How a spaghetti sandwich led to the State Fair-winning deep-fried bacon brisket grilled cheese

When chef Joni Bell disappeared into her kitchen-turned-laboratory to work up a new food for the 2023 Iowa State Fair, she started with spaghetti sandwiches.

She and her siblings ate spaghetti sandwiches for supper all the time during long summer days on the farm. Her family may have been poor, sure, but they were rich in love, and those sandwiches still remind her of a slower time. A time when a bicycle meant pure freedom, and her biggest concern was how long she could play outside before the sun went down and mom called her in.

Those sandwiches are from a time of warmth. A time of family. A time of comfort.

And to Bell, great food ― even if it is served on a stick ― is an expression of all that joy and all those memories.

“I’ve been called a concoctor,” she said.

She’s also been called a winner, taking home the People’s Choice for Best New Food at the State Fair three separate times. And she’s the contest’s first ever back-to-back champion, having won last year for the Rib Shack’s The Finisher, a loaded baked potato extravaganza, and this year for What’s Your Cheez’s deep-fried bacon brisket mac-n-cheese grilled cheese.

“It's incredible to win two years in a row, but you got to be on your ball,” she says. “You got to be creative. It takes a lot.”

And in the case of the deep-fried grilled cheese, her creativity started with spaghetti sandwiches. But she modernized the dish by swapping spaghetti for bacon brisket mac and cheese, and she State Fair-ized it by deep frying the whole thing. Like a Monte Cristo but make it Iowan.

And lest you forget that the beloved east side caterer is a chef to her core, she gussied her new recipe with bacon cheddar bread from longtime partner Big Sky Bakery and a raspberry chipotle barbecue sauce, served on the side for dipping.

“I say you got to put the sauce with it. That makes it so different,” Bell says. “Then it’s really like, ‘Oh my God, that is totally different.'”

With each addition over the winter and spring, the sandwich changed — almost like a kaleidoscope when the barrel turns just so and an entirely new picture emerges.

And she and her team kept turning the barrel — testing every ingredient and every cook — until they felt like they had a masterpiece.

'Pride in our food': Joni Bell takes fair food seriously

A longtime concessionaire, Bell is as attentive to her stand’s setup as she is to the food.

The Rib Shack, which is essentially a pop-up restaurant, dominates a large space just east of the Bill & Anne Riley Stage, essentially the heart of the fairgrounds. Over the years, she’s brought out high-tops and benches to create more of a café feel — a gathering space for families, she says — and even concocted a condiment bar out of a rusted old truck for a bit of pizzazz.

While the People’s Choice is more about the taste and quality of the food, décor is always important to the voters, Bell says.

In fact, ornamentation is so important to the fair that the concessions department hands out another award for Best in Show, which recognizes the spiffiest stand. This year, Miller Concessions Inc. won for its mini doughnut stand, which fairgoers literally can’t miss because of its giant LED screen blasting tantalizing images of fresh frying doughnuts.

Like Bell, Miller set another back-to-back record in 2023, having won last year for its lemonade stand by the livestock barns, which is made to look like a giant lemon.

What’s Your Cheez, Bell’s new addition this year, is a more traditional stand with ooey gooey bright yellow cheese themed signs, located just a bit north of the Rib Shack.

Though distinct, the two stalls share chefs, cashiers and a mission: Just because it’s fair food doesn’t mean it’s any less important than any other dish.

“I have a lot of pride in our food,” Bell says. “Everything we do is always made from scratch because that's what I like. It's not pre-bought or anything premade. I'm not a preservative girl.”

“This is what I like to do,” she adds, gesturing to her stands. “I'm creating. Every sandwich that comes out of there, I watch it. I'm standing at that window myself. If I see one that’s got a burned corner, it's going back.”

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While Bell may be the face of her stands, her State Fair operation takes 74 people to run. And when she won People’s Choice on Wednesday afternoon, nearly all of them could be heard cheering “Joni! Joni! Joni!” from the nooks and crannies of her kiosks.

Two of her main chefs, Tony Guerrero and Jimmy Sanders, were integral to creation of the blue-ribbon sandwich, she says. Guerrero makes all the mac and cheese from scratch at the Rib Shack before walking the pans across the sidewalk to Cheez.

“We went through 160 pans the other day,” Bell says.

“It takes more than me to create; it takes my whole team,” she adds. “It's all our team here that makes this thing happen because there's a lot of work that goes into this.”

14,000 sandwiches ― and the fair's not over yet

So far, Bell has sold more than 14,000 sandwiches, she estimated.

In the People’s Choice competition ― which was voted on by Iowans through the State Fair app for the first five days of the event ― she received 47.2% of the 8,254 votes cast. That's a lot of deep-fried meat, she says.

Bell's grilled cheese beat out two other dishes that were takes off of iconic fair dishes: the grinder ball from The Bacon Box ― which is sort of a meatball version of a Grinder ― and the Iowa Twinkie from new vendor Whatcha Smokin’ BBQ & Brew ― which uses the general recipe of a jalapeno popper but adds ranch and sweet corn and wraps the whole thing in bacon.

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“To be at the Iowa State Fair is life-changing,” says James Romer, the fair’s concessions manager. “But to be in a contest and to be selected as the best in food ― at least in this day and age when everybody's looking for what's the latest thing, what's the newest thing, what can I try this year ― I mean, all the buzz that this creates, there's nothing like it.”

"It’s honor of an honor."

Bell certainly agrees. Every year she has a stand, she’s going to enter the best new fair food contest, she says. She’s already got ideas for 2024 ― though her lips are sealed as to specifics.

But right now she’s focused on the deluge of hungry fairgoers headed her way to taste 2023's best of the best.

“We've been swamped the whole fair and so this, of course, will make it even busier than normal,” she says. “You have to put your mind to what's gonna happen next.”

Susan Stapleton, the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register, contributed to this article.

Courtney Crowder, the Register's Iowa Columnist, traverses the state's 99 counties telling Iowans' stories. Her State Fair food must-get is the ice cream brick known as the Bauder's Peppermint Bar. Don't be ashamed to have seconds! Reach her at ccrowder@dmreg.com or 515-284-8360. Follow her on Twitter @courtneycare.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State Fair: Inside how this year's Best New Food was created