Culinary maven Sue Zelickson has carved out a legacy in the Twin Cities

from Minnesota Monthly September/October 2022

by Greenspring Media

the real deal

HOW DOES SUE ZELICKSON, A LUMINARY OF THE TWIN CITIES’ CULINARY SCENE, DO IT ALL?

Some people carry an air of the fi ctional character. They are instantly recognizable. They bear trademarks. Sue Zelickson, known as Sue Z., is one such person—although you may not even see her at first, instead noticing the clump of people knotted around her. They stand taller than

Sue, who is 4’7”, and they chat amiably because, according to a few close to her, she rarely walks a direct route anywhere, stopping to talk with those who spot her, or whom she spots, which could be many.

Within her orbit of bright-eyed, fast-paced conversation, you clock the trademarks: a fashionably loose-fi tting silhouette, likely in a muted, neutral, earthy, or wintry tone—browns, grays, blacks, whites—and splashed here and there with mod accessories, sometimes of toy-like vibrancy. Beneath the clean swoop of her formerly chestnut-brown and now ivory-white hair, she always wears circular spectacles. Overall, her presence feels like New York. But the intimidation misleads. Sue is sweet, if also feisty and opinionated, and there’s a mischievous, funloving sparkle at play. You want to know Sue not for her sense of “somebody” but because she probably wants to know you.

I have known Sue Z. for about fi ve years, meeting her in my role as editor, since she has long written the magazine’s who’s-who-and-what’s-new-in-food column, which recently moved online. But Sue has worked the Twin Cities as a food journalist and philanthropist for more than four decades. She is not fi ctional, despite the catchy moniker—nice-sounding on the radio, good-looking on the boxes of cookies she created and sold for charity. Nor is she an archetype, even though it feels as if every city should have a Sue Z.: a power grid of a human being whose brain can connect the past zigs and future zags within some sphere of infl uence (in Sue’s case: the dining and hospitality scene), whose fl uid networking can make things happen (in Sue’s case, too many to list easily: a restaurant-industry awards show; 10 cookbooks; Minnesota Monthly’s Food & Wine Experience; multiple food-related charitable organizations; countless fundraisers), and whose go-to compliment runs as dependably as a public resource (in Sue’s case: “fabulous”).

But, of course, there is just one Sue Z.

And recently, the Twin Cities social fixture has found herself encircled by the laurels of local legacy.

In 2015, the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame honored Sue for her work on KSTP-TV and WCCO-TV, not to mention her James Beard Award-winning turn at WCCO Radio. It had to be a secret when the Charlie Awards, which Sue co-founded in 2011 to show love to food-service players, named her the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2019. And earlier this year, Taste of the Twin Cities, a food-centered charitable event, made Sue its inaugural hall-of-fame inductee. It furthers the myth making: From a pharmacist’s daughter who grew up near Minnehaha Creek in south Minneapolis, and who would take the streetcar from 50th Street all over the city, Sue has risen to “the fi rst lady of all things culinary in the Twin Cities.” In September, she turns 88. And she is staying involved.

Because Sue is always involved. Inexorably, even. Of note: Her charitable organization for kids, Kids Cafe at Perspectives Family Center, is scaling up, adding more programs and building out the space in St. Louis Park. The nonprofi t teaches cooking skills and serves nutritious meals to homeless and at-risk youth and families. It marked a full-circle moment last year when Donyelle Williams, a former benefi ciary, took over as head chef and manager. “She loves the kids, and she

remembers sitting in the same chairs that they are sitting in,” Sue tells me recently at her kitchen table, citing Williams’ trajectory as one of her proudest achievements. “My heart just bursts every time I see her.”

A few years ago, Sue also handed over the Charlie Awards to Foodservice News, although she stays on as a consultant. (The show is on pause as restaurants resettle.) The networking organization she started for women in the food business, Women Who Really Cook, has meanwhile resumed the “more touchy-feely” in-person meetings after a staid Zoom period.

A spontaneous idea generator, Sue tells me about some other recent stirrings. Originally, she says she o ered this stratagem to Mall of America when it opened in 1992: Give the new employees a metro tour, to entice the transplants to stay. She wants to run that idea past the new fi ve-star Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis. From ’90s commercial bastion to pandemic-era palace of swank—“the fi res are still burning,” she says.

KITCHEN TABLE

Laurels are one thing, but I have an ulterior motive. Perhaps selfishly, I would like to understand Sue’s inner dynamism. And so, I have brought my voice recorder to a few of our conversations.

“I’ve never met anybody like her, [who] wants to do so much good,” says Nancy Monroe, who has worked with Sue on the Charlie Awards.

“Everywhere she goes, the mood is better, the people feel more hopeful,” says chef David Fhima, who has worked with Sue through Kids Cafe.

“She’s always on the go, always thinking of others,” says Molly Steinke, a longtime friend who has done public relations for the Charlie Awards.

There is a “mystery” to Sue. “I think people might think sometimes she’s unapproachable, but she’s not,” says Jerrod Sumner, Minnesota Monthly’s aesthetic editor and a friend of Sue’s over the past two decades. He says he has worked with a certain bigname media personality known for making people feel special and singled out. “And I’ve always thought, ‘Is it an act? Is it not an act?’ With Sue, it really is [real],” he says. “I mean, you can be in a swirling farmers market, and she makes you feel like the only one there that she’s talking to.”

Sumner and his husband visited Sue recently after a scary medical ordeal, and they stayed up until midnight, laughing and taking one another’s blood pressure around the kitchen table. A year before, Sue had hosted their wedding in her backyard. If you’re one of her people, Sumner says, “she will do anything for you.”

I roll up to Sue’s house in Golden Valley on a summer afternoon. She actually designed this two-story more than 50 years ago with her husband, Al Zelickson, a dermatologist, who died last summer at the age of 91. Today, the sun feels close enough to burn holes through the jewel-toned flowers beside the driveway. The pond behind the house is a white-hot gleam.

Before long, I am in Sue’s kitchen— of an updated-rustic barn aesthetic, although she prefers modern vibes. Beside a bay window, family photos overcrowd a huge hutch. I decline her o er of lemonade, but I nonetheless sit down to a glass of it.

For someone who makes such a strong impression, Sue does not appear to wear a social mask. “There’s not much behind the surface—it’s all laid out in front,” her son Barry Zelickson says. Seated in a packed audience at the Charlie Awards a few years ago, I watched Sue address some technical di culty from the lectern with the nonchalance of a party host tapping the snack bowl for a refi ll.

She chuckles at the voice recorder I set on the table, beside a plate of cookies and a bowl of tru e-fl avored Cheetos. “It fi ts in your pocket? Things do change.”

To scratch the surface, I ask Sue about her style. Today, she wears off-white linen. A knotted leather necklace, bright as Play-Doh, came from “a funky store in Florida.” Her nails are a signature taupeish color: rubble. But when I say “stylish,” she quirks an eyebrow and launches into a story about a good friend who worked for Ralph Lauren and once asked her, “Who’s your favorite designer?” to which she said, “I don’t buy all that fancy designer stu —I just buy what I like, the colors and the style.”

Sue tells me more about that friend, about his career, about where he lived. “He loved to go to restaurants. He was so fun.”

This is how many of my questions will go. Sue answers with a story, someone else appears in that story, and she gradually makes the story about that person.

To refocus, I investigate the centrality of food in Sue’s life. How did the world of restaurants become her life’s backdrop?

We will have to go back a ways. It may start with the small empire her family built, when her father worked late nights owning and operating several drugstores and soda fountains— the Zipps Liquors legacy we know today. Sue took (and lost) her fi rst jobs here: “One day, I couldn’t fi gure out how much change to give a customer back for returning his empty soda pop bottles, and my father fi red me.” Her mother, who studied music in college, was active in the University Women’s Club, and Sue recalls games of bridge and her mother’s long nails clacking on the piano keys.

The soda fountains, the social organizing, the parties, even the self-deprecating sense of humor—Sue Z. was starting to form, but her grandmother would help pull it all together.

NURTURER

For an image, Sue says to picture the diminutive matriarch of “Golden Girls,” Estelle Getty. Her maternal grandmother, a Russian immigrant whose father owned a general store in South Dakota, lent her excellent cooking skills to fundraisers around Minneapolis, Sue says.

She calls back to this woman as if to consult an inherited blueprint. Once, Sue tried to emulate her grandmother’s cooking, with precision, by measuring out the piles of ingredients that fi t within the o ering-shaped divot of her grandmother’s joined palms. But the recipe didn’t turn out. “She was fabulous, and I wanted to learn from her,” Sue says, “but I could never be as good as her—and so that was where I maybe thought I couldn’t do it. So, I would do the cookbooks, and other things.” She initially tried to follow her father into pharmacy. But, as she once put it, “chemistry was not in my brain.” She thought she might try modeling. “I love fashion and I just thought it was a glamorous life, which it is not, really.” But she was too short. She loves kids, so she became a teacher and taught kindergarten and grade school after studying at the University of Minnesota. “Once they got over second grade, they got smarter than me,” she chuckles. While her husband, Al, served as a captain in the Navy, they lived on a base in South Carolina, and she taught in a stu y Quonset hut—“a tin can cut in half”—for a year. “It was terrible,” she laughs, adding that the kids made it bearable. “I’m surprised [Al and I] were still together.” When they moved back to the Twin Cities, Sue picked up volunteer work with food-related nonprofi ts. “It’s sort of like a nurturing thing,” she says, of her desire to volunteer. “And I feel that most of my life connections have been through volunteering, joining groups, and reaching out to help other people.” She attended national meetings for folks in the food industry, then got involved with the James Beard Association, judging cookbooks. While promoting that work on WCCO Radio, the right person (a friend of hers, of course) thought she had a good voice for broadcasting. He pushed for her to get a slot, and decades later, in 2005, Sue would earn a James Beard Award for a radio interview she conducted about Christmas culinary traditions in Paris.

In journalism, Sue carried on nurturing. “She is the anticritic,” says Fhima, who is executive chef for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, as well as Fhima’s restaurant in Minneapolis. Sue was one of the fi rst people Fhima met when he moved to the Twin Cities from Los Angeles more than 25 years ago, he says. “She’s not there to tell you what you’re doing wrong. She’s there to support you, to help you. And she’s a powerful force that way. When she gives you advice, and when she makes a criticism, it comes from a place almost

like your mother telling you what you should be doing better, or what you’re doing very well.” One piece of advice he says she gave him: Give Minnesotans what they want, not what makes you feel like an L.A. hotshot.

Sometime in the ’60s or ’70s, Sue recalls, she attended one of the annual meetings of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and learned about a group that visited schools to bake pies with kids. “The fi rst one was … at a school in the slums of Chicago, and there was barbed wire around the school and guards in the school, and I had never seen that,” she says. She thought Minneapolis could use a similar concept. “So, I came back here and started [Kids Cafe] at the Boys and Girls Club.” Two of her loves—“the ‘kid’ thing and the ‘food’ thing”—merged.

In 1993, Sue also founded Women Who Really Cook, a power-in-numbers think tank for local women emerging in the food world that was “kind of ingenious,” Monroe says. “It’s a networking association where you can go and talk about your product and say, ‘I’m struggling to fi nd a supplier,’ or ‘How do I go about getting this product shipped nationwide?’”

Among these “women who really cook,” Sue does not count herself. “You didn’t have them, I don’t think, when you were growing up—TV dinners?” She assures me her son Barry Zelick-

son’s new baking venture, a made-to-order sourdough business called BZ Baking, was not inspired by her kitchen skills. Barry, for the record, assures me he is carrying on her foodie spark.

But cooking, often a solitary pursuit, simply does not inspire Sue. She has been known to stash White Castle burgers (one of her favorite foods) in the freezer. Even her namebranded Lacey Sue Z. Cookie Mix, created with some help from a friend at General Mills and sold initially to benefi t the Down Syndrome Association, rose out of a kitchen mistake: Something went astray, and the cookies turned out crispy and porous—just another Sue Z. signature.

Beyond the frozen dinners, though, her sons, Barry and Brian, remember trying escargot at home. Her grandson Arlo says Sue combatted his picky eating habits when he was younger, even getting him to try fried lamb testicles left over from local celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern’s show “Bizarre Foods.” “It’s a high-low with her,” Sumner says. “You just never know.”

In her house, you can fi nd a small ceramic Dilly Bar—a treat of fabled Minnesota origins and a testament to the curbside moments she and Al used to spend eating ice cream together. This tchotchke feels charmed, a symbol of the centrality of food in Sue’s life. “I think, for her, it’s like, you eat food and you talk to people, and if those two are combined, then it doesn’t matter what you’re eating or who you’re talking to,” Arlo says.

NONSTOP

I notice Sue almost disappears in a good conversational backand-forth, as if in fl ow state. She seems to thrive mapping out the people in her life and the wheels in motion, chatting about her neighbor across the street (“I am drawn to people that are good people”), about Linda and Peter Quinn, of Cafe Latte and Bread & Chocolate (“They’ve just helped me in everything I’ve ever done”), or about Julia Child, whom she met through a TV segment many years ago. “She had never milked a cow ever in her life, and we let her milk a cow [by the agriculture campus in St. Paul],” Sue says. She has even thrown two parties to celebrate the “Joy of Cooking” chef’s birthday. “She was bigger than life, but you could talk to her like she was your best friend,” she says. This is how others have described Sue, as well. When I ask her if anyone has suggested she spends time on others to the detriment of herself, I muddle my meaning. “No,” she responds curiously, with a laugh. “Unless they said it behind my back.” When I broached this subject before, Sue ended up telling an unrelated “ I’VE HAD A GREAT LIFE, I REALLY HAVE. I’VE LOVED ALL THE THINGS I’VE DONE, AND EVEN NOW I’M STARTING A COUPLE OTHER PROJECTS.” story about a friend who started a charitable apron business. I rephrase: Do you feel like you’re always putting yourself second? “OK, so, here’s an example of that,” she says, clearing the way for a story. This one starts with a friend who got involved with Kids Cafe, who moved to Chicago to work for a company that owned some Twin Cities restaurants, and who was called “light bulb” for all her good ideas. “So, anyway … she sent me a little buzzer that they sell at one of the stationery stores that says, ‘No.’ And you’re supposed to push it when people call, because she says I never say no to anything.” Here is a critical piece of the Sue Z. equation: her notorious, seemingly infi nite energy—and the vast, excited, twinkling “Yes” of Sue. “She’s like the Grandma Energizer Bunny,” her grandson Zach Zelickson says. “There’s always something going on. We’ll make time to do a dinner with her, and then all of a sudden it’s 8 o’clock, and then she’s got her second dinner lined up with another group of fun people, and she invites us along.” Even in his 20s, he didn’t have the energy to keep going. Sue says she has never needed much sleep—in her 30s and 40s, maybe three to four hours a night throughout the week before crashing. “Despite what my brother and I might tell her, she will go out and do things as often as she can,” Barry says with a laugh. She says her grandma didn’t need a lot of sleep, either.

Multiple times, people tell me, “You can’t say no to Sue.”

“I think she kind of assumes you’re going to do it,” Monroe explains. “And so, by the time the conversation is over, you are going to do it. It’s not any kind of coercion. It’s not twisting your arm. … Someone once told me, ‘How can you say no to her when she says yes to everybody?’”

Or, as Fhima puts it: “Have you ever said no to your mother?”

It’s a subtle power. The trick may lie in Sue’s alchemy of connection. “Sometimes you can’t be an island,” Sue says, “and you have to have partners and share the load.” For Sue, this could mean Kids Cafe partners with Goodness Cakes, which makes birthday cakes for kids (a recent idea she had). Or it could simply mean Sue has discovered Hairless Dog nonalcoholic beer and wants to spread the word (“…because so many people do have alcoholic problems, and it tastes good”). She quotes a Frank Sinatra song: “Little things mean a lot.”

If there is a way to get on Sue’s bad side, it is this: Do not follow through on something you said you would do. “Following through and seeing the results of an idea that you have is so rewarding and exciting,” she says. Not all ideas pan out—“but at least you tried.” To that end, she tends to a log of correspondence, and I often receive emails from her at night. An old planner from her days of dating shows back-to-back bookings.

These days, Sue is not quite as “on.” She is finding her trademark energy harder to tap. “I don’t know how to explain it,” she says with a dry chuckle. “You try to keep up your lifestyle, but sometimes your body doesn’t want to.” She has survived breast cancer and has, in recent years, undergone heart surgeries at Mayo Clinic for a valve that closes up. “You never get your strength back—that’s the only thing. I just get tired.” Then, laughing: “But I’m very old, so I should realize that that’s part of the problem.”

She has “never had a fondness for old people” and now says she does not like herself. This is a joke, but also not. Sue is critical of her voice. When she started on the radio, she spoke so fast she had to learn to slow down. “I used to have a good voice, and [now] I sound like an old lady.” What I have taken as self-deprecation may actually strike closer to straightforward vulnerability. She tells me her loose-fi tting style of dress ultimately comes down to a hip that’s out of place.

Does she really not like herself? “I guess I always like myself when I’m busy and doing something and creating something and helping somebody or doing something,” she says. “And it’s frustrating not to be able to do as much as I want to do.”

Last year, she underwent one of life’s great halting moments when her husband died. She resists the idea of either a walker or a caretaker, but her grandson Zach lives down the street. (He visits all the time, he fi gured, so why not live closer?) Al and Sue balanced each other, Brian says. She is inevitably among the last to leave a party, and Al, the reserved one, was comfortable hitting the road early, knowing she would fi nd a ride home. “They managed their personalities and understood each other,” Brian says.

Sue overcame her insecurity about her voice last year, agreeing to do a podcast. And she has now done some of her own “legacy” work. Last year, she cleared out thousands of her cookbooks, donating them to the culinary school of St. Paul College. She says, characteristically, she wanted to give back. But she was also thinking ahead, with her mother in mind. Sue’s mom, who died of cancer in her 60s, had cleaned house, to not burden her family with the chore-like aspects of Jewish mourning traditions. Similarly, Sue didn’t want to leave her loved ones to sort through a massive library. It is a heavy subject. Letting go of those books, many acquired through her work in media, churned up a layer of grief, plus so many memories. “I’m not afraid of dying,” she has told me. She is “sort of but not overly” religious.

“I’ve had a great life, I really have. I’ve loved all the things I’ve done,” she says—and then, in the same breath—“and even now, I’m starting a couple other projects.” She’s interested in a movie, “The Starfi sh Throwers.” In it, a top-tier chef, a young girl, and a schoolteacher team up to feed the disadvantaged. The production team has local ties, and Sue says she ran into one of them at Trader Joe’s. “Let’s do a fundraiser!” she said, thinking of the Kids Cafe. This is just how she works—even the Charlie Awards began as a fl icker across Sue’s mind. Leaving a di erent local awards show, she had shared the idea with those around her: Let’s do the same thing, only to celebrate culinary folks.

She o ered me a few of her cookbooks, and here, too, is a trademark: Sue brings presents. It doesn’t make her a pushover, because she will not always actually give those presents—as when a mechanic was rude and didn’t deserve the box of Frango mints she had brought with her (a childhood favorite).

But before I leave, Sue wants to send me o with something. First, she agrees to show me the rest of the house—essentially a gallery loaded with colorful contemporary art that feels joyous, kitschy, funny, youthful, unpretentious, and smart, where a rainbow collection of squat, pod-shaped seating hugs the dining table, and where ceramic fl owers glisten because Sue never remembers to water real ones—and she insists I take whatever I want from a basement collection of booze.

“I’m very bad at accepting gifts,” I say, after fi nally pulling a bottle of gin o the shelf.

“I want you to have a gift—I’ll give you a gift for all the work you’re doing,” she says gently. “Don’t be bad at that.”

As I put on my shoes, Sue is glowing. She is fi red up about the new Dayton’s project in downtown Minneapolis. The state of downtown has left her downcast since the pandemic. She has ideas she would like to o er the Dayton’s people—actually, has o ered them, she says, apparently to no avail. “That may be the problem,” she says, after laying out a diagnosis of the commercial complex’s heavily covered failure to thrive. “But, I mean, it’s just awful.” I’m standing by the front door, and she turns to me with the beginnings of a solution, something I can’t guess at, but whose potential I catch in her glint of anticipation: “Is the farmers market open downtown yet?” I’m sure she’ll know before I do.

MARA

245 HENNEPIN AVE., MINNEAPOLIS, 612-895-5709, MARARESTAURANTANDBAR.COM

RESERVATIONS

Necessary for the restaurant, not for the bar

INSTAGRAM STAR

Braised lamb shank with mint gremolata

PARKING

Valet for $15

It would be almost impossible to live up to the expectations surrounding Minnesota’s new restaurant in the Twin Cities’ first fivestar hotel from our most lauded celebrity chef. So how is it that Gavin Kaysen’s Mara, inside the Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis, not only meets those expectations but exceeds them?

Perhaps it’s the team: Kaysen’s chef de cuisine is Thony Yang, who excelled at Bellecour and Demi; the bar is run by Adam Witherspoon, who helped launch the exceptional programs at Martina and Colita; and wine expert Paul Hennessy is bringing his experience from the Bachelor Farmer to the floor.

From the moment you walk in, you’ll feel a di erent level of service. You’ll get a warm welcome at the front desk. During your walk through the bar, you’ll see CEOs, Instagram celebs, and athletes. And then you’ll discover how the restaurant itself dazzles. More open and bright than you might expect from the moody photos of gold-leafed walls, Mara feels warm and comfortable.

Kaysen and his team loosely describe the food as Mediterranean—you’ll adore the homemade pita that comes with an impossibly creamy hummus, and you won’t want to miss scooping up the silky, rich za’atar-spiced labneh with vadouvan curry cauliflower and lavash bread (both $14). To me, Mara is more about an exploration of international flavors anchored in the sensibility of Minnesota. When you have visitors coming to stay at the Four Seasons, you want them to feel like they’re here, and not in a generic fancy hotel in Anywhere, USA. Kaysen accomplishes that with two dishes specifically: the chicken and the beef.

The Pequot Lakes-raised chicken is a sleeper hit on the menu: marinated overnight in chermoula, a North African herby sauce with lots of parsley, cilantro, and garlic. Kaysen serves that with pomegranate, sweet onions spiced with sumac, and charred lemon ($36). The beef is all from Peterson Craftsman Meats, and the 12-ounce bone-in New York strip arrived in beautiful, juicy, perfectly medium rare slices ($54). You’ll also find an 8-ounce filet mignon ($49) and, if you’re on someone’s expense account, a 48-ounce porterhouse steak that will set the company back $189.

The salt-baked branzino was incredibly flavorful and juicy, although the presentation left me wanting. Kaysen bakes it whole in a salt-encrusted pastry, which our server brought to the table so we could see it. The kitchen serves that very white fish (thankfully deboned) on a very white plate alongside a charred lemon. A minor quibble: the fish was glorious (it should be, for $68) but was served with only small sides of tzatziki, fennel slaw, green almonds, and couscous.

Up and down the menu, you’ll find one delight after the next. The oily and rich Spanish mackerel ($20) is fresh as a

Minnesota Gets a Taste of THC

GUMMIES, CHOCOLATES, SELTZERS, AND OTHER EDIBLE GOODIES EMERGE

by MACY HARDER

thanks to the passage of a minnesota in a variety of flavors. According to the Instagram law that went into e ect on July 1, people ages 21 page, cereal bars are also in the works. and over can now taste and sip their way through For those who would rather have their “high” the world of THC—hemp-derived THC, that is. come in liquid form, Nothing But Hemp manu-

The law permits the sale and consumption factures a line of non-carbonated THC juice of food and beverages with no more than 5 mil- drinks called “Vibes,” and they come in three ligrams of THC per serving, and no more than 50 di erent flavors: mango lemonade, black cherry milligrams per package. Hemp is slightly di er- citrus, and passionfruit. ent from marijuana, which is still illegal in Min- The Minnesota Board of Pharmacy specified nesota. Although both are part of the cannabis that the new law does not allow for “food serspecies, hemp contains very low amounts of THC vice or further food preparation activities using compared with its highly psychoactive relative. products which contain substances derived from

However, some proponents of the new law hemp,” which means patrons won’t be able to see it as a first step toward the legalization of order THC cocktails from local bars or restaurecreational marijuana in the state. At a press rants anytime soon. conference, Minnesota House Majority Leader Nothing But Hemp’s Vibes juice drinks contain THC But these businesses can still take part in Ryan Winkler, who helped pass the bill, said the the sale of manufactured or packaged products decision to do so was intentional. “We have a lot of work to do containing hemp-derived THC. The Minneapolis-based Indeed in Minnesota on cannabis legalization, but this is an important Brewing Co. launched “Two Good,” its own nonalcoholic THC- step forward,” he said. and CBD-infused seltzers, in August. While they can’t be con-

Marijuana sales in states like Illinois and Colorado generate sumed in Indeed’s taproom, the drinks are sold in to-go cans and millions of dollars in tax revenue each year. But the Minnesota at third-party retailers. bill outlined no such tax provisions on THC edibles, so it’s The brewing company tried out something similar in 2019 unlikely that the state will reap financial benefits of that scale. with “Lull,” a nonalcoholic CBD seltzer, but it was discontinued The law does not require retailers to have a license to sell edibles, after the Minnesota Department of Agriculture determined that however, so it could provide a new source of income for a handful such beverages were still illegal at the time. Indeed reintroduced of Minnesota businesses. these CBD drinks for both on- and o -site consumption around

Whether consumers are looking for a sweet treat or a refresh- the same time as the launch of “Two Good.” ing drink, many local retailers started o ering a wide variety of While THC and CBD both occur naturally in cannabis plants, edible products to try as soon as the law passed. THC is the chemical compound responsible for making someone

Nothing But Hemp, a CBD and THC supplier, immediately saw “high.” So for those who are not interested in the psychoactive high demand. Lines formed out the door of their Grand Avenue e ects of THC but still want to feel relaxed, CBD-only products location in St. Paul, where folks waited to browse the assortment may be a good alternative. of THC-infused goodies. CBD edibles often come in the standard forms of gummies,

Gummies are a popular choice when it comes to edibles, and chocolates, and other candies. But the list of beverages made Nothing But Hemp has plenty of options to pick from. Flavors with CBD is much more extensive than that of newly legal THC like “Blue Dream,” “Zkittles,” and “Agent Orange” are made with beverages. The non-intoxicating chemical has made its way di erent strains of Delta-9 THC, catering to those looking to be into co ee, tea, sparkling water, post-workout drinks, and even energized, relaxed, or a little bit of both. These gummies are sold powdered beverages. in packs of 10 for $34.99. Hard candies infused with a microdose Minnesotans have yet to see the full breadth of THC-infused of THC are available for the same price, with 25 pieces per bag. goods that will be available, but the initial options were flying o

If gummies don’t quite satisfy, Retro Bakery o ers Minnesota’s shelves, both in person and online. If the long lines and “sold out” first legal THC chocolate. The bakery’s gourmet edibles include labels are any indication, plenty of Minnesotans are jumping at chocolate bars, chocolate-covered cookies, and crunchy wafer bars the opportunity to get a legal taste of THC.

Overayearago, inasleepy, shrubby, industrialspotof Shoreview, o Hwy. 96, a former engineering fi rm emptied out and quietly assumed a new shape, the better to house a kind of suburban fantasyland instead.

Still drab on the outside, a new art museum curves and winds on the inside, a half-acre space dedicated to wild, cheeky, and otherworldly objects. “I wanted it to look like Oz,” says Kathie Cafesjian Baradaran, who oversees the Cafesjian Art Trust, which operates the Cafesjian Art Trust (CAT) museum. “When you are on the outside, there’s not much. But when you open it up, it’s color and light, and you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

This unlikely destination for Willy Wonka-esque whimsy is set to open, free to the public, this fall. And the “Wonka” in question is Gerard Cafesjian. The St. Paul businessman and philanthropist had an eccentric streak, loving bright and playful art, and he amassed some 3,000 pieces before he died in 2013. The plan is for themed exhibits to bubble up from the trust’s deep reservoir. Most of it consists of glass studio art—those fl uid-yet-solid works that many may know from Netfl ix’s popular series “Blown Away.”

On a recent tour of the complex, Cafesjian Baradaran, the collector’s daughter, described her desire to open the place: “I wanted the most number of people to be able to see the collection. And I grew up in this area. I know how much I would have liked it if there had been an art museum or a library for me to go to.”

The museum will have a library, too, to feature oral histories from some of the artists on display. There will also be a sensory-friendly room for neurodiverse kids and a kitchen for events. “We want to do cocktails … evening events, datenight events, things that people will want to come to that are art-related, that are di erent from experiences in the area,” the museum’s executive director, Andy Schlauch, says. “We want to be able to offer tours to individuals and groups, encouraging schools to come through.”

Set to open the fi rst week of October, the museum will bust out some of the wares of glass artist Dale Chihuly for its fi rst show. You may recognize the name: Think of the huge noodly sun fl oating in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. “Sunburst” was designed by Chihuly, a longtime friend of Cafesjian, who collected about 45 of his works. “We’ll be featuring a lot of their correspondence [in the debut exhibit]—some of the napkins and plates that [Chihuly] would doodle on, having dinner with [Cafesjian],” says Schlauch, who previously served as executive director of the Chihuly Collection in Florida.

Among the permanent Chihuly pieces on display, one resembles a glass garden embedded in the ceiling. It should look familiar to any who have glanced up while walking through the lobby of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas and seen the artist’s famous, glowing sprawl of glass

KATHIE CAFESJIAN BARADARAN

blooms—although Cafesjian Baradaran knows it from the dining room of her parents’ home in Florida. “It was, like, two tons’ worth of glass art hanging above us as we ate,” she says.

The Cafesjian collection spans media beyond glass, including lithographs, nonglass sculptures, and 19th-century paintings. The smallest and lightest item is a ceramic whistle from the Tang Dynasty. The biggest and heaviest formerly graced a metro station in Prague: a 9 1/2-foot work called “Kontakty (Contacts)” by contemporary artists Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, known for cryptic, imposing, colorful glass objects.

To open later, the museum’s second exhibit will show “a little bit of everything,” to convey the scope of the collection, Schlauch says. Cafesjian gravitated toward light, color, and humor, Cafesjian Baradaran notes, and he picked up some big names in modern and contemporary art, like Abstract Expressionist Arshile Gorky and Fauvist boundary-pusher

where they put in a lot of Scandinavian stu , as if we’re all Scandinavian,” Nettleton says. “There are some references to things like lutefisk, which a lot of Minnesotans have no idea about at all, but at least they pronounce it right in that show.”

And then there’s the beloved Betty White character of Rose Nylund on NBC’s erstwhile “Golden Girls.” “She would often tell these stories about her hometown, and everybody in her stories were Scandinavian. It was, like, Lars, and Olaf, and Gunter, all of these names as if it’s pretty homogenous, which it isn’t,” Nettleton explains. “But maybe the more important thing is that we’re not allowed to view those names as if they might be sources of wisdom or integrity or dignity. They’re jokes. They’re things to mock. That sets up Scandinavian heritage and Minnesota as dumb, dopey, and weird. That’s a piece that can be harmful and unhelpful.”

What these representations tend to ignore is the state’s connection to a flourishing music and arts scene, health care innovation, and other cultural successes. “I would welcome representations of Minnesota that include culture, wonderful food, sophistication, and something other than farming. Nothing wrong with farming, it just helps put Minnesota back in time,” Nettleton says.

The responsibility to combat these media portrayals falls not only in the hands of producers, Nettleton explains, but in those of consumers as well. “We have to be better critical thinkers as we are evaluating media, and we have to tell ourselves, ‘This is one thin slice of human experience,’ ” she says. “We have to understand that the limitations of representations can manipulate us if we don’t bother to actively turn on our critical thinking.”

Between series renewals and brand-new shows, Minnesotans can expect more on-screen representation in the near future.

The Disney+ series “The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” was renewed for a second season in August 2021. Based on the original film from 1992, the series is set in present-day Minnesota and revolves around a new team of junior hockey underdogs. An o cial release date for the second season has yet to be announced, but it has been confirmed that Josh Duhamel will replace Emilio Estevez as the show’s adult male lead in the upcoming episodes.

Another series following a Minnesota youth hockey team is in the works at NBC. “This Is Us” star Milo Ventimiglia will work as an executive producer on “Hometown Saints,” a drama series centered around a retired hockey player who winds up coaching a high school girls’ team in his Minnesota hometown.

Fox’s newest sitcom, “Welcome to Flatch,” is set to debut March 17. The series follows a documentary crew as they explore the fictional town of Flatch, Ohio, capturing the lives of its eccentric residents. Although the show isn’t set in Minnesota, a few of its cast members have some local ties. Seann William Scott, who plays a pastor from Minneapolis in the series, grew up in Cottage Grove and attended Park High School. His character is joined by actress Aya Cash, who plays a former Star Tribune reporter who became the editor of the Flatch Patriot. In her real life, Cash attended the University of Minnesota as part of the inaugural Guthrie Theater Actor Training Program in 2004.

Only time will tell how Minnesotans and other Midwestern characters will be represented in these programs. Perhaps they will have a wide range of characteristics and interests, creating a more accurate portrayal of the region’s nuances—or maybe they’ll just play hockey, eat tater tot hotdish, and say “u da” a little too often.

Essay: As a break from the world’s woes, I let my kids roam around

by KATIE DOHMAN

With COVID-19 anxiety and a whole bunch of other things on my plate to schedule and worry about, I decided to give my kids an ’80s-kid summer this year. The kind my husband and I had. Think: trying and failing to get atop a huge floatie in the lake until my lips were blue; trying not to crack the top off my Kemps root beer Twin Pops as I broke them apart; making mixtapes off the radio, my finger hovering above the depressed pause button to catch the magic moment between the DJ introducing the song and the song actually starting; cruising my hometown’s entire city limits on my cloud-do ed blue banana-seat bike until the big floodlights came on in the R.C. Dick’s grocery-store parking lot, which carried a recognizable buzz, like a cicada signaling the last call of summer—bedtime.

We lived in an entirely different universe in some ways, and yet some truisms of childhood remain: the joy of surprising someone with a splash to the face in the lake, calluses from monkey bars, and bickering with your siblings because what else have you got to do on this long, sticky, endless day?

Showy fall sweeps in, and we close up our summer memories, our quickly disappearing present replaced with a fresh-start energy that smells like freshly sharpened Ticonderogas and decaying leaves instead of coconut sunscreen and fresh-cut grass.

My ’80s childhood memory looms, smelling for all the world like grape Bubblelicious, and I wonder: Someday, when they pull out the mental photo albums of these pandemic seasons, what will they remember?

Playing It Safe

IN THE PERFORMING ARTS TODAY, SAFETY IS A TOP PRIORITY. BUT IS THERE A COST? by QUINTON SKINNER

Reflecting contemporary times always has been a major role of the performing arts, whether through allegory or documentary-style realism. But amid the upheavals of the past several years, Minnesota arts companies and venues have seen changes that encompass more than the plays, dance, or music onstage.

It seems that nearly everyone, from scrappy little theater companies to multi-million-dollar nonprofits, are embracing or at least having to respond to a push for increased safety for performers and audiences alike. Trigger warnings, intimacy coaches, COVID-19 restrictions, and awareness of the potential for individual and institutional abuse all orbit the notion of safety in a way that was scarcely part of the picture even a few years ago—reflecting a consciousness of the mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing of both audiences and performers.

If you’ve gone to a play recently, chances are good you have encountered a trigger warning, whether it was posted outside the theater, in the program, or on the show’s website. Warnings are issued for content depicting violence, sex, trauma, language, and sometimes smoking and loud noises. The Guthrie’s artistic director Joseph Haj was quoted in the New York Times as not liking the notion but basically having made peace with it. “As grown-up people, we should be able to grapple with di cult ideas together,” Haj said. “That said, audiences don’t like to be jumped.”

There’s a counterargument to be made that art often grapples with tough issues, and that disturbing experiences sometimes shock us into thinking in a way we otherwise wouldn’t.

“I don’t love them,” says Dark and Stormy Productions artistic director Sara Marsh about trigger warnings. Her company declines to post them. “A strobe-light warning is one thing—a person can’t control how they’re a ected by that. But overall, I trust that the audience can decide for themselves whether they want to come see something.”

Another aspect of safety consciousness takes into account the wellbeing of performers. Intimacy coaching is focused on helping actors navigate love scenes and other close contact. For the theaters that can a ord it, intimacy coaching is seen as a way to establish boundaries—not unlike the work of fight coaches, who help prevent onstage injury when, for instance, King Henry V goes once more unto the breach.

“It’s not one-size-fits-all,” says Ten Thousand Things Theater artistic director Marcela Lorca, who worked as the Guthrie’s movement coach dealing with intimacy and violence onstage for

27 years and who has helmed many productions. “My approach is first to see what works for each person and facilitate conversations. Everybody feels differently and brings different experiences, skills, and vocabulary. We work together to unpack what each moment needs, what we’re comfortable with, and proceed step by step in a gradual process.” Inherent in this notion is the reality that the process of creating a performance can result in personal boundaries being crossed. The theater industry, in a sense, is based on crossing the biggest boundary of all— that between reality and make-believe. But many in the industry are also talking about the need to look at harassment, abuse, and unrealistic work expectations that are, to varying degrees, baked into the culture. This aspect of care and safety consciousness, they argue, comes with valid and complex justifications.

“Gone are the days of ‘The show must go on,’ ” says Signe Harriday, artistic producing director of Pillsbury House Theatre, about social and working conditions for performers and creators. “I think we’re in a time of mounting pandemics. It’s not just COVID-19, it’s not just a racial reckoning moment, it’s not just economic turmoil. It’s not just one of these many factors. It’s all of them.” COVID-19, Balance, and What’s Ahead Protocols and restrictions that purport to protect physical health are ostensibly more straightforward. COVID-19 alone sent enduring shock waves through the performing arts. Concert and theater goers have for months been checking websites for the status of various mask- and vaccine-related restrictions and recommendations. For organizations such as the Minnesota Orchestra, it’s been an evolving tightrope act for its audience and performers alike.

“We’ve grappled with questions around whether it is OK for a solo violinist or pianist to perform unmasked if they feel it is necessary to deliver the best performance,” says Minnesota Orchestra communications director Gwen Pappas.

“Everybody feels differently and brings “Can we mount a large-scale work such as different experiences, skills, and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony that literally vocabulary. We work together to unpack calls for hundreds of instrumentalists and what each moment needs, what we’re singers to perform onstage together?” comfortable with, and proceed step by step The answer was yes. And in the case of in a gradual process.” the soloists, they have proceeded without —MARCELA LORCA, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, TEN THOUSAND THINGS THEATER requiring masks. The Guthrie saw the impact of COVID19 most vividly over the summer, when a series of positive tests resulted in numerous understudies taking the stage for its production of “Emma,” and then a handful of canceled shows. Like other theaters of its size, the Guthrie now employs medical professionals to test and monitor its employees. “I think that theater in general is going to be changed forever,” says Jodi Metz, the Guthrie’s COVID-19 safety manager, about the role of medical professionals in the theater going forward, “with regard to basically tolerating exposures of any type of illness at work and feeling the pressure to work while you’re ill or not at a hundred percent.” Emphasizing the health and wellbeing of performers and their audiences is a good thing, particularly in the case of actors, who often work with chronic levels of financial and professional instability, and who routinely su er from profound power imbalances. What’s hopeful is that these needles can be threaded while keeping the immediacy, power, and, yes, danger that gives live performance much of its power. “You have to balance safety with positive joy and optimism,” Lorca adds. “Being scared all the time is depleting. There are so many risks in the world right now, and to live in fear of these risks is counterproductive. Still, to be aware of these risks and to mitigate risks however we’re able is important.” Hopefully a reasonable middle prevails in the future, with that sense of joy and wonder that a great night out at the theater provides. There’s a sense of abundance from unfettered art that hopefully lives alongside sensible guardrails. “We’re operating from a place of fear and scarcity rather than generosity,” Marsh adds. “We’re being told that we can’t do hard things anymore, and we actually can do hard things.” Do we need to be warned when the show we’re about to see contains disturbing elements? It’s debatable. Should we be glad that actors and other performers have a growing voice in how they’re treated? Yes, indeed. But let’s collectively hope that our direction still incorporates expansiveness and possibility. “Theater artisans have forever been the people to hold up a mirror to society—as James Baldwin said, to ‘show herself to herself,’ ” Harriday adds. “Theater and the arts are places where we can more meaningfully examine the conditions of our lives, and hopefully create enough imaginative space to step into alternative possibilities. I don’t think we get innovation, healing, or safety without imagination.”

And if there was not enough to do in 2022, a panel of beverage connoisseurs conducted a blind taste test of more than 100 beers, seltzers, and RTDs prior to GrillFest and awarded winners in 13 of categories. Bud Light Seltzer’s Black Cherry earned the prestigious Best of Show award.

Guests were also treated to tantalizing grilled samples. Traeger Wood Fired Grills were used to smoke all the burgers and added the unmatched fl avor only their grills can provide, and Northern Fire BBQ & Supply delivered a rotating menu of delicious samples using the latest in cutting-edge grills and accessories throughout the weekend. Highlights included Wagyu Picanha Beef Brazilian-style skewers, and Duroc smoked pork belly.

Award-winning pitmaster Je Vanderlinde masterfully demonstrated his grilling skills and gave tips and tricks to the audience on how to perfectly grill a steak. Also from the U.S. Foods Center Stage, guests watched as four local chefs and culinarians shucked oysters in an intense competition–free of injury! Hosts Jason DeRusha and Chef Erin Gonzalez of U.S. Foods o ered colorful commentary and more to support to all contestants.

One of the most popular experiences was the J. Lohr Wine and Cheese Pairing Adventure, with perfectly aged cheeses from the Caves of Faribault. In addition to tasting a wide array of J. Lohr’s award-winning wines, guests were given pointers on crafting the perfect charcuterie board to entertain family and friends. In addition to sipping and sampling, guests shopped from local artisans, enjoyed lounging and playing games in the Patron Game Zone, perused the latest and greatest vehicles from Je Belzer’s, and tested out state-of-the-art grills and grilling tools. Guests also had the chance to enter a number of raffles with all ticket proceeds benefi ting the M Health Fairview Masonic Children’s Hospital. Two lucky guests each won 99 bottles of beer, one lucky person won a Traeger grill, and another won a guitar signed by Kenny Chesney, which was generously gifted from Blue Chair Bay Rum.

Did you miss out on the energy of Patron’s game zone and Giant Jenga? Does your stomach grumble at the thought of unlimited burger tastings made by grill masters? Are you eager to try top-tier beers, seltzers, and ready-to-drink cocktails? Join us for the 2023 Grillfest celebration! Check out our website to stay up to date.