San Diego Magazine's Happy Half Hour

Fair food is legendary—the logical extreme of American cuisine. The food court is Pinocchio’s island for people whose favorite invention is a deep fryer. We train for this. And this year we partnered with the San Diego County Fair to bring you the ultimate “Fairtastic Food Competition.” All told, three judges—myself, Chris Stone of @sdfoodies, and Nirit Wigdor of @sandiegoeats—tasted 36 dishes across six categories and named six of the best things to eat at the fair. One of my favorite humans, Rick Morton of Z90, emceed the marathon tasting. It was a friendly competition. Light bragging rights. But here’s the real reason why we did this: people like Gigi Horowitz of Mom’s Bakeshoppe. “We all live together back there, it’s a community,” Gigi says. “Our kids grew up together, some of them got married.” And people like Charlie Boghosian of Chicken Charlie’s. Charlie came to the US from Syria, hoped to work for the FBI. Instead, he invented what is perhaps the defining post-Ferris wheel snack. “I didn’t think I w