A closer look at flyover land

June festivals

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--Minnesota is a year-round party zone. But there's no question that the festival quotient goes sky-high when summer arrives. What follows is just a sampling of some of the big events around the state in June.

 

Worthington

Worthington Windsurfing Regatta and Unvarnished Music Festival

June 12-14

A windsurfing championship combined with an indie music festival. Makes sense. See the website for this year’s musicians.

 

Roseau

Scandinavian Festival

June 12-13

Visit the maypole, listen to music, enjoy a Scandinavian smorgasbord (including fresh lefse!). Take a slight detour out of town to visit the Pioneer Village, a beautiful recreated village of original pioneer buildings.

 

Cass Lake

Chippewa Triathlon

June 13

Why swim when you can portage and canoe?

 

St. Joseph

The Caramel Roll

June 13

Go on a beautiful bike ride—and eat caramel rolls along the way. Could it get any better?

 

Minneapolis

Twin Cities Pride

June 20-21, 27-28

Parade, boat cruise, concerts, picnic, art show—these are two packed weekends.

 

Minneapolis

Stone Arch Festival

June 20-21

It’s hard to imagine a more scenic location for this jack-of-all-trades festival: juried art show, Art of the Car display, kids Lego Creation Station, and music—Roma di Luna, Spaghetti Western String Co, and Eliza Blue, among many others.

 

Virginia

Land of the Loon Festival

June 20-21

A celebration of the various ethnic groups that settled into northeastern Minnesota. Food, music, arts and crafts from around the world.

 

Scandia

Midsommar Dag

June 27

Held at the lovely Gammelgarden Museum, this festival offers Swedish music, a pig roast smorgasbord, Swedish Hambo dancers, and all manner of crafts and activities (butter making, hoop rolling). Or just enjoy a beautiful summer day at this living history site which features several original immigrant homes and buildings.

 

Rochester

Rochesterfest

June 20-28

A celebration of all things Rochester, this is a busy week: lumberjack championships; volleyball and fishing tournaments; cemetery walks; music and dancing; treasure hunt; historic walking tours; parade; and even a hot air balloon race.

 

Grand Rapids

Judy Garland Festival

June 25-27

The birthplace of Judy Garland will host its 34^th annual festival in 2009, which also marks the 75^th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz. Events include a Judy Jeopardy game, musical entertainment, dinners with Munchkins (as in, the Munchkins from the movie), a showing of The Wizard of Oz, and historical and cultural lectures about Garland.

 

St. Cloud

Granite City Days

June 25-28

Celebrate the Granite City’s heritage at this annual festival, complete with fly-in pancake breakfast, tours of historic homes, and bike races.

 

Moorhead

Scandinavian Hjemkomst Festival

Jun 27-29

A joint Scandinavian festival presented by local Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Swedish groups, this annual celebration includes a LEGO art show, Scandinavian music groups, performances by the Commedia dell’Arte pantomime/dance group, puppet shows, and of course—lots of Scandinavian food.

 

Winona

Great River Shakespeare Festival

June 26-July 26

The sixth annual Shakespeare Festival offers three of the Bard’s plays: Love’s Labours Lost, The Tempest, and Hamlet. See website for schedule and ticket information.

 

Henderson

Sauerkraut Days

June 26-28

Parades, tournaments, food and music—and a sauerkraut eating contest. Are you up to the challenge?

 

Note: A huge variety of events and festivals are listed on the website of the Minnesota Historical Society.

 

 

 

Friday food

Last fall, I attended the annual Hmong New Year Festival in St. Paul, which is a huge, popular event for the local Hmong community. At the time, two things struck me: why didn't I know more about the Hmong community, which is growing, and why had I eaten a big breakfast before attending, when the food stands smelled so divine and were so reasonably priced?

Well, now I'm a bit closer to solving both of those problems, thanks to the University of Minnesota Press' release of this book:

 

Cooking from the Heart: the Hmong Kitchen in America, by Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang. And what a glorious book it is. It gives a brief history of the Hmong people, traced back four thousand years to central China, but refusing to be subjugated by Chinese leaders. Their ongoing battles to avoid persecution and slavery drove them further and further south, so by the mid-20th century, they were largely living in the remote areas of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Their traditions of cooking are deep and varied, but until now, there has largely been no written record, as the Hmong have handed down their recipes and techniques via word of mouth. But as some of the Hmong immigrants to America have become more Americanized, many others worried that the traditional ways would be lost, and this book was born.

In a show of "everything old is new again," the book focuses on the Hmong approach to menu planning, which centers on the questions "What is in season?" and "What is available?" (So yes, all you newly formed locavores, the Hmong are way, way ahead of you.). Instead of building chapters around courses like breakfast or dinner, the chapters are broken out into rice, vegetables, chicken, eggs, pork, beef and water buffalo, fish and game, and beverages and dessert. Many of the recipes come with notes explaining the cultural or historical context of the recipe.

The recipes are very diverse, and anyone from the most timid eater to the most adventurous can find something to try. Chicken and Bean Sprout Salad, Coconut Lemon Chicken Soup, Stir-Fried Baby Boy Choy with Pork Belly, Baby Chicken Eggs (steamed eggs with partly formed baby chickens inside), Sweet Steamed Rice Cakes, Ripe Mango with Coconut Sticky Rice, variations on the traditional larb--the recipes cover a huge territory.

But besides the tantalizing array of food choices, this book offers a great deal more--essays about Hmong table etiquette, weddings, funerals, even an excerpt from a Hmong woman's diary in which her mother drew pictures of what the proper Hmong kitchen needed. And poetry:

From “Eating Habits” by May Lee-Yang

My mother said, After a woman gives birth,

for thirty days, she must eat chicken boiled with lemongrass.

That’s so backward. What will boiled chicken do?

It will heal your body, so when you grow old,

you won’t shake like American women.

You old people are too superstitious.

Years later, a Hmong doctor told me chicken was a good source of protein.

In Laos, it was a privilege, not a punishment.

Aboard the Jonathan Padelford

A few weeks back, the Jonathan Padelford company announced that they'd give free rides aboard their riverboats on Memorial Day, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the river cruises. Not surprisingly, reservations filled up pretty quickly. Luckily, DH and I snagged a couple of seats, and yesterday got to take our ride.

 

Here's the smaller of the two boats. If you look on the right side, you can see the tip of the paddles, in red.

 

A little harder to see, but the larger boat is actually like two boats connected. This is the one we rode on. I politely but assertively got us to the front of the line, so we could get top-deck, open-air seats. Not that the interior is bad.

 

Notice the dance floor. I assume that's for the evening cruises.

The boats depart from Harriet Island, right across the river from downtown St. Paul.

As the boats move up the river, there's plenty of old and new to be seen.

 

For some reason, I love the look of old, broken buildings. However, this one had a sign that gave me pause:

 

I'm thinking, not yet. Maybe someday. A little early to be advertising, though.

Given the way the Twin Cities sprawl, it's surprising how quickly the river takes you away from cityscapes into a wilder terrain.

 

There are caves, complete with graffiti. In a very maternal way, I do worry about the people who scale these walls to paint them. I worry about their safety more than I worry about the defacing of nature. Somehow the latter seems more logical.

I told DH that, except for the fact that there aren't any palm trees, this could be the setting for Lost. Maybe the sequel? Lost Two? Plane crashes into heavily wooded area after leaving the downtown St. Paul airport? It'd be a workable idea, if it wasn't for the fact that there's a major road not far behind those trees. But still--from the river, doesn't it look wonderfully deserted?

 

Deserted for quite a while, even by the water, it appears.

 

Periodically a recording would give out some piece of history or trivia about what we were passing. For this site, a swinging bridge that allows trains to cross or boats to pass, the recording told an amusing legend: apparently the land on the right belonged to some old codger who, when the bridge was being built, would come down every day with his cup of coffee and watch the construction with a big smile. The day it was to open, a crowd came to witness this technological marvel. But just as they were getting ready to open the bridge, the old coot yelled, "Don't open that bridge!" When asked why, he said the swing part would then swing onto his properly. Surveyors were dispatched, and lo and behold, the guy was right--the construction company had mistakenly built the bridge so it would swing onto the old man's property. Railway officials, fearing what the man would now expect for a selling price, asked to buy his property. He refused, at any price; apparently he'd been a steamboat captain who'd lost his career when railroads became more prevalent, and he was not going to have any railway-based company buying one inch of his property.

True story? Who knows?

 

On the way back, we passed a small yacht club that had a little convenience store and gas station right on the river. On a nice day, wouldn't that be the perfect place to work?

Padelford boats operate all summer, with both public and private cruises. There are several theme cruises available, including fireworks, birding, sunset dinner, and margarita cruises (yes, there are bars onboard). Fancy and elaborate? No. A fine way to relax and enjoy the view? Very much.

Friday food

Welcome back! I took a little vacation after the contest, but here I am again, back in full glory.

This week's Friday Food post could only be less photogenic if I showed no pictures at all. But it does prove that looks aren't always an indicator of worthiness.

I finally stopped by a place local to me (Eden Prairie) that I've been meaning to visit for quite a while.

 

India Spice House, located in a strip mall in a former auto body shop, near an Applebee's and across from Wendy's and Taco Bell. Seriously. Can you see why it took me a while to get the urge to check it out? But thanks to Minnesotan Raghavan Iyer and his splendid book, 660 Curries, I've developed a strong interest in learning to cook Indian food, which at times requires ingredients not easily found at other grocery stores.

When I first stepped inside, it quickly became clear that I should have done more homework. Namely, this is not just a grocery store, but a restaurant with what smelled and looked like quite a decent lunch buffet. Unfortunately, I'd just had lunch--poor planning on my part.

The grocery store is fascinating, packed full of intriguing things:

 

Stacks and stacks of all varieties of dal.

 

Giant bags of roasted fennel seeds. I don't even really like fennel, but it pleased me nonetheless to have them so readily available.

Fresh and frozen veggies, some standard grocery store fare, some not.

 

I have not the slightest idea what these are. And that pleases me.

So--in terms of attractiveness, not so much. But the store (and the adjoining restaurant) were busy with non-blonde-Scandinavian types, the staff at the store was friendly (and no doubt I could have asked them questions, but sometimes I'm stubborn and like to figure things out myself), the prices seemed very reasonable. Now that I know it's there, my copy of 660 Curries and I are about to become even better friends.

Calling all future foodies

The Junior Gourmet Club, the brainchild of La Belle Vie's Bill Summerville, has another of its occasional events coming up soon. On Thursday, May 28, the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant will host the Club for the evening, teaching kids not only about fine and adventurous dining, but about jazz. Call the Dakota for reservations. If my kids were younger (the youngest is 13 1/2), I'd be there in a heartbeat--we did one of the Junior Gourmet Clubs a couple of years ago, and it was great fun. You'd be amazed what your kids will eat when someone else presents it to them. 

Contest winner!

The results are in!

But first, a quick anecdote. Last fall, I covered the James J. Hill House as part of the Teen's extra credit in St. Paul series. If you haven't been, do consider visiting--it really is beautiful, and the tours are quite interesting. Plus--they do some really intriguing events. This past Sunday, Mother's Day, I was lucky enough to be invited to join in a special Mother's Day event: a tour of the house, focusing more on women's lives during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, followed by a relaxation class led by Beth Freschi. It was absolutely delightful. Beth does these types of events at the Hill House periodically, and I would definitely recommend it. It's an utterly civilized and--yes!--relaxing way to spend a few hours.

The tour guide on Sunday was someone who had clearly spent time reading through archived materials, including Mrs. Hill's diaries and letters the servants of the time had sent to their families. From those, she'd gleaned the sense that the servants felt well cared for at the Hill House; she even quoted one letter where the servant, a young female, talked about a large dinner and dance the Hill family had hosted. Once dinner was done, the guests left the magnificent dining room and entered the great hall to begin the dance. The doors to the dining room were then closed, so the guests would be shielded from the sights and sounds of the servants cleaning up. However, the servants kept the door cracked just a little, so they could enjoy the music--and they too danced, until the wee hours of the morning.

I just love that.

On to the winner, chosen by the all-important, all-knowing random number generator: Melanie! Congrats, Melanie, and thanks to everyone who commented--I have lots of new explorations to enjoy, and I hope you'll continue to join me on the journey!

A contest, with prizes and everything!

Wow--the day came and went so quickly that I almost missed it! My book came out a year ago this month. I revitalized this blog shortly after that. Thanks, everyone, for your support and interest! The book has been doing well, and traffic on this site has risen steadily. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

But I can *show* a little appreciation. Hence, a contest. What's at stake--a signed copy of the book for the winner (or for a winner's friend/relative, if you already have a copy), and some Minnesota goodies. What those goodies will be depends on the winner. Might be yarn, if you're a yarnie type. Might be another Minnesota book, if you're a reader type. And most likely chocolate. Because, believe it or not, we do have award-winning chocolatiers here too. It all depends on who wins.

Entering is easy. Just leave a comment on this post. In that comment, I want you to tell me either about a place or event you love to visit in Minnesota, or, if you haven't been here, something you'd like to visit (hey--read my blog for suggestions!) if you could. Double entries if you blog/Twitter/Facebook this contest and let me know about it.

Entrance for the contest ends Sunday, May 10, at midnight Central time. The drawing will be held next Monday. Join in!

Friday food

As I already discussed on my other blog, I had reason to spend time on the East side of the river last night. Taking the Teen and his friend to the concert in Maplewood with a stop in St. Paul for a band meet-n-greet afforded us the opportunity to dine at one of St. Paul's many historic spots:

 

Mickey's Diner, right downtown St. Paul. This place is truly a downtown landmark, open 24/7 for nearly 70 years. It's on the National Register of Historic Places.

As you'd expect, the interior is very narrow.

 

There are a handful of booths on one end. You can use them, if you agree to stay no longer than 30 minutes and spend at least $3 per person. There are signs that make that clear.

The service is friendly (lots of "hons" and "darlins"). The food is classic diner. Breakfast all day, burgers, sandwiches, soup, chili. Of course we went for the burgers, even though this wasn't officially a Burger Quest (both Teens have to be present for that).

 

The Teen and his friend each had the bacon cheeseburger. Or, as the Teen called it, the fry burger.

I had the patty melt. The other cool thing about Mickey's? The fries are good, but you have options.

 

Hash browns!

Portions are, of course, sizable. Are the burgers good? Yes. Are they among the best in the Twin Cities? No. Does it matter? Not at all.

Mickey's attracts a varied clientele, from the occasional street person to teenagers in heavy metal shirts to people wearing Legally Blonde ID cards, presumably crew from the touring company that's down the street at the Ordway right now.

Oh--and they have pie.

 

Apple pie, heated up. Ice cream was offered but declined.

Should you go to Mickey's? Why, yes. Yes, you should.