The rodeo is in town. And a few cliches come to mind.

1. This is not our first rodeo.

2.  Everything’s bigger in Texas.

Well, growing up in central Florida, we had county fairs, and we had rodeos, but that did not prepare me for the magnitude of the rodeo hosted by the state capitol of Texas. So, this Rodeo was quite similar to your county fair. It had carnival rides, and carnival food, pigs with ribbons on them and animals for petting, also a field with some bleachers for a rodeo.

By now, you are imagining being fifteen and going to the county fair.

Well, back to the “Everything’s bigger in Texas”… This fairground was about the size of Rhode Island. It had maybe, and I will try not to exaggerate, one billion rides and games. It also had 100 places to get food, but not just funnel cakes, corn dogs and kettle corn. There were 20 different food trucks that probably serve better food than most sit down joints. And the field with bleachers? Well take a look.

So although this was not my first rodeo, I wasn’t prepared for this. They say that the Texas State Fair is even bigger (mind is currently blowing), we are going to have to see for our selves this fall.

In fact, the day was filled with firsts. Our little PlayGourmet rode his first ride completely solo. After getting a taste of that kind of independence, all he wanted to do was ride the rest of the day.

He also pet his first llama.

And we all ate our first pig wing.

As luck would have it, we stumbled on something magnificent. Something that we had never seen before, but after having, we think should DEFINITELY be a mainstream food.

We are talking about pork shanks that have been trimmed into lolli pops, and then given the chicken wing treatment.

Trudy’s TexMex is the responsible genius for this idea. And to top it off, they were willing to give us a behind the scenes tour of making their pig wings.

We start with our trimmed pork shanks, the blank canvas if you will.

Deep frying certainly has it’s negative connotations, but when you do it to a larger cut of meat, you lock in the juices and keep the meat super tender.

Once complete, they get tossed in Trudy’s hot sauce.

Leave no hot sauce behind!

Take a look at this masterpiece. Truly remarkable.

If you had to guess how we split four pig wings, between the four of us, what would you guess?

If you guessed two for the little Play Gourmet, and one for each of his parents, you guessed correctly.

Trudy’s made big fans out of the PlayGourmets on this trip. We have added them to our Restaurant Picks for Austin, TX.

And since two pig shanks clearly is not enough food for one little PlayGourmet, we finished the evening with a caramel apple, it is a fair after all.