L.A. County Fair

If you've been to a state fair in the past decade or so, fried Oreos and Twinkies are pretty been-there-done-that fair food items. But leave it to the L.A. County Fair to yet again take fried food on a stick to the next level with "chicken in a waffle" on a stick, deep-fried bacon-wrapped chicken legs and, most astoundingly, deep-fried hot sauce (yeah, I don't get it either). Whatever you do, gorge wisely, and save some pocket money for the 70 rides and 40 carnival games, plus the Igloo (which features an ice-skating rink and sledding hill), acrobatics by Esmeralda's Traveling Circus, folksy things like pig races, and that sort-of-gross "Bodies" exhibit of corpses with their skin peeled off. Maybe hold off on the chicken legs till after you've seen that.