RICHMOND — Talk of deep-fried Twinkies, salt potatoes and real Southern barbecue was in the air Monday as the Washington County fairgrounds came alive in the countdown to today’s opening of the 42nd annual event.

That food talk becomes more than talk today when volunteers start their grills, ovens, smokers and deep fryers.

Fair time has arrived.

During preparations, buzz about this year’s food and scheduled entertainment hovered over the village-like area, but the most important buzz of all, the weather, sat, as it annually does, like an elephant at the gate of this outdoor event.

Would the week’s weather arrive with a stormy New England attitude, or gently simmer with five sparkling clear days and cool nights?

“It’s going to be perfect,” predicted Tom Buck, the fair’s vice chairman, as rain puddled up on the grounds, falling in gray sheets Monday morning.

The rain, he reasoned, was refreshing the flowers in window boxes and other containers, flushing down walkways and organically cleaning bleachers. Rain can be a good thing, he said, as long as it falls at the right time.

If the weather turns too hot, patrons will head to the beach. Too rainy, as it was on Monday morning when agricultural displays began to arrive, and patrons stay away altogether.

The weather is one thing fair committee members can’t blueprint ahead of time. Most everything else operates according to months of planning. Close the books on this fair, open new ones in the fall.

“The fair runs like a well-oiled machine,” Buck, 45, said. He should know; he’s been part of that machine for most of his life, as have dozens of others.

“You grow up with the fair,” he said, standing onstage where there was yet to be an audience apart from Susan Johanson, of Hopkinton, and Chris Allen, of Rockville, who nodded in agreement and who bring their children to the fairgrounds to grow up with the experience.

They were there, waiting for food deliveries, sprucing up booths, checking on progress, planning a party for 90,000.

ALLEN AND JOHANSON are volunteers from St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church, Hope Valley, which has been offering salt potatoes at its booth for years, they said, bringing in money for the church and for camperships.

“The money accounts for a sizable portion of our church revenue,” Allen said, telling of a Sunday afternoon of washing and sun-drying close to 300 pounds of potatoes, preparing a brine, checking on their Kosher salt supply.

The church will also sell tacos and nachos from its booth, surrounded by other nonprofit groups offering traditional favorites: Jonnycakes and steak sandwiches, strawberry shortcake and home-style dinners, clam cakes and French fries, and, this year, deep-fried Twinkies served up by the Westerly Ambulance Corps.

“They wanted to try something different,” said Roxanne Cottrell Nelson, of South Kingstown, a fair committee member and third-generation fair participant. She and Buck are expecting close to 150 vendors at the fairgrounds this week, not counting the food booths.

“We may be the only fair where the food is all from nonprofits,” said Buck, with one exception among the two-dozen food booths: Corn dogs from a vendor who has been with the fair from the beginning.

“Nonprofits give back to the community. They’re Granges, fire departments, churches, athletic groups.”

THE SOUTH KINGSTOWN Booster Club, in its fourth year at the fair, turns its profits from a Southern barbecue booth into scholarships and athletic awards and equipment needed in the school district.

Karen and Amondo Sebastian, of South Kingstown, were getting that group’s booth up and running on Monday, talking of their secret dry rub recipe for the smoked meat, the three-day process of adding it to pork, letting it rest, putting it in a smoker for a day before handing it out in $5 servings.

“We’ve got two smokers going right now,” said Karen Sebastian. “We’re driving everyone here crazy.”

Short ribs, spare ribs, chicken, beef brisket — she cooks it, lets it rest, smokes it, lets it rest.

Customers visiting from the Southern states last year told them “this is very good barbecue,” Karen said proudly, stacks of rolls piled up behind her as she talked of the hundreds of pounds of meat they were expecting to prepare.

Then she tells of the seafood chowder they cook: “Lobster, clams, scallops, shrimp, $5 a bowl.”

MEANWHILE, IN THE fair’s general store, operated by the Washington County Pomona Grange, Heather Dagliari, of West Greenwich, pointed out the range of offerings, from hand-made aprons donated by Grange members, to a $1 table of items for children, to the 22 barrels of half-sour pickles she expects to sell, at $1 each, from Richard’s Pub, East Greenwich.

“People come in asking for pickles, but others are looking for cookies,” she said.

They have those, too, $1.50, for peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar from South Kingstown’s Highland Farm.

Within the Pomona Grange’s general store, there will be a selection of fair T-shirts for sale, along with jams, relishes and fresh vegetables. The red building is on the side of the fairgrounds where the entertainment is unrehearsed and earnest. 4-H kids will show their sheep, cows, rabbits in the various show rings and barns, where spectators can glimpse American Idols of an unvarnished sort.

But the American Idol runner-up coming in to croon on Saturday, Josh Gracin, will find an expanded area for his tour bus, a cleaned-up backstage with shower and living room, and an expanded stage from the one Hank Snow sang on many years ago.

“Our parents and grandparents started all of this,” said Buck, referring back to the late 1960s, when the fair had its modest start on the grounds of South Kingstown’s Perryville Grange.

Though Buck worries about getting enough volunteers to help at every booth — where some of the longtime helpers are aging or gone — he’ll fill in himself, he said, day and night during this his own summer vacation. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s a tradition. We love the fair.”

The fair will be held today through Sunday at the fairgrounds, Route 112, Richmond, from around 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is $9 with no additional charge for entertainment or exhibits. Parking is free, as is admission for children under 10.

The fair offers midway rides, agricultural exhibits and competitions, a fireworks display tomorrow at 9:15 p.m., with a Friday rain date, and daily musical acts. Headliners are, tonight, John Cafferty with the Beaver Brown Band, 8:30 p.m.; the duo Bomshel Thursday at 7 and 9:30 p.m.; Lee Brice on Friday at 6 and 9:30 p.m.; American Idol’s Josh Gracin Saturday at 1 and 9 p.m.; and Jamie O’Neal on Sunday at 12:30 and 5:30 p.m.

See the accompanying chart for a full schedule of events.

The fair is owned and operated by the volunteers of the Washington County Pomona Grange.

This week, a fair phone can be contacted at (401) 539-7042, or visit washingtoncountyfair-ri.com.

afleming@projo.com