In a new residential building on Erwin Road three new restaurants will open, including Chipotle and T.G.I. Fridays.

This is nice since there aren't a lot of restaurants in walking distance from our house. There's Nosh, which I really like, but some more variety, even from chain restaurants, is always good.

Saturday morning I went to the North Carolina State Fair. I took a smarter route than last year so parking was no issue this time.

The fair is a lot of fun, many different things to see and so many different people. I spent an hour or two walking around. I liked the agricultural exhibitions: weirdly shaped pumpkins, wonderful roses etc. Food is important at the fair, and I tried banana pudding and had a hushpuppie in a corn mill.

The best part I found by accident: there was a very nice music & dance show in a big tent near the water rides at the Midway. There was blue grass and regional music, and a number of traditional youth dance groups.

Lots of pictures below.

The Midway.

Drying tobacco leaves. Tobacco used to be, and still is, a very important crop for North Carolina.

Products from North Carolina.

There was a contest for roses.

Old farming equipment.

A children's ride with real animals.

Free fall!

Carved pumpkins with the Duke, NC State and the Tarheels sport team logo's.

The Raleigh Jaycees' Turkey Shoot, where I volunteered last Tuesday.

Turkey legs. I had one of them for dinner on Tuesday.

The food on the fair is something special. You can get the strangest things deep-fried. I didn't really feel like trying deep fried Snickers, Coca Cola or pickles.

The ice cream made by NC State is supposed to be very delicious, but the line was way too long. I tried banana pudding (from the restaurant at the Raleigh Farmer's Market). A colleague from Tennessee is crazy about this and it's indeed delicious.

A donkey.

Live music.

See also the pictures from the State Fair in 2006.

Thursday evening I had a great conversation over good beer in Tyler's Taproom, in the American Tobacco District. I got the advise to check out "Sam's Quickshop", a few minutes driving from our house on Erwin Road.

I've seen the store many times -- it's right on the way to Whole Foods and downtown Durham -- but I could never be bothered to go in. Although I had read about a 'nice beer selection' on-line I figured that the author meant they had both Budweiser and Miller. The store looks like a typical gas station store with cold beer, cigarettes and car things, and I never paid it real attention.

How wrong could I have been!

If you see the store from the road, it looks like your typical gas station store...

...but inside they have shelf after shelf of great imported beer. And to my great delight they even have two kind of Grimbergen beers! They had no Grimbergen Triple in stock, but they'll call on Monday to see if they can order it. I really hope the importer carries Triple as well. I told them if they do, I'll need 4 six-packs... some Grimbergen Triple would be awesome for my birthday party in 3 weeks.

I'm leaving for the NC State Fair now, so I'm ready for a long time in traffic and looking for a parking spot. I'll bring a cup of coffee with me in the car.

Yesterday I made a very, very nice discovery here in Durham, later more.

After last week's pumpkin cookies we had a cake at work.

It's a home made cake, and it's decorated by someone is a doing a course (with good results, clearly).

I like this tradition of people bringing baked goods into the office.