Every year, hundreds of amateur chefs cook, can, bake, and of course, fry their entries for the State Fair’s annual cooking contests that take place at the Creative Arts Building at Fair Park.

Morning Edition host Andrew Garcia and I wanted to learn more about the contests, so this year, instead of eating our way across the fairgrounds, we took a closer look at the Farm to Fork competition, where home cooks create a sweet or savory dish using fresh, local produce, not frozen or canned vegetables. There are 12 different categories within the competition--which include everything from eggplant to nuts. We decided to take a deep (fried) dive into the world of fried pies.

To help us understand more about fried pies and what’s involved when you enter a cooking competition, we enlisted the he

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