Fair opens Friday

Register online each Wednesday for that Saturday's Culinary Arts Special Contests in categories like best cookie, best cupcake, best chili and best hometown dish. Bring your dish on Saturday and have it be judged by fairgoers.

Work off that food competition at the fourth annual Fun Run, slated for 7:30 a.m. Aug. 5. The Centennial Farm Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser will run that morning from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. for $5, if reserved online. Enter through the Blue Gate.

Take a rain check from the office (or plan a long lunch) from noon to 4 p.m. Fridays, when vendors will offer $2 fun-sized samples of favorite fair food like funnel cake, tri-tip, lemonade, cinnamon rolls, corn dogs, gelato, tacos, cotton candy and more.

Prefer food trucks to fair fare? They'll be on hand from noon to 10 p.m. Thursdays inside the gates; purchase all your favorites with fair admission. Live food truck chef competitions are scheduled for July 19 and 28, and amateur chefs will compete against professional chefs on Aug. 2 and 9.

At the food booths, keep an eye out this year for the Big Rib at Biggy's Meat Market — a two-pound beef rib on a 17-inch bone, replete with its own 18-inch doggie bag.

For the fair food that is more a dare than a delicacy, keep an eye out for the famous Chicken Charlie's booths throughout the grounds. New offerings this year include deep-fried cereal, deep-fried peanut butter and jelly, deep-fried Spam, and deep-fried pineapple.