Lillie Savage has a passion for sharing her home cooked meals with others and will again this year be at the Grays Harbor County Fair displaying her talents by cooking for the fair’s entertainment.

“Well I’m not a fancy cook, but I cook down-home cooked meals,” Savage said.

The fair’s entertainment will get a break from the catered food they often eat while on the road and will instead enjoy personalized meals made by Savage. Fair manager Mike Bruner believes that each year entertainers enjoy the refreshing switch from catered food to home cooked meals.

“These entertainers are on the road all the time getting the commercially catered food and a lot of them have commented about how nice it is to actually have a home-cooked style meal,” Bruner said.

Aside from saving money, Bruner said it’s a great way to build relationships with entertainers and encourages them to come back for another year.

“It adds personality and — no pun intended — flavor to our fair in the eyes of the entertainers and the entertainment brokers we work with,” he said. “The personality she adds to our fair is just a huge benefit to us.”

Old Dominion will be performing at the fair Wednesday, Aug. 9, starting at 8 p.m. While fair goers can enjoy the music, the band will get to enjoy breakfast, lunch and a Thanksgiving-style dinner courtesy of Savage.

“It’s a complete Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and homemade dinner rolls which is my specialty,” she said. “I love making bread.”

Savage has been cooking since she was a teenager when at 17 years old she would help her grandma cook meals for her and her sister, along with any number of cousins that may have been visiting at the time. She said in those days they didn’t have a Burger King, Taco Bell or McDonald’s within 100 miles, so if you wanted to eat, you needed to cook.

“My grandma would come to the house and baby-sit my baby sister and cousins,” she said. “She would start the dinners and show me how to finish them, and that’s when I started cooking.”

Savage may have started cooking out of necessity but now it’s her passion.

“I just like to make people feel happy and glad that they got a good meal and a quality meal,” Savage said.

Savage will be at the fair preparing those quality meals inside the new cook shack. The shack is still being put together but will be operational come time for the fair. Savage said the fair board looked at the old facility this spring and it was full of water, so much so that it was beyond saving. The new shack will give Savage, fair board members and volunteers assisting with meals more room to work.

“It’s gorgeous, are you kidding me?” Savage said when asked if she was excited about the new cook shack. “I am really excited about it. It’s going to have so much room.”

Aside from the joy of providing quality meals Savage said her favorite part of the fair, and what keeps her coming back year after year, is the kids.

“It’s watching the kids,” she said. “Watching the children have fun is what it’s all about.”

Savage said the fair is a great way for children to stay occupied in a productive way that works toward providing service and support to the community.

“We strive every year to keep the fair open because the kids need the fair so they’re involved with something other than drugs and alcohol,” she said. “I think it’s an important role for the kids to be involved with.”

Savage said the fair is always a great time and a great place to bring the kids.

“I tell people this is the best little fair that I’ve been to,” she said.

The Grays Harbor County Fair Starts Wednesday, Aug. 9 and runs through Sunday Aug. 13 at the Grays Harbor County Fairgrounds in Elma.