickr by Mr. T in DCThose of us who live in DC are always sensitive to slights from you people who have full Representation in Congress. It's often difficult to describe the sense of injustice that our second class status gets us, little things too many to list here.

But one of the greatest is about to be remedied. That's right, Washington, DC is about to get it's first ever State Fair!

This year, the good folks at the 4th Annual Columbia Heights Day have included a DC State Fair in their festivities this Saturday, August 28th. That's right folks, we've hit the big time.

The Fair will be part of the larger Columbia Heights Day and will include several of the contests you would see in your more, er, traditional State Fairs. According to a recent interview in DCist, current categories include "Tastiest Tomato, Funkiest-Looking Vegetable, Best Home-Made Pie, a Cupcake Contest, a D.C. neighborhood photography contest, best homemade jam and pickles, and a poetry contest for kids." I'm pretty bummed I didn't make my own pickles this year, but I'm tempted to enter the jar I canned back in 2004. Should still be good, right?

Now, while you might not think of the District as an agricultural powerhouse, urban gardening is in. More and more of us reject the concept that living in a city is diametrically opposed to growing at least some of your own food. As I write this, I'm proudly sipping a truly wretched home brew cider I made from apples grown on my very street. Couple more batches, and a real cider press, and we're in business. In my own neighborhood, several community gardens fight to better their neighborhoods. And folks such as the Common Good City Farm in Shaw seek to bring the benifits of urban agriculture to everybody. Who knows, we might even be allowed to have chickens someday!

So it's not crazy that some of these budding farmers/lobbyists/staffers/whatever want to fight over who can grow the best tomato. Come see how they did, and also take a look at one of DC's most intriguing neighborhoods. If you have the time, I highly recommend the self guided walking tour.

To get there, take the Green or Yellow Line to Columbia Heights (yes, it's safe), and head a couple clocks over to Harriet Tubman Elementary School.