Lemon Shake-Ups

Jiggedy wiggedy. I do not know what you do for fun where you live. I picture you high atop a mountain, staring glumly at the ground, bummed that you couldn’t find any dinosaur bones. How close is that to your actual deal, I wonder. But around where I live it is COUNTY FAIR SEASON. Yay for County Fairs and BOO to everything else. Tractor pulls and wood chopping contests. Demolition Derby and The Scrambler. Throw a dart and pop a balloon and win a small mirror with Bang Tango on it. Some lovely delightful little treats like Fried Twinkies and Pickle-On-A-Stick, Funnel Cake/Elephant Ears/Fried Dough and oh my God, what? What’s that? What’s the best part of the best part? Uh yes that would be Lemon Shake-Ups.

Lemon Shake-Ups, I am basically convinced at this point, are the best part of summer. You can get them at other times during the year, but you should not. Likewise you can get them at non-county-fair locales, but again you should not. Stick with what works. Stop fucking around. Just as insightful pop culture commentary belongs in an article written by Stephen King in an issue of Entertainment Weekly, so do Lemon Shake-Ups belong on the midway at the fair in the small town during the summer.

There are plenty of decent recipes on the webs for Lemon Shake-Ups (We never talk about recipes. What’s that about? You’d think we would, occasionally. Are we too butch for our own good?) but me I prefer to have mine made by an expert (ideally an old church woman or a Mexican on a TN visa).

Anyways I hope you have fairs where you live this summer, so you can go have one. I feel bad for you if you can’t. If there are no fairs where you live, maybe you could start one! I always felt there was some latent Carny in you. Explore that.

Also if anyone has any other midway fair beverage treats that they like, I would like to hear about it. You can also get Orange and Strawberry Shake-ups, but that ain’t my scene, Sizzlean.

23 thoughts on “Lemon Shake-Ups”

  1. I’m glad that SB is the poster child for lemon shake-ups. I’m going to be all over one of those this weekend!

  2. Funny you should mention it because today at work two designers were “tasked” with somehow visually representing yr average state fair, and one of them is Mexican and the other is Dutch, and they were communicating with each other in an ESL fashion, and eventually came to the realization that neither of them had any idea what a state fair was. It was so cute! We had to sit them down and explain it was where the latest deep-fat-frying technology was tested, and where you could probably find a skank in a Bob Seger t-shirt who was ready to go.

  3. Oh man, YES! Did you explain the wide panopoly of fried things you can sample? If I remember correctly, at last year’s fair one could have fried: onion rings, cheese sticks, cheese ON a stick, snickers bars, twinkies, and probably other things I can’t remember. Does tempura count as fried stuff? What about corn dogs?

  4. I wasn’t aware that there are any OTHER beverages at the C. fair besides them. 🙂 (Well ok except for a $4.oo bottle of water but fuck that)
    And you are SO right about not having them anywhere else. It’s just not the same, screw you 6-flags, that teenager can’t reproduce the carney flava.
    Hook me up with my once yearly F. fries w/ vinegar and my E. Ear and heaven awaits.
    Great post BTW.

  5. well clearly an elephant ear is a single piece of dough, covered in powdered sugar, (or my favorite, tomato sauce and cheese). apaprently in VA here you can also get these with a myriad of fruit flavors. whereas the funnel cake is thin strands of dough (or one super long string of dough, if done correctly) in circular shape. covered in powdered sugar. much more texture to be found with the funnel cake than the fried dough/elephant ear.

  6. Meh, Elephant Ears are just rip-offs of the far-superior Beavertails, anyways.
    Lemon Shake-Ups are the definition of awesomely delicious, however.

  7. Why do you insist on naming your fried dough after animal parts? Personally I like the utilitarian name of “fried dough” which so perfectly describes the simple beauty of this dish.
    That said, I have never had a lemon shake-up because I always go for the birch beer.

  8. What? No. An E. ear is the flat funnel cake dough fried to perfection and sprinkled with a large dose of cinnamin and sugar.

  9. God, I miss county fairs. You forget about the simple things when you move to the big city.

  10. I realize I am Mr. “never have commented guy” on this site. But, what the hell is a lemon shake up? I am in CA, and I go to the state fair, and the orange county fair yearly, but have never seen this beverage. I was excited to read what it might be about when I saw the article title, but all I got was a masturbatory article about how good they are. A good masturbatory article, but uninformative nonetheless. Is it like lemonade? Is it frozen lemonade? No idea over here. Anyway, try the fried Snickers bars if you see them. Glorious they are.

  11. Lemon shakeups are the best thing ever. I’ve missed the fair for quite a few years now; wonder how much they’re getting for them these days? You get to pay $7.00 for one with vodka in it at Seven Saints.

  12. grrr. i learned today that i can’t handle being called sizzlean. can’t and shan’t. i cannot and i shannot.

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