The Minnesota State Fair opens Thursday, and aside from the Fairgrounds, here's where you should be: Startribune.com.

That's because I'll be tweeting my way through the fair's 35-plus new foods, from bacon ice cream and Paul Bunyon Bars to walleye rolls and red velvet funnel cakes. Follow me on Twitter, or catch the feed here.

If you're visiting the fair after opening day, don't hit the Carousel Park without checking out my four-star to zero-star ratings of all the new foods. We'll post it online on Friday, and it will appear in print in Variety on Saturday.

Meanwhile, if you're on the Fairgrounds on Thursday, don't miss Taste editor Lee Svitak Dean. She'll be meeting-and-greeting at the Star Tribune booth (Carnes Av., in front of the Grandstand Ramp) from 10 to 11 a.m. (while you're there, pick up the Strib's pickle-flavored lip balm). And from 1 to 2 p.m., Lee will be in the Saint Agnes Bakery kitchen in the Creative Activities Building (Dan Patch Av. and Cosgrove St.), preparing Thin Mint Bars, which, if you're a chocolate and mint lover -- and frankly, who isn't -- will become an integral part of your baking repertoire.

Next Thursday in Taste (and Wednesday afternoon at Startribune.com/taste), we'll have my rundown on the foods all first-time Fairgoers need to eat.

Meanwhile, here's what you can find in the Strib archive: My annual new-foods-at-the-fair roundups from 2011, 2010 and 2009, along with a greatest-hits revisit of 12 years of new fair foods.

By the way, the above picture is also from the Strib archive. That's Ruth Marie Peterson of Austin, Minn., the 1955 Princess Kay of the Milky Way, milking Filco Ormsby Dainty Lady. They're in front of the all-you-can-drink milk booth. Note the price: 10 cents a glass. It's now a buck, and still one of the fair's best values.