Abel started working in his father\u2019s restaurant, A.J. Gonzales\u2019 Mexican Oven, as a young boy, absorbing life in the kitchen. As an adult, he worked as a computer analyst by day and at his dad\u2019s restaurant in the evenings. And he continued to enjoy the Fair.<\/p>\n
Around 1999, he had just lost a game of ring toss on the midway when he had a lightbulb moment: He could run a booth at the Fair. He pursued the idea but found it impossible to break into the system since the games were run by one organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then he realized he had the know-how in the kitchen: a food booth could work. He opened his first booth at the Fair in 2003, selling giant, Texas-shaped sopapillas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years later, the State Fair began a new contest, open to concessionaires only, which would ultimately change his life: the Big Tex Choice Awards competition, an opportunity for those with Fair concession stands to showcase creativity using a deep fryer. <\/p>\n
Because the Fair had an Elvis exhibit that year, Abel\u2019s mind immediately went to Elvis-inspired foods. He settled on fried peanut butter, banana and jelly sandwich \u2014 and won the coveted golden statuette. Picture an Oscar with a Big Tex head, and you get the idea. <\/p>\n
Over the years, he has gone on to win the Big Tex Choice Award four other times, for Fried Coke, Fried Cookie Dough, Fried Butter and Fried Jambalaya. <\/p>\n
So how did it feel to win those awards? <\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels awesome! Especially the first few times. I don\u2019t know what it feels like to win an Oscar, but it can\u2019t be that much different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pun intended, it\u2019s fair to say that the State Fair of Texas has changed Abel\u2019s life, particularly his Fried Butter win, a spectacle which resulted in Oprah herself stopping by for a sample. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe next thing you know, I\u2019m on Oprah, The Today Show, The View and many, many, many others. I was a regular on a couple of TV shows.\u201d <\/p>\n
Abel appeared on the reality show Deep Fried Dynasty and was a judge on Deep Fried Masters, experiences he said he really enjoyed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was in New York for what seems like half of the year. Everything changed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abel started working in his father\u2019s restaurant, A.J. Gonzales\u2019 Mexican Oven, as a young boy, absorbing life in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[145642,137165,102,104,103,145643,368],"class_list":["post-417919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-abel-gonzales","tag-big-tex-choice-awards","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-fried-jesus","tag-state-fair-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}