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ANKATO M
FEATURE S November 2014 Volume 9, Issue 11
magazine
16 Good Eats
From humble beginnings, the St. Peter Food Co-op has risen to All-Star level in southern Minnesota.
20 The big cheese
The Alemar Cheese Company is Keith Adams’ story of resurgence.
26 Happy to be here
Rachael Hanel tells us why it’s OK to be OK with where you’re from.
About the Cover
Margo O’Brien poses proudly in the store she’s managed for nearly 30 years. Photo by John Cross
MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 3
MANKATO
DEPAR TMENTS
magazine
6 From the Editor 8 This Day in History 9 The Gallery
9
12
MSU’s Liz Miller
10 Chit Chat 12 Introductions Carrol Meyers-Dobler 14 Day Trip Destinations Aitkin’s Fish House Parade 24 That’s Life 31 Food, Drink & Dine 30 Food A night with a short-order cook 32 Wine Wines for late fall 33 Beer Local beers to “fall” back on 34 Happy Hour Using champagne for good 36 What’s Cookin’? Tater Tots 40 Home +Style 64 Then and Now 1864: A most pivotal election 66 Garden Chat 68 Coming Attractions 73 Faces & Places 76 From This Valley Pete Steiner revisits Vidal Sassoon
14
34 Coming in December
36 4 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
76
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November 2014 • VOLUME 9, ISSUE 11 PUBLISHER James P. Santori EDITOR Joe Spear ASSOCIATE Robb Murray EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS Nell Musolf Pete Steiner Jean Lundquist Sarah Johnson Bryce O. Stenzel Leticia Gonzales Leigh Pomeroy Bert Mattson Drew Lyon Rachael Hanel PHOTOGRAPHERS John Cross Pat Christman PAGE DESIGNER Christina Sankey ADVERTISING Ginny Bergerson MANAGER ADVERTISING Jen Wanderscheid Sales Theresa Haefner ADVERTISING Barb Wass ASSISTANT ADVERTISING Sue Hammar DESIGNERS Christina Sankey
CIRCULATION Denise Zernechel DIRECTOR
Mankato Magazine is published by The Free Press Media monthly at 418 South Second St., Mankato MN 56001. To subscribe, call 1-800-657-4662 or 507-625-4451. $35.40 for 12 issues. For editorial inquiries, call Robb Murray at 344-6386, or e-mail rmurray@mankatofreepress.com. For advertising, call 344-6336, or e-mail mankatomag@mankatofreepress.com.
6 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
By Robb Murray
To get the best, you don’t have to go very far ...
T
here was a time when shopping at a grocery co-op had political weight to it. It was a place for hippies, commies and people who were otherwise rebellious and un-American. Thankfully, those days are long, long gone. You can shop at a co-op nowadays and not have to worry that your neighbors are judging you because of where you chose to buy your loaf of bread, stick of butter and container of milk. (Although, it occurs to me there are probably some folks in southern Minnesota who are pretty loyal to Cub Foods or Hy-Vee, and may cast looks of dispersion at the sight of their neighbors hauling into their homes food stuffs in bags emblazoned with the logo of the other!) I got a chance to sit down with Margo O’Brien of the St. Peter Food Co-op a few weeks ago. She was delightful, of course. But what struck me is how the story of the birth and success of the co-op is less steeped in socialist lore and more built on a foundation of Minnesota hard work and smart business sense. Sure, there were idealists in the mix — probably in the starter, to use a home-cooking term. But idealism will only get a business so far. Eventually, other things like skill, determination, perseverance, wisdom, resilience and community support must all come together in a grand recipe for success. After more than 30 years, one thing is clear: The St. Peter Food Co-Op is an absolute success story. While there, I mentioned to O’Brien that we’d be featuring a Mankato-based cheese maker as well in the November issue, Alemar, owned by Keith Adams. “We were his first customer!” she says. Sure enough, on a quick tour of
the store, O’Brien pointed out the Alemar line of cheeses. It was enough to prompt me to pick up a basket and do a little shopping. Within moments I had some locally grown Sweetango apples, Alemar camembert cheese and a French baguette. (Back home a certain beagle would get ahold of the baguette, but the apples and camembert were fantastic!) Our theme this month for Mankato Magazine is “locally made or grown.” Alemar and the St. Peter Food Co-op represent both the old and new of the local angle. The co-op has been humming along nicely for decades. And Alemar appears to be on it’s way to establishing itself internationally as a fine cheese company. Our essay this month comes from Madison Lake author Rachael Hanel, whose debut collection of essays “We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter,” has established her as one of the region’s best writers. Her essay is a compelling one. She’s written to our “local” theme, but in a way you might not expect. She talks about being homegrown, and landing in her adult life not far from where she grew up in Waseca. It’s a tale that could be a depressing one, but Hanel’s message is far from depressing or provincial. It’s inspiring. You won’t want to miss it. We’re thrilled she agreed to join the Mankato Magazine stable of awesome writers. It falls in line with our goal of bringing you the finest writing in southern Minnesota. Enjoy! M Robb Murray is associate editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at rmurray@mankatofreepress.com or 344-6386
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This Day
in
History
By Jean Lundquist Wednesday, November 5, 1953 Mrs. Gordon Ballman of Owatonna Street won the door prize at Dalton Motors in Mankato. Gordon Jr. was with her at the showing of the 1954 Chrysler. Mrs. Ballman said she was pleased and surprised. She added that Gordy has been counting television aerials and asking for a set so he could watch “Dragnet” and the cowboy shows his friends have been talking about. Tuesday, November 14, 1950 Just seven weeks from today will be the day after Christmas. According to our calendar there are 39 shopping days, after today, before the annual holiday — and that includes Armistice Day. Maybe you’re one of those thoughtful, careful motorists who have already attended to this matter, but if you haven’t, there is still time to drive out to the river bank, or a similar spot, dig a couple of pails of sand and put them in the basement or garage against the inevitable day when old Dame nature covers streets and sidewalks with a glare of ice. Then you’ll wish you had it — then it will be too late. Tuesday, November 7, 1943 You just must visit the new “Blue Blazer” cocktail lounge. You’ll enjoy refreshments and the fine atmosphere. All-ways the Best in Town — Saulpaugh Hotel Keeping Track of Rationing Applications for all rationed good and rationing questions will be taken care of at the ration application center located on the ground floor of the Northern States Power Company. The hours are 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sugar stamps No.s 30, 31, 32 and 33 in the war ration book good for five pounds valid indefinitely. Sugar stamp No. 40 in war ration book four good for five pounds for home canning. Thanksgiving, November 26, 1909 Act Not on the Play Bill Manager Griebel has reason to feel hostile at some folks. One thing occurred at the Mankato Theatre last night that was not announced on the play bill — patrons in the 75-cent seats quickly pre-empting $1 seats after the curtain had ascended on the first act. Manager Griebel did not like the performance at all. Neither did the ushers, but they held their peace. Manager Griebel is a patient, long-suffering gentleman, but there are times when patience ceases to be one of his virtues. When patrons at the theater buy a 75-cent seat, that is all they are entitled to, and when they plant themselves in $1 seats, they are obtaining something under false pretenses — to state the case mildly. A word to the wise should be sufficient. Election Day, Tuesday, November 4, 1884 Local Brevities • The corn crop is a good one this year, but the price is low, ranging from 25 to 30 cents per bushel • The Republicans who opposed the appointment of the tramp to the Mankato post office over the heads of true and tried Republicans will have an opportunity of indicating their dissatisfaction by voting against Mr. Wakefield today. Of course, they cannot expect to defeat him, but by voting against him they can indicate their dissatisfaction with his actions. • Rev. David Morger, of St. Paul, delivered a very eloquent and forcible address on Prohibition, last Friday at the Christian Church. • Owing to the low price of flour, Woolfork and Schreiber are selling fresh bread at 5 cents a loaf.
The Gallery — Liz Miller
Liz Miller’s work is stunningly unique and can be challenging to install at galleries. Photo by John Cross
Paper tiger By Nell Musolf
S
tepping into Conkling Gallery at Minnesota State University and seeing Liz Miller’s latest piece of artwork is a little bit like stepping into a paper filled Oz. The large — it just about fills the room — colorful, shiny piece stands out against a brightly painted yellow wall and instantly brings to mind a paper dragon rising out of a paper sea, or perhaps the lava flow from a paper volcano or maybe even a paper jungle. Interpretation is truly in the eye of the beholder and that is what Miller wants to happen. “Installations are the ultimate fiction,” Miller says. “I try to get the viewers thinking when they look at something I’ve created.” As for the name of her exhibit, “Splendiferous Jungle Warfare,” Miller explains how she came up with that title. “I’ve been fascinated by weapons for quite some time,” Miller said, “especially as objects of beauty. And I’ve always been interested in both elevation and devastation. Weapons throughout history have been intricately designed and highly aesthetic. I came up with the idea of disguising weapons and then putting them in a jungle — where fighting takes place.” “Splendiferous Jungle Warfare” first came to life as an installation
project in Colorado and was reconstructed with some modifications for its appearance at MSU. (It has since been taken down.) Miller says that she often has to change her pieces to fit the space they will be occupying. “Since my pieces are installation pieces there have been times when I’ve had to do some readjusting when I’m setting them up,” Miller reports. “I will get blueprints and dimensions while I’m doing the planning, of course, but when I get to a site things can be different than I’ve anticipated. That’s when things get challenging. But that makes what I do interesting, too.” Miller has used stiffened felt for some of her pieces but for “Splendiferous Jungle Warfare,” Miller exclusively used paper. Quite a bit of paper. When asked if she cut each piece out by herself, Miller said that she had assistance from a pair of electric scissors. “Using electric scissors was a big help,” Miller says. “They give me the ability to still retain the form I want while at the same time saving me from getting carpel tunnel syndrome from cutting out so many shapes.” Miller, who teaches in MSU’s Art Department, said that she tried using the department’s laser cutter
too. “I did use the laser cutter but after a while I realized that I could cut faster than the laser cutter because I had to feed it one sheet at a time.” Installation for Miller’s latest piece took several months of planning and the better part of a week to actually set it up. Miller says that something she battles when installing her pieces is trying to find the balance between architectural and organic perfection. “I do want my pieces to be architecturally perfect but I also want them to be identifiable to the viewer,” Miller says. “It can be a challenge to embrace the quirks and variations that I come across in an installation.” Being an installation artist comes with its own set of pressures since not only must Miller create and design her project, she is also responsible for making sure that the finished product is how she envisioned it. But Miller is OK with that. “Yes, there’s pressure when I’m doing an installation but I kind of like it. I thrive on the energy,” Miller says. When it comes to deciding the scale of her pieces, Miller said that the space where she will be exhibiting can dictate the size of what she makes. “I want the viewer to be able to move through and around what I’ve made,” Miller says. “But I think that I naturally make big things. With every piece I just do the best I can and see what works and what doesn’t.” Miller is currently working on an installation for the new Southern Minnesota Children’s Museum in Mankato. It will be permanent, and Miller will use marine fabric instead of paper. “The Children’s Museum piece will be for everyone,” Miller reports. “I want it to be sophisticated art that both children and adults can enjoy.” What happens to all of that paper when an installation is over and a piece has been dismantled? “A lot of it gets recycled,” Miller says. MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 9
Chit Chat - Ask the Expert
Wrap it up! For some, post-turkey time means gift-wrapping time By Nell Musolf
A
fter the turkey is eaten and between football games, for many people the long Thanksgiving weekend has become the ideal time to put up their Christmas tree. That means it’s also time to start putting a few presents under those branches. Ann Johnson estimates that she has wrapped approximately 5,000 Christmas gifts over the years. Here are some of her tips to make the whole wrapping process a little bit easier. • Use a variety of boxes. “I save boxes throughout the year,” Johnson said. “I just toss them in a closet so I’ll have a lot when it’s time to wrap presents. I also recycle boxes from one Christmas to the next. This comes in very handy since a lot of stores don’t give out boxes anymore.” Among the different boxes that Johnson uses are round oatmeal containers, shoe boxes and tiny jewelry boxes. • Shake things up. Johnson doesn’t necessarily match a gift to a box of exactly the same size. “I do get a kick out of putting something small in a great big box,” Johnson said. • Use quality wrapping paper. “You don’t have to spend a lot of money on fancy wrapping paper,” Johnson said, “but don’t go for the super cheap stuff, either. If it’s too thin, it will tear when you try to make nice, tight corners.” (Another tip: buy Christmas wrapping paper on December 26 for next year when it’s on sale.) • Wrap ‘em high. “I leave my ironing board out when I’m wrapping presents,” Johnson said. “It’s the right height and I don’t kill my back by wrapping on the floor or on a table.” • Use enough paper. “It can be very frustrating to wrap a present and not have enough paper to cover it,” Johnson said. “It’s always better to use a little more paper than not enough.” • Gift bags work too. “I love gift bags! They come in all sizes and they’re great for wrapping gifts that are unusually shaped,” Johnson said. “Remember to use tissue paper if you’re going to use a gift bag though. It adds a touch of drama.” • Consider plastic. If a gift is too big for a conventional gift bag, such as a bicycle or drum set, Johnson suggests using garbage bags. “You can get huge garbage bags. Get dark ones so no one can see what’s inside and decorate them with a few bows to make them festive.” • From Santa. For gift tags, Johnson is a fan of the self-adhesive kind. “They’re so much easier. Or you can make your own tags out of old Christmas cards but I like the kind I just stick on.” • Ask for help. Not everyone enjoys wrapping presents but if one member of a family excels at it, let them take over the job. “Although, of course, don’t let them wrap their own presents!” Johnson said. 10 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 11
Introductions
Interview
by
Robb Murray
She’s here to DO THE RIGHT THING Carrol Meyers-Dobler came to Mankato for a fresh start, and has given Partners for Affordable Housing a boost of energy (and funds)
W
hen you meet Carrol Meyers-Dobler, executive director of Partners for Affordable Housing, you can’t help but think she’s capable of conquering our region’s homeless problem simply with good intentions and the warmth of her voice. But alas, solving such problems takes a lot more than that. Meyers-Dobler is certainly trying, though. Through her leadership, Partners for Affordable Housing is raising more money than ever to help people in our community who have no place to sleep at night. And that includes children. Thanks to people like Meyers-Dobler — as well as some big plans to expand the reach of her work — our community is a better place. The St. Cloud native (who
12 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
has lived in the Mankato area for three years) was nice enough to answer some questions about her life and the work of Partners for Affordable Housing. MANKATO MAGAZINE: Tell us what brought you to Mankato: CARROL MEYERS-DOBLER: My husband and I had always talked that we would retire in Mankato because this is where my two sisters and their families live. His health was not that good and I knew that the day would come when I would be alone. I wanted the safety and security of knowing that I could lean on my sisters, if need be. As it turns out, he did pass nearly six years ago and two years after his death our beautiful home on the banks of the
Missouri River in Bismarck, ND was greatly impacted by a 500 year flood. The three-month summer flood that was never supposed to happen served as the trigger for my relocation. I could no longer be without my sisters! I quit one of the best jobs I have ever had, packed up the moving van and came here on a hope and a dream! I have never, ever regretted that decision. My eyes cannot get enough of the beautiful foliage Minnesota has to offer. MM: You work with people in need every day. Tell us why you got into that line of work. CMD: I love, love, love our mission here at Partners! This kind of work is the reason I get up at 5 a.m. every morning. I come by my passion easily. My father and step-father were both career employees of the criminal justice system. They were employed at the Reformatory in St. Cloud. My mother is a nurse — now long retired, of course — but she spent her career working in a variety of positions including school nurse and county nurse. My parents definitely shaped who I am today and I am grateful that I can be here in Mankato during their elderly years. MM: Since you arrived in Mankato, what have been the biggest issues facing the homeless and hungry in the Mankato area? CMD: My impressions of Mankato revolve around the simple reality that this is an oil and water community. What do I mean when I say that? I simply mean that statistics show a high prevalence of poverty which continues to exist despite a strong, vibrant business community. Blue Earth County has the fourth highest poverty rate of any county in Minnesota following the three counties on which there are Indian Reservations. I have also learned that our community has more millionaires per capita than any other community within the state. People are always surprised by that. I am surprised by that. Couple those facts with the reality that our community needs — desperately needs — more affordable housing for low income families and single adults, and you see my concern. I know that the cities of Mankato and North Mankato share my concerns. I have hope. MM: In general, how giving has the Mankato community been for Partners for Affordable Housing? CMD: Partners for Affordable Housing, better known as the Theresa House and the Welcome Inn, has quietly and efficiently stretched to serve the needs of those in our community who find themselves in a temporary housing crisis. There are many reasons why a family might lose their housing. One must understand that every single one of our families is struggling to live at or below the federal poverty level. That means every single one of our families is paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing. That fact alone puts them at high risk. If the car suddenly requires massive repairs, there is no money for rent. If a child is diagnosed with cancer and requires months of specialized care, there is no money for rent. If a working parent’s hours get cut, there is no money for rent. The Mankato community is very, very philanthropic! Our agency learned that when we launched Pedal Past Poverty two years ago. This crazy, zany stationary bike race held in February/March of each year attracted hundreds of participants, and resulted in net profits of $74,000 in 2013 and $82,000 in 2014. This year’s race,
slated for Feb. 28, will raise (we hope!) $100,000! Experience has taught me that people will respond if we do a good job of telling the story. All of us have had tough experiences at one time or another. All of us understand the importance of support every once in a while. I’ve been the lucky one. I have my sisters! MM: Does it ever get hard to work every day with people who are under such stress? CMD: This would be a great question for my social workers, shelter manager and support staff. Yes. It does. But our staff is incredible. People are drawn to the nonprofit arena because they want to make a difference in the lives of others. We are a different breed, to be sure. We don’t do it for the money. We don’t do it for the posh offices. We don’t do it because we can work an 8-hour shift and go home, stress free. We do it because each one of us believes, from the very bottom of our hearts, that people can and do change. Our work does make a difference and we have hundreds of stories that lend credence to our work! My day is brightened when one of our former guests drops in to say, “Hi! Thank you for everything you have done for me!” MM: Where do you see Partners for Affordable Housing going in the next 10 years? CMD: Our concern as a Board of Directors and as a staff is the great numbers of families and single adult females we cannot provide shelter to. The Theresa House and the Welcome Inn are very small shelters capable of housing just 11 families at any given time. People should know that each and every month we turn away an average of 55 families, all of whom are in a homeless situation. This is an agonizing situation. At this very moment, Brunton Architects & Engineers are completing a feasibility study on a building that has been offered to us as a possible shelter site. The building would allow us to triple if not quadruple the number of families we can shelter. While everyone agrees: homeless shelters are nothing more than a Band-Aid for the bigger issues related to poverty and the need for affordable housing, the simple reality is Mankato and North Mankato is not comfortable with children sleeping in cars, huddled in storage units or vacated buildings or under loading docks or bridges. We can do better. Indeed, we must do better. People can and do recover from homelessness and our stats show that they can do so in just 60 days. MM: When you were young, did you envision yourself in a career of helping people? CMD: Always! When I was in my formative years I had three prospective occupations in my mind: social worker, probation officer or teacher. I graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead with a degree in elementary education but only taught five years before entering the non-profit arena where I have thrived for the last 40. I love, love, love working on behalf of the disadvantaged within the nonprofits. My work eventually drove me to pursue my master’s degree from the University of Mary in Bismarck and today I can see that my contemplative professions have all been experienced, in one way or another, by my work with the disadvantaged. I have been blessed on many fronts. M MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 13
Day Trip Destinations: Fish House Parade
By Leticia Gonzales
The World Famous Fish House Parade stays fresh each year by requiring judges to have never seen a previous fish house parade.
The
FISHIEST
parade in Minnesota Aitkin’s annual World Famous Fish House Parade attracts thousands annually 14 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
If you go What 24th World Famous Fish House Parade Aitkin, Minn. When Nov. 28 • 1 p.m. Parade route starts at the Aitkin County Fairgrounds, and travels down Main Street (Minnesota Avenue.) Admission FREE for the parade, but cost varies for other local events. Contact 1-800-526-8342 or email upnorth@aitkin.com for more information.
A
side from the crisp November temps, winter coats and probable occurrence of snow, the World Famous Fish House Parade in Aitkin, showcases all of the frills you would find in a typical summer parade in the Midwest. From candy tossed to young, anxious parade-goers and colorfully decorated floats to lively music and costumes, the annual November event jumpstarts the town’s holiday shopping season. “This year will be our 24th year we are celebrating,” said Amanda MacDonald, executive director of the Aitkin Area Chamber of Commerce. “There was a group of local business owners that really wanted to try and keep people in town on Black Friday and to get them to shop locally.” While the first official parade in 1991 started small, the event now draws between 5,000 and 8,000 people annually to the town of about 2,300. Crowds dressed in parkas and furcovered hats line the streets to join the celebration. “The streets are absolutely packed with people,” MacDonald said. But the onlookers are not the only ones enjoying the celebration. The event is just as fun for those in the parade as it is for the bystanders. “In order to participate in the parade, your float has to have something to do with a fish house,” said MacDonald. “You can’t just drive a vehicle with your sign on it,” MacDonald said. The parade usually features anywhere from 40 to 60 floats, which have to include a fish house in some form. The fish house creations are judged in different categories including “Incredibly Great Fish House” (best fish house theme), “Excitingly Creative,” “Overwhelmingly Noisy,” “Outlandishly Humorous,” and “Absolutely Marvelous” (best overall). “It is wild and it’s really wacky,” MacDonald said of the ideas people come up with it. Ann Schwartz, executive director of Aitkin County Habitat for Humanity, covered the event for many years while she was a journalist in the area. “I have seen some elaborate floats through the years,”
Schwartz said, “from hot tubs, to people swinging through the air.” Other eccentric themes include Gangnam, Wizard of Oz, and an Elfish Jailhouse Rock fish house that showcased singing Elvis Presley impersonators. To keep the judging fair, MacDonald said, there is one requirement if you want to be a judge; “They cannot have seen the parade before.” The rule also helps bring in new faces to the event and to Aitkin. “From years past, we have had people from other countries here,” she said. “You have local people, you have out-of-state people; just regular out-of-town Minnesotans come for it.” Like MacDonald, Schwartz said the parade not only gives residents and visitors something to do the day after Thanksgiving, but also helps show off Aitkin. “It’s an all-American small town,” said Schwartz. Decorated with old-fashion street lights and quaint specialty shops, Schwartz said Aitkin makes it easy to walk around outside and window shop. A different experience from an enclosed shopping mall. The parade has also provided a boost in tourism for local businesses. “It’s made a great impact,” said MacDonald, who also owns a coffee shop in Aitkin. “It brings so many people to our community who are spending money that day that it does exactly what is intended.” To help provide some incentive to shoppers, Santa and Mrs. Claus shoot red, green and yellow ping pong balls at onlookers during the parade, which MacDonald said serves as the one stop light in Aitkin, at least for a day. The balls feature discounts to local businesses that are only good on parade day. “The stores just get flooded after the parade,” said MacDonald. “There are hundreds and hundreds of people in our town that day. It’s awesome; it’s our best day of the year.
M
MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 15
The St. Peter Food Co-op’s current location is actually its third and largest iteration.
The CO-OP.
From humble beginnings, the legend grew. Now the St. Peter Food Co-op, 30 years after opening its doors, is among the best local business success stories.
I
Story by Robb Murray | Photos by John Cross
t’s a quiet Monday morning at the St. Peter Food Co-op. Strawberry-pear scones and homemade French baguettes sit tantalizingly near the Fair Trade coffees, which are just a few feet away from the deli — where cooks prepare soups and pastas for the coming lunch crowd. Localy grown Sweetango apples and tomatoes brighten up the produce section. A group of seniors gathers in the cafe for their regular coffee time (just a table away from a Gustavus Adolphus College student, whose eyes are buried in a textbook.) Aisles are clean. Colors are bright. Employees smile as you walk by. And on the shelves: tofu-making kits, snacks made out of kale, fire-roasted garlic mustard and camembert cheese — both made just down the road — and 16 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
wild blueberry flax granola (in bulk.) There are few places as utterly hip, fun and socially conscious as the St. Peter Food Co-op. Its following, and the loyalty people have shown it, are legendary. It is the place you go for a unique deli experience, the place you go for a fullrange of organic foods, the place that was selling healthy food years — decades — before it was a trendy and expensive section of your regular grocer. In the lore of St. Peter and in the hearts of southern Minnesota hippies, it is a titan. And it all began with a tiny ad placed in the St. Peter Herald by a Twin Cities group eager to see co-ops open up around the state.
The deli, one of the co-op’s most popular attractions, began with an idea to sell a simple veggie sandwich. Wait … what? Yep. The St. Peter Food Co-op didn’t start, to borrow a term, organically. It wasn’t the unique brainchild of members of an area commune. An ad, placed by a group called the All Co-op Assembly, put a call out asking if anyone would be interested in starting one up. They would be holding an information session, the ad said, for anyone who wanted to know more. “Their goal was to set up co-ops everywhere,” said Margo O’Brien, the co-op’s general manager. And that’s all it took. Of course, getting from nothing to the empire it is today took some doing — and there were times when the St. Peter Food Co-op didn’t know if it would last through the next growing season. But against all odds, it persevered. And today it chugs along nicely in its beautiful newish location (which O’Brien says it may already be outgrowing a little.) Humble beginnings After that meeting with the All Co-op Assembly, the wheels were set in motion and the St. Peter Food Co-op was born. They sold shares for five bucks and pulled together enough cash to rent a little white building at the corner of Highway 99 and Front Street. O’Brien says she started as a volunteer, but eventually agreed to become the co-op’s manager. It was a learning experience. “None of us had any business background,” she said. “We
were all idealists.” And while it was run by volunteers, they did have an ace up their sleeves. O’Brien said that among the “member/owners,” as she calls them, there was a handful of folks who had relocated from northern Minnesota, where co-ops were common and just a part of everyday life. They weren’t hippies or even necessarily progressive. But they had knowledge of how to run a co-op. And that, she says, may have made the difference. Because not every co-op that started up in the late 1970s and early 1980s is still open today. To take a step back for a moment … Co-ops during the 1970s were becoming quite popular. San Francisco was, of course, teeming with them. So was Colorado, Portland and, increasingly, the Twin Cities. In fact, the Twin Cities in the 1970s had a bit of a co-op kerfuffle. Two competing factions, one made up of hard-core, political idealists who wanted to champion the rights of the working class, and another that wanted to provide a simpler whole foods alternative to regular grocery stores. These groups didn’t get along, and one day in January of 1976, a pair of men from the harder-core faction assaulted two people from the less hard-core faction. The attack proved to be ill-advised, though, as public support quickly swelled for the more laid-back faction. Eventually the Marxists disbanded. The rift among co-op supporters is known as the “co-op wars.” A lot of co-ops started up in those days, but MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 17
To get the capital it needed to purchase its current building, the co-op went to its members and asked for donations. It worked, as they raised nearly $1 million. most aren’t around anymore. Luckily, St. Peter was far removed from the tension of the Twin Cities scene. And, in addition to having a stable of idealists in the room, the co-op also had folks who simply knew how a co-op needed to be run. “The interesting thing was, aside from all the idealists, there were a group of upstanding types,” O’Brien said. They had good business sense, O’Brien said, and they understood the ins and outs of co-op operation. “They gave us a really, really good foundation,” O’Brien said of the northerners. “We had to appeal to our community. Because there weren’t enough of those core idealists, we needed them. And you can see it reflected in the room right now.” As O’Brien says this, she glances around the cafe which is, to her delight, filled with just about every demographic southern Minnesota has. The cafe is not populated by college professors carrying around copies of Kerouac or Kierkegaard under their arm (although those folks come, too.) The bulk of its patrons are people young and old, farmers, elderly ladies gathered for coffee time, business men in suits eating scones and talking on cell phones. It is, she says, exactly as it should be — a reflection of the community. Growth O’Brien took a more central role in the co-op because she’d lived in Colorado and was familiar with co-ops and the products they sell. It was a natural fit, so she agreed to become the co-op’s first full-time manager. She led the store through its infancy, including a time when it started selling sandwiches out of a lean-to on the side of the building. One of the employees came to O’Brien with the idea to start selling a veggie sandwich, and the idea stuck. (In fact, you can still buy a version of that veggie sandwich in the deli today.) After 15 years of co-oping — including one stretch when the co-op wasn’t sure if it would be around much longer — the co-op was ready for a move. But, to do that, it needed money. A lot of money. 18 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
“The banks around here laughed at us,” O’Brien said. “But banks have a really hard time with something like this; there isn’t one person signing a loan in a co-op. We tried several banks and they all said ‘No.’” So they sought help from the National Co-op Bank, and after thoroughly vetting the co-op’s finances, they agreed to give them a loan to start the $500,000 project: the rental and renovation of a former car dealership across the street from the original co-op location. It was an exciting time. But it wasn’t easy. “That move was really hard,” she said. “It was becoming a more complex business to run, so there was a learning curve for everyone.” Sales were good, and for 15 years the co-op hummed along nicely, adding new members and increasing the power of its brand along the way. There came a time, however, when sales began to stagnate, and co-op management began to realize it was time to consider another move. (Stagnation, though, is relative: they remained profitable even as the nation’s economy struggled.) “When the economy tanked, you hunker down, really watch your cash, watch your expenses, get hawkeyed, get leaner and meaner,” O’Brien says, remembering how good business sense has always been one of the pillars of the co-op’s success. Latest move It started with a market study and a dream. The goal was to purchase a building this time so as not to have monthly rent payments. The market study said that, given its market share and potential for growth, the co-op should be looking for a building with about 10,000 square feet in downtown St. Peter, which it found, oddly, in another car dealership building. (That first store, by the way, was just 1,000 square feet.) Nielsen’s Chevrolet, a downtown car dealership struck by the slumping economy, went out of business in 2009. And the co-op was there to fill the vacancy. It upped membership dues to $200 and launched an ambitious fundraising campaign
targeted toward its members. When it was over, the co-op pulled in nearly $1 million and was ready to renovate the car dealership into the store you see today. “We called every single member/ owner, did a lot of in-store infomercials,” she said. “Our goal was $700,000 and we exceeded that.” The move, O’Brien says, was relatively easy compared to the first one. They’d done enough research to know exactly what had to be done, and they remembered the lessons from the 15 years prior. They were able to plot out every single can or package on every shelf, and had more than enough volunteers to handle the workload. “It was exhilarating,” she says of the move to the current location, and the community buzz that came with it. “The vision was extremely clear. This move was extremely easy.” Opening Day The clientele that first day had an interesting flavor; There were an inordinate number of middle-aged men. “These were probably employees of Nielsen’s, or customers of Nielsen’s, and it dawned on me: They’re coming to see what happened to Nielsen’s,” she said. That first day went without a hitch — and so have the first three years. O’Brien says they’ve doubled their sales since they opened it up, and they continue to pull in new members. “St. Peter has a really strong conscience of community,” she said. “In St. Peter we’ve got all of these things that use volunteers, that use community action, and the people are really willing to give. It’s kind of amazing. It’s humbling, actually.” O’Brien says she runs the business based on what she calls her “three bottom lines.” First is, of course, the traditional financial bottom line. If they co-op doesn’t make money, there will no longer be a co-op. Second, giving back to the community; she takes the co-op’s role in St. Peter’s overall well-being very seriously, which is why they offer free classes for anyone who wants to come. And third, the co-op strives to do its part to protect the planet, which means stocking its shelves with organic and environmentally conscious products and keeping an open mind to new avenues of sustainability. M
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Keith Adams, owner of the Alemar Cheese Company, poses with a fresh batch of Bent River cheese.
big
The cheese I
Story by Drew Lyon | Photos by John Cross
f a pedestrian isn’t paying close attention while strolling along Riverfront Drive in Old Town Mankato, they’re liable to walk past the headquarters of Alemar Cheese Company without giving it a second glance. “I tell people at the farmer’s market where we are,” Alemar employee Craig Hageman said, “and they have no idea. They know where we are, but they don’t know we’re actually here.”
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The shop is bereft of flashy signage, but inside the inconspicuous building adjacent to Denco Lighting and Tune Town, Alemar founder Keith Adams and his loyal crew are hard at work embarking on the arduous tasks required to produce 700 pounds of high-quality, award-winning cheese every week. “Seven-hundred pounds sounds like a lot,” Adams said, “but that’s what ends up on the floor at the big cheese commodity makers.” Alemar is not a big company. Adams is assisted by only three employees, including a single driver assigned to haul milk from Cedar Summit Farm in New Prague three mornings each week. That suits this businessman just fine. “I don’t trust just anyone with the cheese,” he said. “This is not a clock-in type of job; you have to really care about what you’re doing. One thing we always return to is: we don’t want to be the biggest — we just want to be the best.” On its way In the fine cheese community, Alemar is near the top of its class. The American Cheese Society — “the Academy Awards of cheese,” Adams said — ranked Alemar’s signature cheese, Bent River (a tip of the cap to Mankato’s sharp river
bend), second in the nation among 1,700 entries. Fromage Blanc, Alemar’s versatile cheese spread, was selected third. “We want to be a small, profitable company,” Adams said, “that takes good care of its employees and is respected and admired by cheese lovers. That’s what we want to be and who we are, I hope.” Not unlike the cheese-making process itself — if at first you don’t succeed, start over, tweak the process and try again — Adams’ life and career has been an evolution, a recipe in disappointment, perseverance, grit and dreams fulfilled. “It’s been an amazing journey,” Adams said, “but very much of an up-and-down one.” A Davis, Calif. native, Adams majored in English in college and was a stock broker when he moved from San Francisco to Mankato in 1994 with his then-wife. A year later, he co-founded Bagel Brothers and spent the next decade gripping the handle on the roller-coaster food industry before the ride came to an abrupt halt. Then … Darkness crept in. “One of the cool things about getting old and getting your ass kicked,” Adams, 52, said with a hard-won smile, “is once awhile you do learn some things about yourself.” Bagel Brothers folded in 2005. Adams declared bankruptcy, got divorced and spiraled into a crippling depression. Engaging and candid, Adams doesn’t shy away MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 21
Craig Hageman of Alemar Cheese checks on a batch in progress. from (modestly) highlighting his triumphs, or acknowledging his demons and self-doubt. “I’ve been very open to anyone willing to listen that I went through a really dark time afterwards,” Adams said in his makeshift office, cheese award ribbons displayed behind him. “It was a slog to get from there to get the wherewithal to try to do this. Now, I don’t look at (Bagel Brothers) as a failure. It was a 10-year arc from one store to five to kaput. My only regret is not having the sense to have gotten rid of it before it all went crashing down around me.” Adams, 52, credits his two daughters, Alexandra and Mari, with providing him the strength and fortitude to press on through his bleakest hours. “My kids saved my life,” he said. “They were the reason I got out of bed every day. I felt like a failure, but they needed me and I had to get up every day and take care of them.” A few months after Bagel Brothers ceased operations, Adams, though still reeling, accepted a sales position with Coughlan Publishing. “I needed a place to go, a place to work,” he said. “That was crucial to my recovery and I was working with really good people and a great company ... I guess there’s a certain amount of resilience in me where I get up off the mat and keep going forward.” But there was a hole in his soul that still needed filling; by 2008, Adams vowed to act on his lifelong dream. “There was a little voice in my head saying, ‘You should be doing something with food on your own,’” he said. “You never really think about this, you never know what’s going to contribute to where you’re going to go.” Adams had experience in various levels of the food industry: dishwasher, prep cook, sandwich maker for three 22 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
years; he even baked bagels before his Bagel Brothers venture. “I really found myself to drawn to it,” he said. “It just took a little bit of courage to get it started, because I have a big ego and an ‘impostor complex,’ and they play tug of war with each other.” Adams has friends in the wine business, and envied their lifestyle, but he was reluctant to wait four years to harvest his first batch. Eventually, he discovered that fine cheese was his calling, and thus Adams debuted Alemar Cheese (Alemar is an amalgam of Alexandra and Mari) in April 2009. “There’s the agricultural part of it, there’s the solitary pursuit of it,” he said, “and there’s the physical labor part of it. I liked the idea of taking something like a grape, or milk in my case, and turning it into something different and hopefully something amazing.” After consulting with experts in the field and a few failed test runs, Adams created a cheese he felt was ready for public consumption. In August 2009, Alemar landed its first commercial account with the St. Peter Food Co-Op, which started selling the company’s signature Bent River cheese. They now also shelve Alemar’s other soft-ripened cheeses, Good Thunder and Blue Earth. “It’s been a very successful partnership,” said Jim Vonderharr, the co-op’s head cheese buyer, “partly because it’s a local product, but mostly because it’s really good cheese. We liked it a lot right away, and since then, lots of people come in asking for it.” Alemar has extended its distribution reach in the five years since the Co-op took a chance on a local brand. Alemar is now stocked in grocery shops and restaurants across the country, from California to New York. “We’re a tiny little company from Mankato that makes
fancy cheese,” Adams said, “and yet our reach is pretty impressive, to us at least.” Locally, however (other than the Co-op,) only Cub Foods and Chankaska Winery carry Alemar cheese. “We haven’t really been focused on Mankato as our market,” he said. “Obviously, we’d love to have our cheese in more places here, and hopefully that happens. But there’s just a sliver of the population that loves high-end cheese and we’re just thrilled that people in Mankato and St. Peter have embraced us as much as they have.” At the end of his interview, Adams confirmed that, yes, the rumors swirling around town are true: He plans to relocate back to his native northern California to launch a new cheese enterprise. “My goal is to have the best of both worlds,” Adams said. “That’s my end goal. I’ll still be coming back here, though.” Hageman, Adams’ second-incommand, will oversee Alemar’s dayto-day operations. When time permits, Adams wants to have weekend buying hours in the shop, and open a kitchen and tasting room in Alemar’s Old Town digs. “It’s a dream come true to make something you really love and are fully behind,” said Hageman, a Mankato native who worked as a sous chef in Berkeley, Calif. “I couldn’t ask for anything more. I get to do something that makes me proud, and to do it in my hometown is extra special.” “If I got hit by a bus tomorrow,” Adams said, laughing, “we’d be fine with Craig. Our cheese has gotten vastly better as a result of us collaborating. His palate is way better than mine, and he’s made this cheese better than it’s ever been.” In Adams’ battle of ego versus the impostor, it appears the impostor is losing its edge. “We take nothing for granted here,” he said. “We stay humble, and to be where we are is really gratifying. I’m proud of this business, and it feeds my ego and my soul. And my stomach.”
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 23
That’s Life By Nell Musolf
A bittersweet time of year
W
e first noticed a flash of white in the backyard the summer before last. A streak of fur zooming from the woodshed to protection behind a tree. Some new creature was living in our yard but it never slowed down long enough for any of us to figure out what it was. Then winter came and along with the snow and the ice there were occasionally fresh footprints along the sidewalk next to the garage. Tiny footprints that told us that the streak of white was actually a cat, a small cat that appeared to be living somewhere in the vicinity, and who had to be beyond freezing. Naturally, we started putting food out for our guest and just as naturally the neighborhood raccoons did everything but leave us a thank you note. But the cat must have been getting a little bit of the food because she survived. Winter turned into spring and the white flash became a more and more frequent visitor, finally perching on a ledge near our living room window and peering in with an expression usually associated with orphans in old Frank Capra movies — noses pressed tightly against plate-glass bakery windows. Attempts to coax her closer were rebuffed, and we decided that the white cat seemed to be destined to be our permanent outdoor cat. Not that we were lacking for indoor cats. At that time we had four: Jack, Polly, Boo and Garfield. Jack, Polly and Boo stayed mainly indoors but Garfield was our wanderer. An enormous orange tabby, Garfield had the personality of Jackie Gleason in cat form and loved nothing more than getting into trouble. Such as the time he came home with one of his back legs skinned down to the muscle. The veterinarian guessed that Garfield had gotten caught in a trap somewhere and had managed to escape. Or the time Garfield chased a mouse INTO the house instead of out of it and then proceeded to calmly dine on cat food while I stood on top of the kitchen table yelling at him to eat the mouse. Or the time Garfield found himself stuck in a garage that wasn’t his own for three days before sauntering back, eyes wide as he seemed to wonder why we were making such a fuss over him. Over the years Garfield got into more scrapes and near misses than our other three cats combined. But he always came home. Until the last time. It was inevitable that, one day, Garfield’s luck would run out. And that day came a few months ago. A neighbor called to tell us that she thought our cat had been hit by a car and was in her driveway. My much braver husband went to investigate and came back with the sad news that Garfield had indeed used up his last life. It was with heavy hearts that we went to bed that night without Garfield asleep in his usual spot. A few days after losing Garfield, I was sitting on
24 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
our front steps when our mysterious outdoor cat decided to become my friend. A ball of dirty white fur appeared from behind an evergreen and climbed onto my lap. A little hesitant (when I was 10 a neighborhood cat I didn’t know decided to bury its teeth in my arm and hang on for about five minutes. I still have the teeth marks on my right arm) I waited to see what this cat would do. What she did was purr. And then follow me inside to see what was for dinner. Then it was bedtime in Garfield’s old spot. We took the white cat, now called Lucy, to the vet. Several hundred dollars later we were able to bring Lucy home for good. Lucy has now become the newest member of our family and she is most definitely an indoor cat. She doesn’t even look out the windows and I suspect that she has had enough of the Great Outdoors to last her the rest of her life. The older I get the more bittersweet life seems to become, and in this season of Thanksgiving, that bittersweet feeling seems to be the most strong. We are thankful that Lucy finally decided to come into our house. We are also thankful that we had Garfield for as long as we did. And we wonder if God didn’t send Lucy because He knew Garfield left a big hole in our lives. Whatever the reason, we’re happy to have her. Welcome home, Lucy. Nell Musolf is a mom and a freelance writer from Mankato.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 25
y a s s
E
Rachael Hanel’s first novel, “We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down,” was published last year.
No place like home She spent her youth convinced she’d leave southern Minnesota, but eventually realized everything she needed was right here all along.
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Story and photos by Rachael Hanel
ne day nearly 20 years ago, I sat across from Joe Tougas at the Square Deal. Joe was the arts and entertainment reporter at The Free Press, and I worked there as a part-time news clerk while earning my journalism degree at MSU-Mankato. For a class assignment, my professor assigned his students to write a profile piece. I chose to interview Joe because he was one of the most colorful and engaging people I knew (which was confirmed when he suggested we do the interview at a bar). 26 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
I remember distinctly one question and his answer, probably because I’ve used it to explain Mankato to people who have come through this town since then. I asked Joe, “Why do you live in Mankato?” He had lived in the town at least 10 years by that point. Besides his job, I didn’t see that he had other trappings of domestic life — marriage, a house, a white picket fence — that tie a person to place. To me, Joe defined what it meant to be worldly and fancy-free. He was an artistic guy, full of curiosity and loads of talent. I saw in him someone I hoped to be professionally someday, and that someday in my mind didn’t take place in Mankato. Joe’s talent could take him anywhere, but here he was, same as me. He answered, “This town has a way of making you stick around.” He spoke the truth. Twenty years later, here I am, in Mankato, where I didn’t think I’d be. I consider myself homegrown, even though my hometown of Waseca is 30 miles from Mankato. But the landscapes are nearly identical, the sensibilities of the people the same. When I sat with Joe at the Square Deal, I saw Mankato as a convenient stop on my way to bigger things. The university was a good place to get a degree, but then I’d move along. I dreamed of possibilities: a job at a metro newspaper or graduate work at one of the big journalism schools like Medill or Columbia. But after working part-time at The Free Press throughout college, I was offered a full-time job shortly before graduation. I’m practical at heart, so I nabbed the sure thing. A job at a bigger newspaper or graduate school would benefit from practical experience anyway, or so I told myself. Then years passed. Just as Joe had said, this town has a way of making you stick around. It offered everything I needed: good friends, decent shopping, places to eat, running and biking paths to explore. All of this in a contained space, where it didn’t take me longer than 10 minutes to drive from one side of town to the other. Dreams of journalistic stardom faded. But other dreams replaced them, dreams I could do from anywhere: write a book, write essays, teach. Social media made it easy to make personal and professional connections elsewhere; they were just a click away. All of this from a command center that truly embodied notions of “home”: family, friends, familiarity. What was my priority? Work for the Minneapolis StarTribune, or cultivate personal relationships in a familiar space? Grow professionally? Or grow personally? Was it possible to do both without giving up something? For a social person, Mankato is an easy town in which to stick around because new people are always coming through. The university and other major employers here are like the railroads of days gone by, bringing in new people and vitality. I’ve made several lifelong friends who have come to Mankato as students or professors at MSU-M. The downside, though, is they often blow through. At times, I feel self-conscious in a group of new people when we’re making introductions. Most people are much more worldly than I in terms of places they’ve lived. Recently I met people at a book festival who grew up in California, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. They now live in places like Montana, New Mexico and Vermont. When it’s my turn to introduce myself, I quietly say I’ve always lived in Minnesota, 30 miles from where I was raised. It makes me feel provincial, but I realize that like with anything that makes us selfconscious, it comes from an entirely inner place. Any
judgments I perceive are likely in my imagination. Worldly is a state of mind. You can be cultured from anywhere, even if you’ve never left your hometown. I recently read “The Mockingbird Next Door,” a book about Harper Lee and her sister, Alice. In the book, Alice was in her 90s and still practicing law in Monroeville, Alabama. Save for her time at college, she had always lived in Monroeville. The author, Marja Mills, describes the books flowing from every conceivable space in Alice’s house. Many books were about British history. Mills asked Alice if she had been to England: “She ran her deeply lined hand across the spines of a row of books. It was a tender gesture. Loving, even. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is how I’ve traveled.’” Worldly is nothing you can prove by showing a passport full of colorful stamps in foreign languages. I think back to my mom, more homegrown than even me. Until she was in her mid-40s, she never lived more than a mile from where she grew up. She could walk out of our house, down our gravel driveway toward the barn, and on a clear day see her home place. But Mom was anything but provincial. She was curious about the world. She read book after book, faithfully checked out from the Waseca library. She subscribed to magazines like Metropolitan Home and got a sense of how other people lived. Our television was almost always on, but when you received only three channels you couldn’t help but to learn about the world. Mom filled our house with collectibles and piano music. Sure, red meat and white bread graced our dinner table almost every night, but when we hosted an exchange student from Thailand, Mom was the first person in our house to try food seasoned with curry. So maybe I’m not going to live in Minneapolis, and maybe I would like more than two stamps in my passport. But from the comfort of my adopted hometown I can get to know the vicar from Nepal, the student from Japan, and I can Skype with professors in England who are supervising my Ph.D. program. Maybe I simply belong here, and that’s why I haven’t left. Maybe if I were to remove myself, my psyche would go into shock. My roots go deep. They can’t be dug up without some upheaval. In “The Music of Failure,” Bill Holm says it best: “I meant not to write my autobiography, but to use myself as example, duplicated many times in southwestern Minnesota, of attempted escape from these unlikely prairies, and the discovery, usually after years passing, that for better or worse, you belong in a place, and grow out of its black soil like a cornstalk.” M Rachael Hanel is a writer and MSU-M assistant professor living in Madison Lake. She blogs at www.rachaelhanel.me. MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 27
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Robb Murray, Associate Editor, Mankato Magazine
southern mn style
Many of us have probably stood in our own kitchens — frying up scrambled eggs, bacon, hashed browns and toast simultaneously while a hungry family awaits — and thought: “I do believe I’d be a fair short-order cook.” It’s all about multi-tasking, thinking on your feet, moving quickly and not making mistakes. Well, not making many mistakes, I guess. But the point is this: the life of a short-order cook is not nearly as easy as we think it is, and our food writer Sarah Johnson gets behind the scenes for a closer look at that life. Also, in her regular column, she’s introducing us to a new take on tater tots that you’re going to love. On the drink side of things, we’ve got great recommendations for you should you be inclined to partake in some adult beverages. Leigh Pomeroy, our resident “sommelier,” gives us a lesson Gewürztraminer wines, and reminds us that no matter what wine you choose, consider wine tasting and appreciation a journey, something you build upon and learn from glass after glass. After glass ... For the beer lovers out there, First Draught author Bert Mattson advises us on what brews might pair best with the cornucopia of foods that will be present on your Thanksgiving table — including a beer called Sweet Yamma Jamma. You won’t want to miss it.
food, drink & dine
Of short order cooks, Gewürztraminers and Yamma Jammas ...
MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 29
Food
By Sarah Johnson
southern mn style Josh Wolters is a cook at Benderz in North Mankato. He needs to excel at multi-tasking to be effective.
A Night with a Short Order Cook
T
ime to open the kitchen. Punch in. Greet the bartender. Turn on the lights, the ovens, the deepfat fryer, the grill. Fill the steam table with water. Check the temperatures of the walk-in cooler and freezer to make sure they are working properly; wouldn’t want thousands of dollars worth of food to go bad. Check the menu to see what’s on for the day’s meals and what needs to be prepped for the next day. Wash hands. Take a deep breath. Plunge in. You’ve eaten their food a thousand times but you rarely see their faces: the short-order cooks working at the backs of bars, restaurants, diners and food stands. They prepare simple, undeniably delicious food that’s relatively fast: burgers, eggs, fries, sandwiches, steaks, salads. No formal education is required; most training is done on the job. They learn how to cook one item at a time, and eventually they can handle the whole menu. Customers are both their lifeline and the albatross around their necks. Customer patronage is the reason a cook’s job exists, yet customer behavior can drive cooks crazy. It can be the best job they ever had, and the worst job they ever had … all in the same shift. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics states that in 2013, the median hourly income for short-order cooks was 30 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
$9.51. Cooks don’t get rich by any means. But there can be other perks: free meals, an easy camaraderie between coworkers, flexible scheduling and a daily opportunity to shine creatively. A good cook is also skilled in communication (especially between the kitchen and the wait staff), customer service (for special orders or complaints), hand-eye coordination (knives! fire! danger!), teamwork (crucial when sharing a kitchen with others just as hot and rushed as themselves), strength (for hauling giant pots and 50-pound boxes of beef) and stamina (for staying on one’s feet a long, long time). But the soul of short-order cooking is the ability to multitask, to work on multiple orders at once without over- or undercooking anything. Rarely does the cook have the luxury of preparing one order at a time. Instead, he or she must work with an ever-growing stack of order slips, getting hot food out of the kitchen as quickly as possible. Candice Snyder, kitchen manager and cook extraordinaire at Benderz in North Mankato, has been cooking professionally for 12 years, ranging from a stint in high school in a town of 500 through corporate jobs that were highly structured. She sums up the joy of
cooking thusly: “It’s both a creative outlet and a useful skill. There’s always something different. I’m always learning.” Her coworker Josh Wolters nods in agreement and adds, “I like to see smiles and make people happy. That’s almost better than a paycheck for me.” Wolters is new here and still in training, but his experience as a short-order cook in other locales makes his schooling a no-brainer. Snyder can attend to other tasks at the same time, like visiting with a food writer. As the smell of searing steak rises from the grill at the back of the North Mankato bar and grill, Wolters flips the meat with a pair of tongs and checks his tickets to make sure he’s on track to get the rest of the plate finished on time. Tonight’s special is a beautiful 10-ounce ribeye with Texas toast and choice of potato. It appears to be the meal of choice for this Tuesday evening’s customers. In between orders the cooks do prep work, slicing and dicing tomatoes and onions, thawing meats, replenishing the supplies necessary to make work run smoothly when it’s busy. Snyder orders the food from commercial suppliers, plans menus, hires and trains kitchen staff, does the schedule. She’s used to the vagaries of the food business, and working in a new job is no big deal: “When you’re used to cooking, you pick it up quickly,” she notes. Both cooks enjoy their work atmosphere and the camaraderie that evolves between coworkers who spend a lot of time together in close quarters: “It’s a universal thing in kitchens,” Snyder muses. “You’re always a family. You’re with each other so much.” They look out for each other. Take care of each other. And they need to. Cooks face numerous hazards in the kitchen. The majority of accidents happen because
of the stress and pace of the kitchen, and can include cuts, burns, dehydration and mental fatigue. Cooks can suffer injuries and health problems due to the nature of their work, ranging from problems caused by the job itself (such as back pain, foot problems or arthritis) to problems caused by the lifestyle that comes with being a cook. Working long hours, while “normal” people are eating, and covering weekends and holidays, again when “normal” people are relaxing, can be stressful and lead to poor eating habits, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and substance abuse. Burns are just part of the territory, “occupational hazards” as Snyder calls them with a smile. “When you’re in a rush, you don’t feel it,” she says. Only later does the cook feel the pain, along with a surprising amount of itchiness as the burn heals. Do professional cooks take time to cook at home as well? Sure, says Snyder. “You cook for everyone else all day, it’s nice to do something special for yourself.” Wolters loves to grill steak and chicken and cook “anything they like” for his three kids, who are budding food enthusiasts themselves. Closing time. Empty the steam table. Shut off the ovens, the fryer, clean the grill. Put everything away and wipe off the counters. Clean the knives and sweep and mop. Scrub pots until fingers turn pruny. Reflect on the shift’s events. Congratulate self on a job well done, a paycheck honestly earned, a gratifying weariness: Sleep will come easy tonight. Punch out. Lights off.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 31
Wine & Beer
Wines By Leigh Pomeroy
Wines for Late Fall
I
southern mn style
was going to title this “Wines for Winter” but we’re not there yet. While by now most leaves have fallen, the snow has yet to become a permanent fixture on the ground. And maybe our winter of ‘14-’15 will be less severe than the previous … if the predicted El Niño makes its way across the southern Pacific Ocean thus warming our far north climate. How does that work? Ask a climate scientist. Ah, but what to drink to celebrate the changing of the season? The one thing about wine is that it’s so varied. How many colas are there? How many cranberry juices? How many milks? Wine and now beer — thanks to the renaissance of small, craft brewers — and to a lesser extent whiskeys, gins, vodkas, etc., offer a plentiful supply of options. Yet there is a divergence that wine and beer aficionados ought to be aware of. While the selection of wines expanded greatly beginning in the 1970s through the 1990s, and there seem to be more labels today, in fact many of the labels one sees on store shelves are actually owned by a handful of large international conglomerates. Yes, there is still an abundance of small family vintners, but their products are often hard to find, especially in small markets like Mankato’s. One needs to go directly to the winery or to a top-notch retailer, usually only found in larger markets such as the Twin Cities. On the other hand, the craft beer explosion began nearly a decade after the craft wine expansion, and while larger brewers are attempting to create their own versions of craft beers, smaller producers are doing quite well, thank you, and for the most part have resisted being co-opted by corporate America. That said, I always like to promote the local products, and that includes the wines of Morgan Creek Vineyards near Cambria, Chankaska Creek Winery in Kasota, and Indian Island Winery outside of Janesville. For beer there’s none better than Mankato Brewery in North Mankato and Schell’s in New Ulm, the second oldest family-owned brewery in the U.S. Ah, but to our topic. Thanksgiving is soon upon us, so what shall we serve with the bird? One of the challenges with Thanksgiving dinners is that there is a cornucopia of flavors on the table: The bird itself, herbed dressing, fluffy mashed potatoes, thick gravy, probably peas, perhaps a jello salad, cranberries in various forms, bread or rolls, maybe squash or sweet potatoes, maybe a green salad. Who knows? For such an amalgam I often fall back on an old favorite: Gewürztraminer. Gewürz what? In layman’s language it means “spicy traminer,” traminer being a type of grape. Gewürztraminer is also a type of grape characterized by an aggressive, almost rosehip fragrance
32 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
designed to stand up to heavily spiced flavors like the turkey dressing. Gewürztraminers are usually just slightly sweet, which allows them not to be overpowered by the cranberry sauce. Recently I was able to enjoy a 2011 Domaine Frey Gewürztraminer Collines de Granit (“Granite Hills”) from the Alsace region of northeastern France, which would be a perfect selection for any Thanksgiving dinner. But alas! Find it in Minnesota? I doubt it. Yet fortunately there are other choices perhaps just as good. Call up one of the local vintners mentioned above. Ask them what they recommend and can they get you get some. Unlike dealing with a corporate entity our local vintners will answer the phone and give you a straight answer. Or select a domestic Gewürztraminer from a local store. The gewürztraminer grape does well in both California and Washington state, so try several — the prices are reasonable. But be aware that all finish with a slight sweetness, so if you prefer a dry wine they may not be to your taste. If you do want a dry wine I have two suggestions: The first is one of the most impressive inexpensive Chardonnays I have tried — the Concannon Livermore Valley Conservancy Chardonnay, available in some Mankato stores for as little as $10. It is from a specific, very old California appellation (place of origin) — Livermore Valley — so in tasting it one gets a sense of place. “Conservancy” means that the vineyard is in an agricultural preserve to protect it from encroaching urban development — a win-win situation. The second option is more expensive, but it too has a sense of place. It is just about any Chardonnay or Pinot Noir from Mankato native Stephen Ross Dooley under his eponymous label, Stephen Ross Wines. The place is California’s southcentral coast from which he sources almost all of his grapes. These are not subtle wines, and because they exude so much power they can stand up to nearly anything on the Thanksgiving table, save for perhaps Aunt Lena’s cut-with-a-chainsaw fruitcake. Fortunately, they are available in Mankato at Mike Baumann’s Wine Café in Old Town. Whatever you choose, don’t fear making a mistake. For wine is a journey of discovery. Every once in a while you might make a wrong turn. But when you chance upon a wonderful bottle, all the the wrong turns become a distant memory of that journey and just part of the learning process. Prosit! Leigh Pomeroy is a Mankato-based writer and wine lover
First Draught By Bert Mattson
Local beers to fall back on
“D
ull November brings the blast; then the leaves are whirling fast,” wrote Sara Coleridge, capturing the month’s character in her poem “The Garden Year.” Fair enough. Thoughts of November are filled with bare branches, corn stubble and cold, gray skies that carry fall’s first flurries. With shorter days, gardeners are generally gearing down, focused on preparing their plots for the following season. Yet, the local land continues to provide. November produce is comprised of apples, winter squash, root vegetables and brassicas such as kale, cabbage and Brussels sprouts. Reflecting the principle that what grows together, goes together, local brewers present an excellent foil for all that food. Thankfully, we mark November as the month to make a meal of it. Turkey is emblematic of Thanksgiving but, for pairing purposes, one is wise to consider the preparation as well as the protein. Roasting turkey develops flavors complimentary to the subtly sweet, toasted malt character of Organ Grinder Amber Ale from Mankato Brewery. (If the recipe calls for brining, try adding malt sugar to enhance the marriage.) It saves space on the table to select a style that pivots on some element common to each item on the menu. To the sweetness in this malt-accented style, Brussels sprouts with bacon present a salty, smoky counterpoint. Sprouts can be bitter but a bit of pan browning brings them around to the sweet side. Apples and winter squash are old prandial companions. When added to a gratin of winter squash, the acidity of an apple balances brown sugar and cuts the richness of butter -- a demure presence of hops
in Organ Grinder helps with that, and the carbonation keeps fat from coating the tongue. Sage, an herb frequently found in stuffing, contains organic compounds called tarpenes which exhibit spicy aromas reminiscent of hops. In the Middle Ages, sage was used in lieu of hops for flavoring beer. Frying fresh sage subdues its pungency and makes it friendlier for pairing. For something fancy, try tossing sweet potato dumplings with fried sage and brown butter. Finish it with finely grated parmesan. Should someone forget to bring the sweet potato casserole, compensate with a can of Indeed Brewing Company’s Sweet Yamma Jamma. It is available lateAugust through November. This Sweet Potato Ale isn’t excessively sweet as the name might imply. It’s actually fairly crisp, not overly hoppy and has hints of spice. The character really comes out after it warms a few degrees. For Thanksgiving, the NFL also offers up some interesting matchups, all important to division races. Both the above beers bring drinkability and should pair with football as well as food. It’s a treat to have a big bottle to pour for guests, and Commander, a limited release from Lift Bridge Brewing Company, is one you’ll want to share. It arrives late November. This English-style Barleywine is aged in bourbon barrels. It shows. Try it with Derby (chocolate-bourbon-pecan) Pie. At 12.5% alcohol it’s a blast; take it slow or it may leave you whirling fast.
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Bert Mattson is a chef and writer based in St. Paul. MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 33
Drinks
Happy Hour
southern mn style
T
By M. Carrie Allan | Special To The Free Press
A cocktail that uses champagne bubbles for good, not evil
his past spring, I made a reservation at the Aviary, the Chicago cocktail mecca co-owned by chef Grant Achatz. I got there before sunset, so the neighborhood was suffused with that late-afternoon light in which everything — train tracks, graffiti, dumpsters — looks beautiful. Seated at my table, with streams of that golden light rolling through the windows, I watched as the couple to my right received a cocktail in a teapot, leaking tendrils of dry-ice “smoke.” Another had a drink served in the center of what appeared to be a miniature jungle of herbs and grasses. The scene had that partly delightful, partly absurd rabbit-up-the-sleeve quality common to temples of “molecular gastronomy.” I was as happy as a pig in a truffle field. The first drink I ordered, the Barber’s Brunch, was a concoction the menu had described in that terse ingredient-listing style I think of as modern menu-ese: “paprika, seville, royal combier.” It was a beauty — its bottom layer pale gold and bubbly, the top layer deep orange — and when I lifted it to my lips, my nose got the first of it: a rich waft of citrus and smoky spice, like a fire in a distant orange grove. The drink was perfect, but it dropped me into a dizzying shame spiral. Its perfect execution of fragrance via fizz took me back several years to my worst cocktail disaster. When you’ve got the cocktail bug but don’t yet have the technical chops to back up your ambitious experiments, sooner or later you will make a bad drink. I don’t mean a “meh” drink. I mean a cocktail with FAIL foam, a drink that screams “DON’T,” a drink that should be tossed down the drain only if you really, really hate your drain. I’ve made a few, and though I cringe at the wasted booze, these failures are necessary to growth. But if you’re smart, you’ll remember
34 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
the rule that serves musicians everywhere: Experiment in the studio. Onstage, for God’s sake, play the hits. My disaster happened when I ignored that rule. Some years back, tasked with making cocktails for a New Year’s party for a group of dear foodobsessed friends, I planned to serve a riff on a Kir Royale, replacing the traditional cassis with the fruity syrup strained and pressed from homemade cranberry sauce. The resulting drink was a golden-pink bubbler that smelled like Christmas. But the night of the party, I used a cranberry sauce I hadn’t tested before, one made by these very friends. I’d tasted it, and it was chunky with citrus and had a deep, peppery heat to it. It would be delicious, and what better cocktail for the new year than one that incorporates the culinary talents of the friends you’ll be toasting with? Here is what I failed to realize: That peppery heat had a source, and the source was cayenne pepper. Safely ensconced in the sauce, it was zesty and tongue-waking. But as I now understand, when mixed with champagne the cayenne was agitated by the carbonation, lifted through the drink and expelled into the air at the top of the glass as tiny, aerosolized particles. And as anyone who’s ever ground dried peppers knows, an aerosolized hot pepper is a weaponized hot pepper. That night, I handed the first flutes of what I now think of as Cranberry WMD to two friends. We raised our glasses for a toast. One of them sipped and made what seemed like a strange face, but turned away and tried to cover it. The other raised it to her face, inhaled, and immediately began choking violently. It was not a great moment in mixology. I still cringe thinking about it. When I smelled and tasted the Barber’s Brunch, I realized that the
Aviary had used champagne’s carbonation — the very quality that turned my cocktail into a substance that could be used for crowd control — to elevate the drink beyond a mere mimosa variation. (That’s the source of the drink’s name; with the Seville oranges that go into its base cordial, the drink is “brunch” for opera’s famous haircutter.) The drink incorporates a homemade orange-Armagnac cordial, lemon juice, a spiced orange liqueur called Royal Combier, gin and champagne, but the final touch — that deep orange-colored layer on top — was a tincture made of smoked paprika and 190-proof Everclear. The low density of that spirit keeps it floating on the drink. “Carbonation continues to bring aroma to the surface in the drink,” Aviary’s chef de cuisine Micah Melton explained, “so the tincture floating on top has the drink always bubbling underneath it. So it’s still shooting the aroma of the drink up through the tincture and evaporating some of that high-proof alcohol, so you get that constant waft of paprika.” You can use sparkling wine to deliver aroma in cocktails even without a float of something highproof; you’ll get similar delicious aromatics from a French 75. But the visualcool factor of a richly hued, fragrant high-proof float over bubbles is a neat trick. Recently, I gave it a spin with a Death in the Afternoon, floating a deep green basilmint tincture over Hemingway’s classic absintheand-champagne mix. Just don’t use bubbles to aerosolize anything you wouldn’t like to take a big sniff of. I can assure you that Cranberry WMD is best served at parties where you never want to see the guests again — or among friends close enough that you can hope to be forgiven.
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Great Gift Idea MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 35
Food
What’s Cooking By Sarah Johnson
southern mn style
“Tater Tots” O
nce upon a time, there was a Potato. And that Potato was shapethed unto many different forms and French friedeth, mashedeth, bakedeth, twice bakedeth and hasheth browned. But the greatest of these forms was the Tater Tot, and humankind looked upon it and said: Behold its golden perfection. And all was well in the world. Tater tots have a cultish fan base, and it’s easy to see why. There’s something bewitching that happens when you shape grated potatoes into little barrels and fry them to a deep golden-brown color. They become light and airy, crisp and hearty, all at the same time. Tater tots are to the potato what fermentation is to the grape: the perfect transformation of the mundane into the sublime. Tater tots got their start at potato processing giant Ore-Ida way back in the 1950s when the founding Grigg brothers , F. Nephi and Golden – seriously, did parents back then even care what they named their kids? -were trying to figure out what to do with the leftover potato scraps from cut-up potatoes used for French fries and such. Previously they’d just been feeding them to cattle and hogs. They chopped and seasoned the leftovers, then extruded them into the familiar round shapes that we all love so well -- and a legend was born. But the hallelujah bells weren’t ringing yet. Obviously, since tater tots were very cheap to produce, they were offered at a very low price … and no one bought ‘em, because there was no “perceived value” according to today’s advertising historians. So
they jacked up the price and people couldn’t get enough. Go figure. So nowadays we’re still stuck with an inflated cost. No matter; they are a treasure at any price. They’re only sold in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, so it’s your choice whether to pity the rest of the world or just feel smug about our well-kept secret. They’ve morphed from your basic throw-in-the-oven side dish to a cultural phenomenon, starting with the Midwestern classic hot dish and jumping to restaurant menus across the country. Seems like everybody’s got a bag of frozen tots in their freezers these days. Even upscale chefs have their recipes for homemade tater tots and “deconstructed” casseroles. Cooks are stuffing tots into breakfast burritos; using them as topping for oh-so-many-other types of casserole; slathering them with chili and cheese; smashing them into grilled cheese sandwiches; wrapping them in bacon for an appetizer; and mixing them into morning egg bakes. Making homemade tots generally involves shredding potatoes, adding spices, and attempting to form them into the proper shape and fry them in oil. This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, and also couldn’t possibly save you any money or time, so I would suggest ponying up the cash for the frozen variety. You can never go wrong with a basic plate of tater tots -- no frills, just comforting, potatoey goodness. But when you do decide to do more with tots, you get magical creations like these totchos. Follow this Mexican-style recipe, or use your wildest imagination to come up with other magical topping combinations.
Sarah Johnson is a cook, freelance writer and chocolate addict from North Mankato with three grown kids and a couple of mutts. 36 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Totchos
(Tater Tot Nachos) Ingredients 32-ounce bag frozen tater tots 3-4 slices bacon 1/4 onion, finely chopped 1 large clove garlic, minced 1/2 pound very lean ground beef 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/4 teaspoon paprika 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/8 teaspoon oregano 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 15-ounce jar salsa con queso/cheese sauce, heated in the microwave Salsa Guacamole Sour cream Several green onions, finely chopped Bake the tater tots according to package instructions, making sure to get them crispy as possible because you’ll be adding a lot of wet toppings, and you want the tots to remain crunchy. While the tater tots are baking, fry the bacon until crisp in a large frying pan. Remove and set aside to cool. Pour out all but about one tablespoon of the bacon grease. Add the onion and garlic to the frying pan and cook over medium heat until softened. Add the beef and stir to mix. Once the beef is no longer pink, add the chili powder, cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, oregano, salt and pepper. Stir to incorporate and then cook several additional minutes until the flavors have melded and the meat is cooked through. Once the tater tots have finished baking, transfer to a large platter or individual plates. Top with the seasoned beef, salsa con queso, salsa, guacamole, sour cream and green onions. Crumble the bacon over the top, serve immediately, and bask in your tater tot glory.
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Reflections
By John Cross
T
his year marks the 100th anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon. The last known survivor, Martha, died in captivity on Sept. 1, 1914, in a Cincinnati Zoo. The species’ extinction is blamed mostly on unregulated, commercialized hunting and widespread habitat destruction in the 1800s. Probably the only bird species that can give a hint today of what it must have been like to see passenger pigeons migrating — accounts speak of flocks that took an entire day to pass — might be the red-winged blackbird. With a continental population estimated to be about 250 million, red-winged blackbirds still represent only a fraction of the estimated 5 billion passenger pigeons that once darkened the skies of North America in the 1800s. Today, great flocks of red-winged blackbirds still flow like eddies and currents over the countryside in their annual migration, seemingly in endless numbers. One hundred years later, we know better. M
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• November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
SOUTHERN MINNESOTA
MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 •
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SOUTHERN MINNESOTA
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Table of Contents
4 Upcycle your space. 4 48 Need to spend more face time with your device?
Check out these hot home renovation websites
50
50 Making Dreams Come True —
One Home at a Time
54 Forecast For 2015 Is Comfort and Warmth –
And There’s No Wrong Way To Do It
8 The Mankato Area At A Glance 5 60 Seeing in Color 61 Adding Value and Ambiance
54
42 •
60
Did you know?
M
any home improvement projects involve hanging decorative items, such as photo frames or shelving. Homeowners frequently wrestle with nails, screws and hanging hardware, perhaps creating more holes in their walls than is necessary to get items level and in the right spots. Instead of playing a guessing game of figuring out where the hanging holes or hooks are located on the back of items, use your office equipment to make life easier. Make a copy of the back of the item you’re trying to hang with a printer/scanner or a copy machine, making sure to copy the item to full scale. Print the copy at full size and use it to drill the hanging holes. If you don’t have access to a copy machine or scanner, use a piece of tape to measure the distance between the hanging holes on the back of the frame. Stick the tape to the wall and then put your nails or screws at the ends of the tape.
• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 •
• 43
Upcycle
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your
Submitted by: xxxxxxxxx Photos by:xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
space
Submitted by: Jordan Greer Photos by: Salvage Sisters and Front Street Tattoo & Voss Fine Art Gallery
R
ight now you can’t turn on your television, scan through your apps or walk into any home furnishing store without seeing one of the biggest decorating trends-upcycling and re-purposing furniture. Everything old is now new again. Your grandma’s dining room set, that old dresser in the garage, even that dated headboard sitting on the curb are now coveted pieces-diamonds in the rough, waiting to be sanded, primed and painted into something Pin-worthy. Scan through Home Furnishings on Pinterest you will come across boring end tables repainted in bright hues, baby cribs reconfigured into desks, dining chairs converted into benches, boring 70’s buffets painted into hip, colorful focal pieces and countless projects to convert wood pallets into almost anything you can imagine. This old-is-new trend can be applied to your home and your business, letting you make your space a true reflection of who you are. Heather Fisher, owner and Interior Designer of Salvage Sisters, described the trend as, “A way to breathe life back into an item that may have been destined for the dumpster. You can add a fun paint color or new hardware to an item that may have been buried in your grandmother’s shed and suddenly it’s an up-cycled conversation piece.” Up-cycling furniture allows you to use an old piece and manipulate it in to a hip, modern interpretation. It also allows you to spend less money on furnishing your space. Many pieces can be acquired for little or nothing and then it’s up to you (or people like the ones at Salvage 44 •
• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
Sisters) to put in the sweat equity and take the piece from drab to fab. New business owner, Damien Friesz of Front Street Tattoo & Voss Fine Art Gallery, furnished almost all of his new gallery by keeping with the upcycle/re-purpose trend. “In the end, we are 90% recycled here. I found some old wood and metal pallets at Restore for $5, added some caster wheels to them and they turned into some amazing coffee tables.” He also purchased many pieces from a bank auction and repainted the old mismatched office furniture all a high-gloss black, giving them a sleek, modern look. The main thing to keep in mind when up-cycling furniture for your home or business is to find a piece that has a good, strong base. Look for furniture with strong joints and sturdy construction otherwise all of your hard work making it look good will be wasted if the piece can’t function. At Salvage Sisters they “require the pieces to be strong with solid craftsmanship and we tend to stick to items with minimal upholstery.” Some minimal structural reinforcement can be done with wood or metal brackets if joints seem weak. When looking for a way to construct his tattoo stations, Damien Friesz decided that he needed something sturdy with clean lines and a lot of storage. We was in luck when he found 10 dated office desks at an auction. “They were exactly what I needed as far a form and function, they were just, well, ugly. The normal, generic desks you see in every office. I knew that once they were all painted black and reconfigured into the layout I needed, the look would be the modern industrial one we were
Need a refresh or redo? Call Antje and get your design projects done! • • • • • • •
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• 45
going for in the space.” The best place to find your up-cycle project? Shop your home first! Take a minute and walk through your home and look at pieces you already have out of context. Things that have been sitting around collecting dust, when looked at in another room, can suddenly pop with new purpose. That old dresser? A perfect fit in the bathroom as a vanity! That dated china hutch? Take off the top half, repaint the bottom a funky color and your living room has a new star to hold your T.V.! Heather from Salvage Sisters says to look for, “Unique items that are too ugly to keep but too good to throw away.” Thrift stores, garage sales, Craigslist and other used furniture stores are also good places to cruise looking for unique pieces. Look for things with good, clean lines, cool hardware and unusual shapes.
Once you choose the piece of furniture you want to breathe some new life into, ask yourself:
What can I do to make this look better, more unique, work better in my space? Can I change the shape of the piece, the color or the texture of the finish? Does it still need all of it’s parts to function as what I want? What can I add to the piece to make it funkier or more functional? How do I make the pieces fit with my aesthetic and my design style?
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• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
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The next step is the fun partactually getting your hands dirty! Make sure you clean, sand and prime your piece to insure whatever finish you choose will take properly. If your project has doors, take them all off so you can get into all of the nooks and crannies. Label and mark them so you know which ones go where when you are putting them back on. You will also want to remove the old hardware. If you are going to be substituting new hardware, make sure the screw holes are in the same place. If they don’t match-up, fill the old holes and sand them to make sure your finished product looks new and clean. Your next step is deciding what kind of look you are going for and what kind of use your piece will be getting. Some furniture will look better with a matte finish and some really call out for a high-gloss. Some paints are better for decorative pieces and others for those that will be getting a lot of wear and tear. Don’t have time to do the project yourself but have a piece that is screaming for a facelift? You can have some else do it for you! Furniture re-finishers, like Salvage Sisters, can take your vision
nown e well k I got becom n e e v h a h W il. ott e with and Sc nd deta “Steve nse of style a through for m e e s m for their ey always ca innovation.” , th n and o ti a “stuck” in ames imag Hecht J - Debra
and make it happen. Don’t be intimidated, thinking you can’t get the look without deconstruction all of the furniture in your house. Sometimes just a simple coat of spray paint works wonders or rethinking the use of an object can make something previously overlooked become a conversation piece in a room. Suitcases and trunks can be used as tables and open storage and give your room a vintage feel without breaking the bank or your back. Spray painting old magazine racks, mirrors and picture frames make them modern attention grabbers in a room. So, check out what’s popular in the home furnishing stores, on the blogs, on all of the shows on HGTV and then take a walk through your house and make it happen! With just a simple coat of paint and a little vision you can up-cycle your trash into treasure and make your space a true reflection of who you are.
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Special Advertising Section • November 2014 •
• 47
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• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
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Special Advertising Section • November 2014 •
• 49
50 •
• November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Making Dreams Come True
One Home
At A Time
By Marianne Carlson
Photos by Jordan Powers — www.jordanpowers.com MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 •
• 51
vision to fruition.”
“I love being able to bring their
L
ying awake at 3 a.m. trying to figure out how to build a rounded French dormer just comes with the territory of designing custom homes.
But the difference between John Fritz and most people is … he loves it. “I wouldn’t call it a problem,” Fritz said with a smile. “Maybe a challenge, but honestly, I love it. I love figuring that kind of stuff out.” Fritz has been in the construction industry for nearly 15 years. In 2009, he started John Fritz Construction and he has been at the helm ever since.
Good Old-Fashion Minnesota Work Ethic Growing up on a farm in Madison Lake, there was always something that needed fixing, Fritz said. “We repaired our own roofs and I learned something new from my dad almost every day. I vividly remember the day that I learned about leverage from my grandpa,” Fritz said with a laugh. After high school, Fritz got a job in Waseca working for a roofing company. Soon afterwards, he was hired at Schmidt Siding in Mankato. “One of things they taught us at Schmidt Siding, was that, when you leave a job, the homeowners should never know you were there,” Fritz said. “If we installed new windows, we put the windows in, vacuumed and even hung the drapes back up. I carry that philosophy through to my own work.” Fritz credits his first child for helping get the next phase of his career moving. 52 •
• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
“I was in childbirth classes with Tony Frentz and Mark Deichman,” Fritz said with a smile. “So our kids literally brought us together.” Fritz teamed up with Frentz for several years, before making the decision to go on his own in 2009. “It was probably not the best time to start my own business,” Fritz said with a smile. “But I made it through.” Now that he is the man in charge, Fritz said his role has changed. After spending years doing much of the actual building himself, he now spends most of his time meeting with homeowners, managing employees and subcontractors and putting the jobs together. Taking that step back has been a bit of a transition for Fritz. “I’m a creative person so it’s taken a little getting used to,” Fritz said. “It’s good for me, though. I can’t be climbing around in the rafters for the rest of my life.”
Building … Is a Process Unless you’ve gone through it, Fritz said, most people don’t realize how much planning goes into building a custom home. “One of the first things I ask a homeowner is, ‘Do you have a plan?’ ” Fritz said. “If they don’t have a plan usually they have a folder full of all the things they love. But sometimes they have nothing. If they don’t have a plan I send them to Julie at Strange Designs. She is a draftsperson and she is terrific. She can take a folder of ideas and get that first plan together. Then once we’ve got that first plan, we can tweak it from there.” Fritz said it is not out of the ordinary for him to spend three or four hours with a homeowner getting to know them and understanding their vision.
johnfritzhomes.com 217 East Walnut Street Suite 2 Mankato, MN 56001
507-469-3152 Email: jf@johnfritzhomes.com “It is a process,” Fritz said. “I want the plan 100% finished before I start bidding it out. Changing a paint color or even the flooring is not a big deal, but changing a roof line is a whole different story. It’s about expectations and communication is the key.” Everyone has their own style, but it is location and age demographics that determine what people want, Fritz said. Fritz built a rambler for a 60-year-old-couple. It was very important to them that everything was handicap accessible, because this would be their last home. “They want to have a nurse come to them, rather than go into a nursing home,” Fritz said. “They knew what they wanted so we planned for it.”
Trends In The Industry Open floor plans are very popular, Fritz said. People want to be in the kitchen and be able to see into the living room. It allows families to be together, without being right on top of each other. Fritz said that no matter what kind of home he is building, he always helps the client utilize as much space as possible. Every time you create a corner or an angled hallway, it creates a triangle somewhere. “I always try to help homeowners utilize every niche,” Fritz said with a smile. “The best way to do that is by figuring out function so you can create a sense of flow. You have to ask, ‘how are you going to use this space? Do you want the door to swing this way or that way?’ Once you know what something is going to be used for, then you can decide how it should look and feel.” One change, Fritz has noticed over the past several years is that a lot of people are getting rid of the traditional dining rooms. Instead, they are using that space as a media center.
“We used to frame all of our own projects – but now that the economy has picked up again, there are these framing companies that a lot of contractors are hiring,” Fritz said. “It is just like any other trade. We call plumbers. We call electricians. Now we call a framing company.” Fritz has two employees and it would take the three of them, six to eight weeks, to frame one of these homes. Framing companies can come in and get the work done in half the time because they have big crews and a lot of equipment. “It helps us all get done faster and meet our deadlines faster,” Fritz said. “We still do all of our trimming inhouse, but I can see that changing, as well.” Fritz works with many trade contractors during the course of a single job. “I don’t do this alone,” Fritz said. “I’ve been working with a lot of these guys for years and I look to them for advice. The hardest thing about managing a job, is the weather. It is always an unknown. That is why communication is so important.” One of Fritz’s cousins builds many of the cabinets in his homes and he has a saying that Fritz has decided are words to live by. “He always says, ‘Plan your work and work your plan.’ Really, that’s what it’s all about,” Fritz said. “If you are not prepared – things can turn on you pretty quickly.” Fritz is involved with every aspect of building a custom home, but it is the communication part of the job that has become the most fun for him. “I love working with homeowners, learning about their dream homes and making it happen for them,” Fritz said. “I love being able to bring their vision to fruition.”
Special Advertising Section • November 2014 •
• 53
Comfort and Warmth
Photo Courtesy of Earl Johnson
Forecast For 2015 Is
And There’s No
Wrong Way To Do It By Marianne Carlson
A
lot has changed since Todd Johnson’s father, Earl, opened his furniture store in 1971. “Today, comfort comes first,” Johnson said. “People don’t have fancy sitting rooms anymore. They want to come home, kick off their shoes and fall into a nice leather or fabric sofa. They want something they can sit on every day. It’s all about comfort.” Johnson and others in the industry have seen a significant
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• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
shift from traditional style to transitional style and casual style furniture selections and home décor choices, over the past several years. Reclining sofas using motion technology have grown in popularity. Sectional sofas with chaise loungers and built-in recliners are inviting, comfortable and provide additional space so the whole family can stretch out, Johnson said. “People want a home they can live in, but you don’t
Photo Courtesy of Earl Johnson
Photo Courtesy of Rooms & Rest
Photo Courtesy of Rooms & Rest
Photo Courtesy of Earl Johnson
have to sacrifice elegance or style for comfort,” said Lisa Roberts, a 12-year-veteran of Earl Johnson Furniture. Addie Stockman, an interior designer at Rooms and Rest agreed with Roberts. “You can have elegance and comfort in your home,” Stockman said. “This can be achieved with bold pieces, soft textures, warm colors, thoughtful accents and comfort considerations. Stunning pillows, soft blankets, plush rugs, or ottomans can be paired with fashion forward art, accents or lamps. The end result is a successful marriage of comfort and elegance.”
Choosing The Right Paint Color Since the recession, more and more homeowners are staying in their current homes and investing time and resources into making their homes better, rather than moving to a new or larger home. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to transform the look of a room is by painting it a new color. This year, Arrow Ace has rolled out the new Paint Studio in their stores, which offers customers a boutique style shopping experience with exclusive paint collections from Clark+Kensington and Valspar. The colors are displayed in unique drawers and on eye-catching racks with bright
lighting and tools to make the color selection process simple. Each season, Ace Panel of Design Experts, Katie Reynolds (Dallas, Texas), Nathan Fischer (Orange County, California) and Julie Richard (Boston, Massachusetts) hand-select the top color and home décor trends for homeowners. “This is the perfect time for homeowners to make the interior updates that they didn’t have time to tackle this summer. Fall is one of the most colorful and beautiful times of the year, so it can be a great source of inspiration,” Reynolds said.
Trending Paint Colors Ace’s Design Experts suggest bringing warmth to a living room with a golden honey shade on the walls, such a Golden Ticket 19B-4. This livable color works well in kitchens or hallways if the home has an open floor plan. Accent this new color with light fixtures, home décor accents and metal furniture pieces in warm metallics, like gold and bronze, to complement the golden hue. Take a cue from one of the most popular colors of the season by updating a home office with a spicy shade of orange. Try Pumpkin Latte 13B-6 or Dutch Tulips 10B-6 on all four walls or just one focal wall and keep the rest Special Advertising Section • November 2014 •
• 55
Photo Courtesy of Arrow Ace
Photo Courtesy of Arrow Ace
of your palette simple with chocolate brown, rich grays or winter whites as accents in textiles and accessories. Warm whites like Swiss Coffee CW-W3 or Antique White CW-W7 look great on walls and trim when accepted with neutrals such as Trench Coat N-C4, a dark khaki, or Stormy Weather CW-C7, a pale gray. Layering these classic colors elevates a monochromatic palette from basic to exciting, resulting in the perfect backdrop for fall décor and accents. Color is one of the most dramatic changes that a homeowner can make to their space and painting an accent wall or piece of furniture is a quick and easy seasonal update. Vibrant and luxurious colors such as Dragon Fruit 03D-4, a deep scarlet red or Darling 01D-4, a saturated magenta, offers a pop of bold color and look great on the walls of a bonus room or on accent pieces such as a side table or serving tray. If people want to try one of these trending colors in their home, but they want to make sure they like how it looks on their walls before committing to the entire space, they can purchase a sample pint. The Design Experts recommend painting a 2 ft. by 2 ft. swatch on their walls to see how the color looks on their wall and how lighting affects it at different times of the day. If people already have a specific color in mind, Arrow Ace offers free custom color matching. Customers can bring in a pillow, necklace, bedspread – whatever it might be – and they can custom-tint the paint to that exact color. “Folks want to enjoy the coziness of their home and relax,” Rose Rustman, manager at Arrow Ace in St. Peter, said. “They are seeking new ways to make their home more comfortable and fit their own style. Many take pride in doing things themselves, but want to do it right the first time. That’s why they come to Arrow Ace – they know they’ll get the helpful advice they need to help transform their home.” 56 •
• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
The Walls Are Painted – Now What? By the time people visit Earl Johnson Furniture, Roberts said they have usually selected their paint colors. “Paint is a good starting point because then we can pick out upholstery fabric and area rugs,” Roberts said. “We can start anywhere, but it is always smart to choose the fabric before the carpet, because if they are doing an entire room or a whole house that is a big commitment.” Although certain colors are popular right now, Johnson said nothing is really right or wrong. “We are seeing a really cool mixing of styles,” Johnson said. “Distressed looking fabrics and finishes are popular right now, along with, industrial tables that combine metal and wood. People are not purchasing two end tables anymore – they purchase one end table and one chair side table to add variety to the room.” Stockman said variety can be achieved by simply rearranging or painting existing accent pieces and furniture. “Now is a great time to be bold, as trends and home furnishings are more affordable than ever, Stockman said. “If you are really stuck in a rut, bring a designer into your home and let them advise you. A new set of eyes can really help you out.” Roberts agreed. “I want people to know that we are here to help,” she said. “We can help you find the right sofa or recliner. We can help you with space planning, paint selection or a total remodel. Town & Country Interiors, which is part of Earl Johnson Furniture, can help customers from start to finish. We have a very qualified staff – so we don’t want people to be afraid to ask questions.”
Using Accent Pieces To Tell A Story With neutral wall colors more popular than ever, home owners are looking for ways to bring color into their homes. People should expect to see a lot of gold and black
Photo Courtesy of Earl Johnson
“We are seeing a really cool mixing of styles,” Johnson said. “Distressed looking fabrics and finishes are popular right now, along with, industrial tables that combine metal and wood. People are not purchasing two end tables anymore – they purchase one end table and one chair side table to add variety to the room.”
Photo Courtesy of Rooms & Rest accents mixed with neutrals this next year, Stockman said. Wall art, area rugs and accessories are a terrific way to add color to a space without spending a lot of money, Roberts said. “People are using a lot of bright saturated colors in their homes,” Roberts said. “I think we are going to continue to see red, yellow, chartreuse and deep navy in 2015.” Although, many people often use lamps and smaller accessories to bring color into their homes, Johnson said he has seen a shift in how his client’s use furniture as functional accents. “People are not afraid to use a bright red leather chair or a chair with a bold black and white pattern on it, as accents,” Johnson said. Bold bookshelves can also serve as statement pieces, Stockman agreed. “I personally love the washed wood looks, neutrals mixed with aged bronze,” Stockman said. “I am also obsessed with all the charming globe accents and travel art because those pieces have a story to tell.” Special Advertising Section • November 2014 •
• 57
The Mankato Area At A Glance:
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• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
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• 507-385-9129
• 59
Seeing
in
Color Submitted by: Antje Meisner Concepts.
H
ave you ever suffered from paint-color paralysis? Perhaps you’re putting off a decorating project because you just can’t decide on a color palette. The vast number of color choices in today’s market can be overwhelming. Paint color displays may have as many as 3,500 colors! Depending on your perspective this may be absolutely thrilling or totally terrifying. So many choices make it easy to get stuck. It is important to have a plan and vision before you ever set foot in the paint store. Take time to get inspired and find the colors you love. This will help you create a color palette that is personal and fulfilling. Pay attention to colors that attract you. Be specific. Do you love a deep rich blue or soft and pale blue. Remember, color inspiration can come from anywhere. It can be a place, a feeling, or a memory. Nature is always a wonderful start for color inspiration.
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• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
Choosing hues that occur together in nature can make color selections easier. The shades of sand, water, and sky you find at the beach. The colors of stones, leaves, and bark you’ll find during a walk through the woods. If you travel, look back at some of your travel photos. Beautiful color schemes can be found in the architecture of other cultures. Pay attention to the businesses and restaurants you like to spend time in. Much thought was put into these spaces to make them appealing. A well-designed shop can be a gold mine for color palettes. Look to things you already own to make color choices more personal. Inspiration can come from the pattern on a set of dishes, a collection of worn leather books, a favorite fabric. Fond memories can lead to wonderful color choices. Perhaps you remember baking cookies as a child in your yellow kitchen.
It’s OK not to go crazy with color. White is always fresh and modern. A white-on-white color palette can be stunning and provide a beautiful background for your furnishings and art. Decide if a warm or cool white fits best with your room style. Choose at least three different shades of white and be sure they all have the same undertone. If you mix a creamy white against a cool white they will feel disconnected. Now that you’re inspired be sure to pay attention to the existing finishes in your home. Work to complement what you already own. A warm wood floor will look best with colors that have a warm undertone. A cool grey tile looks best with a cool color tone. Be sure to sample your color selections by painting a swatch on all four walls of the room. Most paint manufactures sell sample sizes. The color may appear different on each wall. The color will also change according to the way it is illuminated and how the natural light is reflected. Live with the color samples for a few days and take note of how it varies at different times of day and night. Finally, purchase the best quality paint that you can afford. Often confidence is what people lack most when choosing a paint color. Don’t be fearful of a mistake. Paint is easily changed. Don’t worry about what the trends are. Ultimately the color scheme you select should be a reflection of you and your personality. It should be part of the story your home tells. Follow and trust your instinct and you’ll choose the colors that are right for you. Making color choices should be enjoyable. Remember, the paint display at the store is not the place to begin your search for the perfect color. Narrow down your color selections before you head out. Get inspired and have a vision. Finally, you don’t have to go it alone. Help from pros is more accessible than you might think. Many designers offer color consultations. Their keen eye and insight can be invaluable. Don’t hesitate to reach out.
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• 61
Adding Value and A
Ambiance
By Marianne Carlson
ccording to the National Association of Home Builders, fireplaces rank among the top three features desired by new homebuyers. Unfortunately, fireplaces also have major air gaps—they can send up to eight percent of valuable furnace-heated air flying out the chimney, making them really fun to look at, but inefficient as heating sources. Here’s the good news: Homeowners can transform their firebox into an efficient room heater by adding an insert. An insert, installed by a factory-trained professional (to ensure proper venting and highest efficiency results), will draft-proof an open fireplace while the unit’s shell keeps heat in the room and away from the masonry. The cost will vary depending on the state of your existing chimney and the model you select. But this investment pays for itself by slashing monthly heating bills and increasing the resale value of your home. “Realtors have told me that for every $1 spent on a fireplace, homeowners will see $1.25 resale value on their home,” Jon Louis, owner of Custom Fireplace and Stove said. “I tell my customers that they are not really spending money. They are just hiding it in their home.” 62 •
• November 2014 • Special Advertising Section
When looking for a fireplace insert or free-standing unit, Louis encourages his customers to shop value rather than price. He said owners should not just look at the cost of the product, but they should also factor in the quality of the product. Louis has been in the business for 28 years and he is a big fan of Majestic Vermont Castings fireplaces. Over the years, Louis said he has seen huge recalls on these “less than quality” products and he has seen homeowners spend tons of money on repairs. “I refuse to sell junk,” Louis said. “There is plenty of that out there.” Louis does all of his own finish work including masonry and mantle. Homeowners who are interested in adding a fireplace to their home can visit www.thefireplaceguy.com for photos and testimonials. As an added bonus, CenterPoint Energy is offering a $75 rebate for the installation of a natural gas direct vent fireplace that has electronic ignition. “You get what you pay for,” Louis said. “The fireplaces I sell and install have better parts, are better built and last forever.”
IT’S BACK (go ahead and have that cookie)
January 14th – April 15th
Special Advertising Section • November 2014 •
• 63
Then
and
Now: Election
64 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
of
1864
By Bryce O. Stenzel
The Election of 1864 Outcome had major implications for the nation’s future General McClellan, of course, lost to Abraham Lincoln. enewas published last year.
T
he election of 1864, held on Nov. 8, was one of the most critical presidential campaigns in American history. Its final outcome would determine the fate of the United States. The incumbent, Republican President Abraham Lincoln, faced a serious challenge from his former army general, Democrat George B. McClellan. On one hand, Lincoln was committed to preserving the Union and emancipating the slaves. On the other, McClellan was willing to grant the Southern states their independence with slavery intact in exchange for a negotiated peace between the Union and Confederate states. General McClellan’s best chance for success lay in the dissatisfaction many people in the North felt toward Lincoln and his government over the prosecution of the war — namely the enormously high casualty count the war had already incurred, with no end to it in sight; implementation of the draft; and the financial cost of the conflict. A series of costly Union military setbacks in the East, under newly appointed Lieutenant General U.S. Grant; a concerted effort to capture Washington, D.C. by Confederate Jubal Early; as well as the stalling out of General William T. Sherman’s western army outside the gates of Atlanta seemed to spell certain disaster for the Lincoln administration. Just when the situation seemed hopeless, Early’s attack was repulsed, Sherman took Atlanta, and used it as a springboard to launch his famous “March to the Sea,” beginning on Nov. 15. Several local soldiers from Mankato took part in Sherman’s march, including Milton Hanna and John R. Beatty. The success of these military campaigns, coupled with the ability of Union soldiers to vote outside of their home districts, resulted in a decisive victory for Abraham Lincoln, and dealt the Confederacy a major death blow. It was the widespread use of the telegraph that enabled soldiers to vote in the field for the first time in American history. Nineteen states amended their
election laws — paving the way for the modern concept of absentee balloting. The Union Civil War soldier vote set a precedent for what many Americans now take for granted — the ability of anyone who is away from home to exercise a fundamental right of citizenship by voting wherever they are. It has been estimated that about 78 percent of the soldiers who voted in the field cast their ballots for Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election. It should be pointed out that there was no secrecy in how men voted in 19th century elections (women could not vote until 1920, under provisions of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). The parties printed their own ballots, often on distinctly colored paper. When an individual went to vote, he would pick up his ballot from a party representative. Even ballot boxes, like the ones used in rural townships such as Danville in Blue Earth County, were color-coded to match the party affiliations of the time. Needless to say, intimidation at the ballot box was common. Some soldiers refused to vote for fear of retaliation from their comrades or officers if their political preferences were the minority opinion in a given unit. Minnesota cast its 4 electoral votes for Lincoln in the 1864 presidential contest. The popular vote was 25,057 for Lincoln and 17,376 for McClellan. Despite the fact that soldiers from other states could vote in the field, there was widespread criticism and complaints from members of the Second, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Minnesota Infantry regiments that they did not get the opportunity to vote. The voting statutes were revised in January 1865 to allow for soldiers in the field to vote. But by then the Civil War was almost over. In 1866, the soldier voting law was erased again from the statute books, and the issue was forgotten. It would not reappear until 1916, when the franchise was extended to all Minnesotans stationed on the Mexican border, in the aftermath of Pancho Villa’s raids on American settlements. MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 65
Garden Chat By Jean Lundquist
Prudent plans for future growth
T
he end of the season deals on seeds from companies like Burpee, Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Gurney’s are hard to pass up. I get emails encouraging me to “buy now and get up to 79 percent off.” And then there’s the draw of flat rate shipping. Via email, I’ve been offered “$6.95 shipping on your entire order.” Of course, when I go to their websites, the seeds I want are usually 20 cents off on a four dollar packet, which works out to be five percent, not 79 percent. Still, the come on of substantial savings is strong. At one point this fall, I almost caved in and bought seeds. I had my online cart full, and was ready to hit the “checkout” button, when reality washed over me. I closed the window, shut down the computer, and walked away. What was I thinking? I guess I was thinking that winter was not coming. With short days, long, dark, cold nights and nothing to do outside that I really consider fun anymore, I need to peruse seed catalogs to find solace in winter. If I bought seeds now, I’d be giving up the one thing I really enjoy about winter — seed shopping. Because I devour seed catalogs, I’ve learned a lot about different varieties. I used to like the shiny magazines with colorful pictures. Then, I realized those catalogs all used the same photo stock. Horseradish offered in one catalog looked exactly the same as the horseradish offered in all the other catalogs that had pictures. Still, the joy of sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of catalogs to go through, occasionally glancing out the window at the bird feeder, was stronger than my desire 66 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
to take advantage of huge savings. I’ll sit with my notepad and pencil and start taking notes from the varieties offered from each company sometime after the snow flies. Now that’s the way to pass a winter afternoon! I always buy locally whenever I can, but I let the seed catalogs educate me, and show me new things to try. I try to plant one new thing each year. I don’t know what I will find new for the 2015 season. But for this past summer, my new challenge was peanuts. I’m going to try it again next summer, using the knowledge I’ve gained from this year. Some peanut varieties only need 100 days from planting to harvest. I dug mine too early this past fall, so I could see if there really were peanuts forming underground, and could write about it last month. This coming season, I’m going to start the peanut seeds in the greenhouse, and set the plants out in late May when the soil is nice and warm. Then, they need to stay in the ground until the foliage dies back. This year, I dug them when the plants were still green and growing. This year, I dried them in a low temperature oven. Next year, I’ll put them in the shed where the chickens can’t get to them, and let them air dry. Being under ripe this year, they certainly tasted like peanuts, but the texture was mushy. I will also have to protect the plants from the rabbits. Last summer, they were stunted when the bunnies ate them off right to the ground, and they had to re-grow. I think we should get a peanut growers movement started, and take our bounty to our county fairs next year. Then we can hang out in the open class building, and count how many times we hear the phrase, “Can you grow peanuts here?” Let me know how you do, if you decide to grow a few peanuts in your garden next summer. I’m toying with growing a little horseradish next year. The problem with horseradish, though, is that you can’t grow just a little. And you can never harvest it all. Many years ago I agreed to grow horseradish for my brother, with the understanding that he would dig it ALL. He dug and dug, and even took some roots I think were actually dandelion roots, but he never got it all. To get rid of it, we literally had to pour concrete over the plot. Well, we were putting in a new shed, but we moved the location a few feet to the west so the concrete floor would cover the horseradish. I guess this winter is a good time to decide where in the yard I should plant horseradish that I won’t mind if it takes over. Jean Lundquist is a master gardener who lives near Good Thunder.
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Coming Attractions: November 1 -- Minnesota Valley Sweet Adelines present: Magical Movie Music 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. -- Crossview Covenant Church -- 2000 Howard Drive, North Mankato -- $12 in advance, $15 at door -- 507-387-7537 1-2 -- Merely Players present “War of the Worlds Radio Play” 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday -- Lincoln Community Center -- 110 Fulton St., Mankato -- $15 adults, $13 seniors, $10 youth -- 507-388-5483 2 -- Mankato Symphony Orchestra: Music on the Hill - Imitation 2 p.m. -- Our Lady of Good Councel Chapel -- 170 Good Counsel Drive, Mankato -- $17 padded seats, $12 pews -- www.mankatosymphony.com 2 -- MSU Performance Series: Rob Meany and Terramara 7:30 p.m. -- Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University -$12 general, $11 MSU students -507-389-5549 6 -- MSU Choral Invitational Concert 7:30 p.m. -- Saints Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church -- 105 N. Fifth St., Mankato -- $9 general, $7 MSU students -- 507-389-5549 6-8 -- MSU Theatre presents “Our Town” 7:30 p.m. -- Ted Paul Theatre, Minnesota State University -- $16 regular, $14 seniors age 65 and older and children under 16, $11 MSU students -- 507-389-6661 7 -- Gustavus Artist Series: Dana Landry Jazz Trio 7:30-9:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -gustavustickets.com -- 507-933-7590 7-9 -- Martin Luther College presents “The Music Man” 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday -- Wittenberg Collegiate Center Auditorium, Martin Luther College -- $10, $8, $6 -- 507-233-9114 8 -- MSU Performance Series: The Chastity Brown Band 8 p.m. -- Hooligans -- Madison East Center, Mankato -- $13 in advance, $15 at door -- 507-389-5549 68 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
9 -- Gustavus Symphony Orchestra Fall Concert 1:30-3:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -- free -507-933-7013
22 -- Disney Junior Live 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. -- Verizon Wireless Center -- $61 front row, $31 VIP, $26 risers, $21 side risers -- 800-745-3000 -www.ticketmaster.com
9 -- MSU Performance Series: The Lowry Hill Chamber Players 7:30 p.m. -- Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University -$12 general, $11 MSU students -507-389-5549
22 -- Gustavus Philharmonic Orchestra Fall Concert 1:30-3:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -- free -507-933-7013
13 -- Light and Energy Art Show 4-8 p.m. -- Rasmussen College, Mankato Campus -130 St. Andrews Drive -- 507-625-6556 13-16 -- MSU Theatre presents “Our Town” 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday -- Ted Paul Theatre, Minnesota State University -$16 regular, $14 seniors age 65 and older and children under 16, $11 MSU students -- 507-389-6661 15 -- Gustavus and Vasa Wind Orchestras in Concert 1:30-3:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -- free -507-933-7013 16 -- Brassworks! 2014 1:30-3:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -- free -507-933-7013 19-22 -- MSU Theatre presents “Gabriel” 7:30 p.m. -- Andreas Theatre, Minnesota State University -$10 regular, $9 seniors age 65 and older and children under 16, $8 MSU students -- 507-389-6661 21 -- Digity Radio annual Southern Minnesota Christmas Festival 3-8 p.m. -- Verizon Wireless Center -unwrapped toy or cash donation 21 -- Gustavus Artist Series: Organist Kalevi Kiviniemi and Cantor Jukka Pietila 7:30-9:30 p.m. -- Christ Chapel, Gustavus Adolphus College -gustavustickets.com -- 507-933-5790
22 -- Mankato Symphony Orchestra: Haydn Go Seek - The Bird 11 a.m. -- Mankato YMCA -- 1401 S. Riverfront Drive, Mankato -- free -www.mankatosymphony.com 22 -- MSU Performance Series: The Jimmys with Bass Brand Brass Band 8 p.m. -- Hooligans -- Madison East Center, Mankato -- $13 in advance, $15 at door -- 507-389-5549 23 -- Gustavus Fall Jazz Concert 1:30-3:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -- free -507-933-7013 23 -- Woodwind Chamber Ensembles Fall Concert 3:30-5:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -- free -507-933-7013 23 -- Gustavus Percussion Ensemble in concert 7-8:30 p.m. -- Bjorling Rectial Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College -- free -507-933-7013 23 -- MSU Concert Bands 3 p.m. -- Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University -105 N. Fifth St., Mankato -- $9 general, $7 MSU students -- 507-389-5549 24 -- MSU Percussion Ensemble 7:30 p.m. -- Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University -105 N. Fifth St., Mankato -- $9 general, $7 MSU students -- 507-389-5549 25 -- MSU Jazz Big Band 7:30 p.m. -- Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University -105 N. Fifth St., Mankato -- $9 general, $7 MSU students -- 507-389-5549
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HI, I’M JOE TAYLOR. Overton, Texas. What keeps me coming back to the Trail? It’s just absolutely sensational.
I have people tell me what they’ve spent playing one round at Pebble Beach and a night at the hotel, or going to Pinehurst for a couple rounds. We do the entire week, travel, hotel, green fees, good meals and everything for the price of one day at these places. And it’s absolutely a sensational place to come. TO PLAN YOUR VISIT to Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, visit rtjresorts.com or call 1.800.949.4444 today. facebook.com/rtjgolf twitter.com/rtjgolf
Faces & Places
Photos By Sport Pix
Dunks After Dark 1. Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor enjoys the show his team is putting on inside the building named for him. 2. Break dancers entertained the crowd before the team took the court at midnight. 3. The Taylor Center was packed for the event when the Timberwolves took the court at midnight. 4. Timberwolves mascot Crunch takes flight over members of the crowd. 5. Wolves center Nikola Pekovic (14) uses his muscle on the inside to take it to the rim. 6. Team star Ricky Rubio runs the court during the teams scrimmage. 7. Isiah Thomas interviews Wolves head coach Flip Saunders for NBA TV.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 73
Faces & Places
Photos By Sport Pix
Mankato Craft Beer Festival 1
1. Zach Hansen, John Punderson and Thad Shunkwiler sample some of the different beer at the festival. 2. One group even had home made pretzel necklaces to go with their beer. 3. Rush River Brewing Company was one of many popular craft beer vendors. 4. Mike Feldhege of the Third Street Brewhouse pours his beer made near St. Cloud, MN. 5. Karl Schmitz of West O Beer came all the way up from West Okoboji, Iowa to serve his beer. 6. Around 20 craft beer vendors attended the festival.
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74 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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Faces & Places
Photos By Sport Pix
The Great Arf Walk 1. Visitors to the park had fun making homemade ice cream by hand. 2. There was a good turnout for the event which had all kinds of activities for young and old. 3. The fall colors were starting to show during the event. 4. Blue Earth County Deputy Jeremy Brennan and his narcotics K9 Bear demonstrate some of Bear’s abilities. 5. Popeye, who will be 2 in December, is a mix breed running for the Stack Attack Flyball Club of Mankato. 6. Families enjoyed taking their dogs for a walk around the scenic Land of Memories park.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • November 2014 • 75
From
this
Valley
By Pete Steiner
Me and Vidal Sassoon
N
early the last fine summer day. Time to clear the mind and clear off the desk. Notes jotted on scraps of paper, starter ideas never finished. But first, go for a walk. They say it gets the brain going. So I headed for the Red Jacket Trail in West Mankato. The gargantuan Rock behind West High hasn’t budged. Painted scarlet, of course. But “’79”? That’s what was scrawled there as I was passed. Thirty-fifth reunion? I’m puzzled, fill me in. I, of course, remember when the trail was a working spur line for the railroad. My friends and I would hike the rails to the trestle – where the bridge over the creek is now, you can still smell the tar on the ties. We’d put a penny on the track to observe how the train wheels flattened it. Occasionally we’d get to play our own version of the “get the heck off there” scene from “Stand by Me.” Of course, our trestle was much shorter and not nearly as high. Still, if you’d caught your foot between the ties… I began to hum Neil Young’s “Helpless”: “In my mind, I still need a place to go.” Yes, it still comforts me, that lush arboreal refuge leading past Indian Creek. An inspiring place for a boy to grow up. •••• Rambling thoughts: trying to get back to those who contacted me about the Radio articles, and the summer series about my Uncle Charlie and Old Town. I think Uncle Charlie will get at least one more full treatment if they’re still letting me write next year – those articles spurred the most response I’ve ever gotten. But in regards to radio stories: Duane Ahlness told me he’s a big fan of radio, and a fan of big radios. He even sent me a photo of his lovely old Zenith standup console model. For sure, somebody must have listened to FDR’s fireside chats on that baby! Then I got to thinking of the pioneering women Mankato radio has produced. Forever, the field has been dominated by men. But Jan Loft, on KYSM-AM in the 1970’s, was Minnesota’s first full-time host of a morning show. Betty Painter interviewed everybody who was anybody in River City on her daily “Coffee Talk” program. Amy Daniels went from KDOG to the morning show at KOOL 108 in Minneapolis. Among the male announcers a novelist would have been proud to invent: J. Michael Shaw, the MASTER of Music, as he proclaimed himself, walking down the hallway to the studio carrying his precious hit lists and charts; and KDOG’s notorious Dr. Bob, nearly as scandalous as Howard Stern. Do you recall why he got fired? Has the statute of limitations expired? ••••
76 • November 2014 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
My regular correspondent from San Francisco, Larry Nichols, wonders if I recall Spudnut donuts. He writes, “they were made in Mankato somewhere on Park Lane… bags of grease sold door to door… early ‘60s….I was an unwilling salesman dragging my wire basket through the snow…. [but] I made pretty good money.” Anybody remember more? Email pete@ktoe.com After the column on origins of the Barmuda Triangle, my friend Don called to ask if I remember when Mankato had TWO downtown nude dance clubs. I sure do. Mettler’s of course, remains as one of River City’s most widely known landmarks. But for a time in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, the Club Royal also held forth, just across North Front Street and half a block south. I went in there just one time, right out of the Army in the early ‘70’s. I recall a reddish neon glow behind the dancer on the runway, and the music she was undulating to: Marvin Gaye’s classic, “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” A couple years later, Urban Renewal accomplished what moralist protesters had not. •••• It’s a political season. The attack ads that assault our sensibilities as much as they assault the candidates will soon be gone for two years. I ran for office once. Lost. Not by a lot. The guy who beat me had (still has,) good hair. Stay with me here – this is where Vidal Sassoon comes in. (I could have called this piece, “Clairol and Me,” but Vidal Sassoon has a better ring.) I refer to societal prejudices regarding hair or lack thereof. I read the mags. GQ. Cosmo. Vanity Fair. They all push lots of head hair, and almost none anywhere else. Meaning guys like me are societally inverse. Especially when it comes to running for office. I mean, look who gets elected: the Kennedys and Reagan -- great heads of hair! Bill Clinton, too. But if you’re follicly challenged, better try basketball, be like Mike or Charles Barkley. Or try show biz: Charles Kuralt, Sean Connery, Telly Savalas, all those bald boys did fine, even James Taylor now. But politics? If an opponent’s hair is barely there, they don’t even need attack ads. A headquarters break-in, maybe. Here, I’m thinkin’ McGovern versus Nixon. Again, who had better hair? Peter Steiner is host of “Talk of the Town” weekdays at 1:05 p.m. on KTOE.
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