The assignment? Write about fair food. How? Eat fair food. Could work get any better? Do fairs sell fried food?

My kids came to work with me the day we ate through the fair.

“Can you do this story every year?” Clara, my 12-year-old, asked.

Our traditional first stop at the Altamont Fair was the Mexican food truck run by an old friend, Kevin McCarten, of Athens. My 16-year-old son, Benito, and Kevin’s daughter were “engaged” in kindergarten. Alas, the relationship lagged, so now we catch up each year at the Altamont Fair while we order too much food.

We ordered nachos with everything but meat; our trek through the vendors’ offerings was limited to gluten-free vegetarian for my son, and vegetarian for the rest of us.

The nachos were gone in three minutes. I headed to the fried veggie truck down the strip. I miss the days when my friend Mary used to work the fair circuit selling huge platters of fried zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and whatever veggies she snagged at roadside stands. While the platter was priced pretty high, Mary’s portions were huge, and I happily indulged in a fried-food feast until I collapsed on a circus museum bench with a grease-induced stomachache. Ah, the good old days.

This year, a friendly vendor offered me a normal-sized portion of fried mushrooms for $7. They were tasty, and both Clara and Marcela, my 6-year-old, shared them with me.

Since he couldn’t join us in tasting the mushrooms, Benito grabbed some candied nuts from across the way. There is no way to go wrong with sugar-coated cashews. He pronounced them “delicious.”

We headed toward the other side of the fairgrounds and, nestled between hot-tub dealers and jewelry tents, we found wine slushies. Michelle Hurlbut, from central New York, offered passersby free samples.

I tried the raspberry-flavored slushie, which is 5-percent alcohol and not for children. She also offers fairgoers a Niagara grape-flavored slushie.

“It’s our apple-based wine with grape juices and flavors,” she said. “It’s a big hit, especially where we’re from. A lot of wineries do that.”

Next up was a slice of white pizza for Marcela, who generally eats only pizza, ice cream, strawberries, frozen soy-chik patties, and Romaine lettuce. Five foods. Every day.

The crust — the only part she shared — was good; New York-style pizza. Delish.

We took a break for a bit and watched the pony ring with some friends who were competing. That’s when it poured.

One of our umbrellas broke in two pieces. That left three umbrellas for four of us and an expensive work camera to share. There may have been fist-fights.

This year, a friendly vendor offered me a normal-sized portion of fried mushrooms for $7. They were tasty, and both Clara and Marcela, my 6-year-old, shared them with me.

Since he couldn’t join us in tasting the mushrooms, Benito grabbed some candied nuts from across the way. There is no way to go wrong with sugar-coated cashews. He pronounced them “delicious.”

We headed toward the other side of the fairgrounds and, nestled between hot-tub dealers and jewelry tents, we found wine slushies. Michelle Hurlbut, from central New York, offered passersby free samples.

I tried the raspberry-flavored slushie, which is 5-percent alcohol and not for children. She also offers fairgoers a Niagara grape-flavored slushie.

“It’s our apple-based wine with grape juices and flavors,” she said. “It’s a big hit, especially where we’re from. A lot of wineries do that.”

Next up was a slice of white pizza for Marcela, who generally eats only pizza, ice cream, strawberries, frozen soy-chik patties, and Romaine lettuce. Five foods. Every day.

The crust — the only part she shared — was good; New York-style pizza. Delish.

We took a break for a bit and watched the pony ring with some friends who were competing. That’s when it poured.

One of our umbrellas broke in two pieces. That left three umbrellas for four of us and an expensive work camera to share. There may have been fist-fights.

After the downpour, the kids played, soaked to the skin, while the parents around the pony ring watched a funnel cloud form, then disperse. We scouted out the best places to take shelter — the Old Songs barn looked best, but I told the kids to go wherever the public safety crews behind the ring beyond the Northrup stage told them to go.

The tree line covered the clouds from the kids’ perspectives — they didn’t care. I decided it was time to spend my last $4, so we borrowed a buck from Benito and bought fried dough, or elephant ears, depending on where you’re from.

Clara and Benito came back with a plain piece of dough. I don’t like to eat foods Benito can’t have when there is no easy alternative for him; my girls hadn’t ever eaten fried dough at the fair. Clara had no idea it was supposed to come with powdered sugar.

I was a bit surprised the vendor didn’t prepare it for her. Tastes better that way, I think — if I’m going to splurge on calories, I want to splurge guilt-free and not count how many shakes of sugar I put on. The plain bread Clara came back with looked like Indian Fry Bread, which sent my head into a spiral about how the American fair culture has appropriated and adulterated a native food using a product created by the evil, colonializing sugar industry — but that was just hunger talking. I walked her back to the vendor, and we sprinkled a decent amount of sugar and cinnamon on the dough. The kids at the pony ring gathered around the plate and dug in. Everything tastes better with friends.

At this point, $45 had been figuratively ingested; my husband arrived fresh from the ATM, and we had “dinner.”

Each year, we eat salt potatoes at the fair. They were pretty good this year — soft and coated in margarine — but not salted. Luckily, salt and pepper, and ketchup, were easily accessible. We missed the corn-on-the-cob and apple cider across the way at a nearby vendor, but I wish I had grabbed some instead of getting side-tracked by cowboy hats and fancy handbags. We had to keep moving.

Around the corner, the kids loaded up on snow cones, lemonade, and cotton candy. A stop at the big top added circus popcorn to the list to create an interesting meal.

After the circus, we took a food break and the kids and my hubby crawled into giant rubber bubbles and rolled into each other. They loved it, but crawled out exhausted and overheated.

My husband said it was so much work rolling around in the bubble that he felt like he’d just done his treadmill for the day. I thanked him for going with Marcela, so I didn’t have to. Whew! I dodged that one. After a day indulging in fair food, and 20 minutes bumping into each other and rolling on the ground, the kids now had queasy stomachs.

We headed back across the fairgrounds to find the root-beer steins that are so expensive, but so much fun to try: If you buy the souvenir stein, you can fill up the rest of the day with different flavors. Refills on subsequent days are “only” $5.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” complained Benito when he realized he’d waited too late in the day to take full advantage of the offer. Not knowing something is a parent’s fault, right? OK.

En route to the root beer, the kids insisted we go into the circus museum. They love it; it’s tradition. At the back of the exhibit, I wandered into the country store where Berne maple producers offered jugs of syrup and maple candy.

The kids grabbed up maple and honey sticks, and I grabbed a small jug for my morning tea — a plan which, I discovered upon an early-morning tasting, was not a good one. I’ll stick with syrup on my pancakes or my cornbread, and leave my tea alone.

Benito headed on to pick out his stein, but I got waylaid by a sign promising deep-fried cheesecake for $3. I came to the fair to eat fair food, and, by golly, I was going to eat fried cheesecake!

I chatted with the owner/manager at Sammy’s Country Wagon while I waited for my cheesecake to come out of the fryer.

“It’s going to be your favorite dessert,” she told me. It was really hard to order that cheesecake, since I was craving salt — she sold custom-made potato chips and cheese fries with some of the best fair prices I’d seen. I held tough, and waited for my cheesecake.

I chatted with her for a bit, but she started to think I was crazy, so I stepped aside and let other people order.

The kids were full by then, but I did offer to share.

“I just rolled around in a bubble. No,” Clara said.

The cheesecake wasn’t what I expected, but it was good, and only $3. I ate every bite of the cheesecake, but the last, by myself. If you leave a bite, you’re not a total pig, right? Isn’t that the rule?

While I feasted, Benito came back from his drink quest, chugged 44 ounces of vanilla crème soda in 10 minutes, and went back for more.

Can you believe Marcela talked my husband into sharing another stein with her? Now I have two souvenir tin cups in my kitchen, and I’ve been warned by the kids about putting them “away” in the trash.

Marcela was starting to get tired and grabby, and our wallets were getting lighter every minute we stayed, so we headed out, or so I thought.

There, in front of me, was a sign: Pickle on a Stick, $2. I got in line.

“I want a pickle on a stick! Please, Mommy?” Clara begged. She is definitely my child.

I peeked over the shoulders of the group in front of me, to see the pickle-on-a-stick treat.

It was just a pickle — on a stick. Where was the batter? Where was the peanut butter-slathered pickle, which could then be rolled in a cinnamon-sugary rice-crisp cereal before a quick dip in a pancake batter tossed in some hot oil and deep-fried, on a stick?

I was obsessing. We stepped out of line. I promised Clara a jar of pickles when we got home.

I herded the kids toward the parking lot, but Benito and my husband veered off to walk through the fairgrounds to leave by another exit — a move that was completely unnecessary. I wasn’t fooled.

“No more food,” I told Benito. He tried to say he was just visiting the restroom, again.

“Mom, I drank two steins of root beer,” he said. I stared him down, and he admitted in a whisper that he wanted kettle corn. Another food stop would have sent his little sisters into fits, again. Clara started to pick up on it, and said she’d go home with Dad, but I wanted her to keep me company and help with Marcela.

“Get Clara some, too,” I whispered back, and I left with the girls before the little one had a chance to argue.

Benito’s plan didn’t work; there was no kettle corn to be found from one gate to the other.

I’m glad Clara came with me. She curled up in a ball as soon as we climbed in the car. She was a little bit sick, and a little bit sleepy.

“I’m on the edge of a sugar coma,” she said. “It’s awesome.”