Fun at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair 2010

Another edition of the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair is on again, and it runs until 6 p.m. on Sunday, November 14. If you're thinking of heading down, be aware that the admission price is a fairly steep $20 for adults, $16 for youth and seniors, but any weekday after 5 p.m. there's a two-for-one admission policy, which gives you four hours of fun for not quite so much money. And if you're not particularly strapped for cash, I really think the full admission is worth it. I was down there for more than eight hours yesterday, and felt as though I'd barely skimmed the surface.

Free Stuff at the Fair

To ease the sting of the admission price, I had the impression there was more cool free stuff this year than there sometimes is. Apart from many wonderful foods to taste – smoked fish, sausages, cheeses, jams, mustards, pepper jellies, and so on – I picked up free PEI potatoes, a free bar of goat-milk soap and a sizeable free sample of a new margarine product from Becel that's not only low in "bad" fats, but is actually supposed to inhibit absorption of cholesterol.

Tweeting Cows and Waterfalls

Most people already know about the horse shows, the dog shows, the chickens, the petting zoo, the cow barns and so on, but there are always some unusual things to be found in odd corners of the fair. This year, besides all the real live animals, there were at least two model cows set up to let you try "milking" them, a model cow you can write comments on (several wags wrote "Got Milk?), and an exhibit about "Teat Tweet", a Critical Media Lab project that's posting comments from a dozen cows via Twitter for one year as they navigate a robotic milking system.

The cows have quite a literary bent, with a tendency to mix quotations from great English poets with more mundane remarks like "Entered the stall at Sat, Nov 6 '10 9:29 am and by Sat, Nov 6 '10 9:38 am gave 18.5 milk." If your attention span is too short to click on the Teat Tweet link, just follow @FreerideSpeedy or @MontgomeryMae on Twitter.

Near the entrance to the fair, there's a walk-through exhibit about water, aimed at kids. Tucked away at the very end is a clever and rather lovely piece of installation art called Waterfall, addressing the environmental issue of water use. It was originally created for the Canadian Wildlife Federation to be exhibited at Whistler Canada Olympic House during the Vancouver Olympics.

The work of Canadian artists Kim Morgan, David Clark, Rachelle Viader Knowles and David Ogborn, Waterfall takes the form of a vending machine with lit-up panels depicting everyday uses of water; when you punch in the number codes that correspond to a selection, the panel presents a video clip of that activity, which in turn falls away to reveal part of a beautiful waterfall.

Grocery Shopping at the Royal

I always try to buy some special groceries while I'm at the fair. There are great bargains to be had, like Woolwich goat cheese for $2. One of my must-do stops is the Northern Ontario section, where I generally pick up smoked fish, bison meat and sometimes wool. Several artisanal cheese makers are represented, and there's also an Eastern Ontario corner near the prize-winning veggies, where you can buy Fifth Town Cheese and sample craft beers.

For the first time this year, the upstairs section includes a fresh vegetable market (pictured), along with the usual honey and maple syrup. And there's an LCBO outlet, just in case you need one.

And finally, it was a special thrill for me to feel I was, in a small way, part of the whole thing this year, since the jams and jellies I entered in the preserving competition did quite well.

Here is the display case where the winning preserves are displayed at the fair. Yvonne Tremblay, author of such cookbooks as 250 Home Preserving Favorites, amassed more judging points than any other entrant to win the title of Grand Champion Jam and Jelly Maker, which makes her an amazing five-time winner of the honour.

Patricia Griesser, who came second overall in the points ranking, won the Judges' Choice Award for her Mango Papaya Jam with Chinese Five Spice. It scored a full 50 out of a possible 50 points. She was last year's Grand Champion.

Thus you can understand how good I felt about coming in third overall behind these two talented preservers, with five ribbons, including a first-place prize for my Gooseberry Jam with Ginger. I was also pleased to see that my friend and neighbour, Tom Boyd, picked up numerous ribbons once again, including the top prize for dill pickles in the pickling category. The full results for all the agricultural categories are posted online, including cattle, cheese, honey, maple syrup, butter, poultry, rabbits, wine, and even square dancing.