Welcome back to the North Carolina State Fair, where you can have your pig and eat it, too. This year, livestock is where it's at, but after a morning of scraping my shoes and gawking at hog testicles I was ready for something new. I was on a mission. Saturday afternoon found me knee-deep in toddlers at the Bunny Barn, where 518 bunnies of all sizes, shapes, colors, flavors and textures--North Carolina's finest--gather to sit, stare and sh-t.
Bunnies bite. Reach out a grubby cotton-candied paw, poke some bunny-butt through the wire mesh of a cage and you'll live to tell about it. As per health code violations, the bunny will not. And so, volunteer Jessie Franklin sits behind a folding table in the Bunny Barn, with the express purpose of thwarting would-be pokers and explaining what really happened to Peter Rabbit. She has three bunny-skins on display for children to touch in lieu of the real thing.
Jessie and I talk business. I have questions that need answers, and it's my way or the midway. Good news: In the greatest feat of down-home crossover entertainment since Carnie freestyle and the Circle K Racing Pigs, Jessie confirms my suspicion that one can, in fact, sugarcoat and deep-fry a bunny rabbit on a stick. What's better, you can do it yourself with a WalMart Fry-Daddy, $19.99, and a pack of bunny cutlets, $4.99 a pound at the Piggly Wiggly. What's up now, Doc?
--Katie Latanich
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