The Erie County Fair is in full swing, and AM Buffalo will be live at the fair all week.
First on the list of things to do are the rides. Emily and a new co-worker Alyssa head out to check out the rides and one of the rides they go on is the crazy mouse. Along with them are Marty Biniasz, manager of marketing & fair development, Strates and James Strates owner of Strates Shows. Up next something a little tamer, a ride on the flying elephants. Needless to say, a lot of fun was had on the Strates Shows rides.
It’s music Monday and today at the fair and Emily and Mercedes talked with Mel Funk and J.T. from Street Drum Core. When asked what they do Mel says “I like to say we turn trash into treasure. We are playing on kegs, buckets, a lot of times we use garbage pails, garbage can lids, things like that, dumpsters, oil cans, whatever we find, we turn them into drums and we play on them.”
Does the crowd get involved? J.T. says, “There is a part in the show where I hold down the beat and Mel will take a trash can top that was converted into a drum and she will run around and get the kids into it, we’ll get the crowd into it, anyone who is looking to play. Mel just feels it out and sees who’s willing and we rock out.”
If you are at the fair, you have to taste all the delicious food they have and today is Taste of the Fair where there will be many items available for just $2. Joining us today is Andre Bullock from Dre’s Place barbecue and Alexis Wilson and Toni Price from Taylor’s Dough Boys and they brought some tasty treats. Alexis shows us birthday funnel cake, Reece’s deep-fried cheesecake, apple and cinnamon fried dough, and the deep fried Twinkies are their Taste of the Fair food item and is only $2.
Andre shows us some of the barbecue that Dre’s North Carolina has for fair goers. Andre tells us that they also have a tasty mouth-watering North Carolina barbecue treat for just $2.
Emily and Mercedes were food judges at the fair and they take us to Salvatore’s Pizza where they talk with Salvatore. He says his parents started a restaurant in Blasdell in 1955 called Salvatore’s Pizza and in 1956 they started coming to the Erie County Fair and Salvatore says we have been coming ever since then.
Emily and Mercedes stopped off at Camel Kingdom to check out the camels. Camel Kingdom is an all-day visual and educational exhibit and they have eight of their dromedary camels there. Some things you think you may not know about camels include that the one-hump camel doesn’t spit like many people assume and they don’t store water in their hump, they store fat in their hump. Ryan also says that these camels live about 40 years in captivity. You can learn more about these camels and see some demonstrations at the Erie County Fair. The shows are at 12:30pm, 3:30pm and 6:30pm
For more information about the fair go to ec.fair.org.
