State Fair News

State Fair of Texas issues 2025 guide for arts & crafts blue ribbons

State Fair of Texas blue ribbons

SFOT

The time has come for crafty Texans to showcase their creativity: The State Fair of Texas has issued the 2025 version of its Arts & Crafts and Cooking Contest Guides, now available for download at BigTex.com/CreativeArts.

The State Fair’s Creative Arts team holds two kinds of contests: pre-Fair arts and crafts contests like quilting and jam-making; and Fair-time cooking contests, like best bread and best dish with cheese. There are more than 1,100 arts and crafts categories and 26 cooking contests.

Pre-fair contests
The 2025 Arts & Crafts Contests include Fine Art; Ceramics; Designer Craftsman; Dolls; Canning; Hobby Collections; Holiday Corner; Needlepoint, Crewel, and Counted Cross-Stitch; Needlework and Sewing; Afghans, Rugs, Quilts, and Bedspreads; Photography; Scale Models; Glue-a-Shoe; and The Great Pumpkin Challenge.

Actual registration for the 2025 pre-Fair contests will open online on May 7 with a deadline of Monday, July 28, to submit online entry forms and fees.

Contestants can submit their entries via mail by July 28 or hand-deliver items to the Creative Arts building in Fair Park on August 1, 2, and 3 from 9 am-5 pm.

In the weeks following, entries will be judged, and contestants will be notified once the results are finalized. Entries awarded a ribbon will be displayed during the 2025 State Fair of Texas.

Cooking Contests
The 2025 Cooking Contests include Bread; Cooking With Cheese; Honey, the Magic Ingredient; Beekeepers Honey, Farm to Fork; Chocolate; Pizza Cook-Off; Youth Cooking Contest; Best of Show-Down (invitation only); Play with your Food; Dough-Re-Me Pastry; Soup or Salad; Ice Cream Freeze-Off; The Ultimate Grilled Cheese Challenge; Charcuterie Board; Texas Chuck Wagon; International Cuisine; Speedy Dishes; Fair Concoctions; Chicken or the Egg; Cobbler Cook-Off; Tex Mex; and Candy.

The 2025 State Fair of Texas Cooking Contest Guide and the Cooking Contest Calendar are now available, with online registration opening on May 7, and closing Monday, July 28.

Blue Ribbon Battle
The State Fair of Texas is bringing back the Battle for the Blue Ribbons – a spring cooking competition consisting of three of the Fair’s most popular Creative Arts Cooking Contests: Cookies, Cakes, and Pies, running from May 16-May 18.

Amateur home cooks of all ages may enter for the chance to be awarded first, second, third, and honorable mention for a total of 40 blue-ribbon winners who will be invited to compete in their respective contests at the exclusive Best of Show-Down in the Competition Kitchen during the 2025 State Fair of Texas on October 5, 2025.

One contestant from each of the three contests will be awarded a Best of Show ribbon, allowing them to advance to a head-to-head battle for the Best of Show-Down grand prize. For more information about this specific competition and to register, visit BigTex.com/Battle.

Registration
Participants are encouraged use the online registration system for all contests. It allows the creation of a family account, which permits adults in the household to add additional contestants to the account and register youth contestants. Youth contestants will have their own designated entries for Creative Arts competitions, but all communications regarding those entries are sent to the primary adult on the account.

Although there are paper registration forms in the Arts & Crafts and Cooking Contest Guides that can be mailed to the Fair, it is recommended to use the online registration portal to ensure contestants receive helpful reminders and judging results of their respective contests.

The 2025 State Fair of Texas will opening on Friday, September 26, and run through Sunday, October 19.

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Movie Review

The life of an actor is far from rosy in dramedy Misty Green

Photo courtesy of A24

Rosalind Eleazar in Misty Green.

For every well-known/successful actor in Hollywood, there are thousands of others whose lives are more tenuous as they struggle to find work. The new film Misty Green is about one such actor who, after a period in the limelight, now finds herself on the outskirts of the industry, just hoping to find her way back in.

Misty (Rosalind Eleazar) won an Emmy for a 2000s-era TV show that still gets her recognition, but not much work. Still living in the apartment of a recently-deceased man with whom she was having an affair, Misty spends her days sleeping in and her nights getting blitzed on alcohol and drugs. She seems to be heading nowhere fast until a few things coincide to break up her routine.

The man’s wife (Amy Landecker) shows up and tells her she has seven days to vacate the apartment; Misty’s brother, Jay (Daniel Kaluuya) — who is bipolar — arrives after being kicked out of his facility for non-payment; and Jordan (Chris Rock), a former colleague with whom she had a falling-out, reappears in her life, offering a possible chance to rehabilitate her image.

Written and directed by Rock (his first feature since 2014’s Top Five), the film is a funny and excruciating look at how the entertainment industry might actually work. Misty is her own worst enemy thanks to late nights fraternizing with unsavory characters like Zach (Adam Driver), who deals in drugs and women in equal measure, but her frustration proves warranted when her agent, Randy (Topher Grace), and casting directors like Rhonda (Tracie Thoms) hardly give her the time of day.

Misty tries her best to stay positive, but when jobs like singing in a bar are the best she can do, the mountain seems insurmountable. Rock does an effective job of demonstrating the elements that are within and without Misty’s control that affect her ability to regain her position in the industry. The chip on her shoulder is almost as big as the bias some have against her, and other negative circumstances don’t help matters much.

There are many small touches that Rock and his crew put in the film to give it an air of authenticity. Filming in Los Angeles (a rarity these days), Rock uses both subtle and overt shots of homeless people in the city, suggesting that the line between the haves and have-nots is a fine one, especially with Misty on the verge of not having a place to live. He also has cameos from a few of his funny friends, including a bit of meta-casting of Anthony Anderson (who has faded a bit after starring in Black-ish) in a bit part as a cop.

Eleazar, a British actor best known for appearing on the Apple TV show Slow Horses, is a magnetic presence as Misty. The character herself is somewhat cringey in her decision-making, and Eleazar sells every bit of her righteous indignation and self-defeating actions. The supporting cast is great across the board, including Rock, Driver, Kaluuya, Thoms, Grace, Anna Kendrick, and Rich Sommer.

Misty Green makes you rage against the Hollywood machine, laugh at the various ways different people deal with its maddening quirks, and hide behind your fingers as Misty chooses options that don’t help, either voluntarily or because her back is against the wall. It’s a powerhouse of acting that gives a unique angle on the inner workings of Hollywood, one that ironically might be competing for awards at year’s end.

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Misty Green is now playing in theaters.

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