The day in State Fair: why, oh why?
September 4, 2014
Why do I torture myself year after year? I willingly go to a place where I get to hang out with 150,000 of my closest friends. I spend a hot summer day outside in the sun. I tolerate waiting in long lines for the ladies room. I eat battered, deep-fried, junky food. What is this torture? Why, the Great Minnesota Get-Together, of course!
Any self-respecting Minnesotan will trek to the Minnesota State Fair at least once each year. I have friends who go multiple times. Take my friend Jen A, for example, whose husband is in the Army. They got stationed in Guam for three years. A year ago he left a month before Jen. Jen waited until after the Fair. And when has she come back for a visit? To coincide with the Fair. She has been there just about every day. I don’t know how she does it. I go for a few hours and I’m done in. Think I’m joking about attendance of 150,000? Look at this. And I went on the last Sunday. The last Sunday usually goes over 200,000.
These just in:
Quotes from Jen (which I include because I truly am impressed by your desire, determination, and stamina, and I know you were doing what you love to do): 1) “After a 15.5 hour day yesterday, I’ve logged 67 hours at the fair this year. A record for me. One day to go. (Sunday).” 2) “My last day at the fair. 16 hours for a total of 83 hours over 6 days. That’ll do.”
2014 State Fair breaks all-time attendance record. Thank goodness I didn’t go on Saturday, attendance 252,092.
So this is the fun I had at the fair.
When I bike to the fair, I am hot and miserable before I even pass through the gate.
Biking to the fair.
Just like going to the fair at all, biking to it always seems like a good idea before I do it. It’s a four-and-a-half-mile ride, most of which is on a dedicated bike- and busway. Easy route, but even if the temperature isn’t too hot, I get overheated. So I’m at a disadvantage before I even get through the gate.
I should also mention that the fair encourages you to not take your car. As could benefit me, there are three bike corrals. Unfortunately they are at the three corners of the grounds other than the one where the transitway spits me out. Getting to a bike corral adds a half-mile onto my ride. But I’m glad they have them because it takes a lot of the thinking out of arriving at the Fair.
Anyway, I had a couple of personal connections at the fair.
Personal connections and vegetables in general.
My coworker’s grandmother enters vegetables every year. And she wins every year. Look at those Yukon gold potatoes! Jen (a different Jen) helped harvest those winners. And since I love vegetables, you get a photo of the west wall of the Horticulture Building. And who wouldn’t be impressed by giant pumpkins, Charlie Brown?
Blue ribbon Yukon Gold potatoes dug up and sorted by my coworker, grown by her grandmother.
It’s the Great Pumpkin!
These are a few of my favorite vegetables.
A little purple goes a long way.
I also managed to find my nextdoor neighbor Larry’s painting in the Fine Arts building. As my mentor Chris Gargan always said, a little purple goes a long way. Or was that John Ribble? It was twenty+ years ago.
Mini-donuts! In beer form!
Beer.
Natch, it didn’t take me long to acquire beer. Unlike last year, Lift Bridge Brewery made PLENTY of their Mini-Donut Brown Ale. It sounds so wrong, but it works. This year there was also a s’mores beer replete with a floating marshmallow, and a lager that came with blueberry frozen foam.
Kelly visits a beer exhibit. Yes, a beer exhibit.
A great thing about the Minnesota State Fair is that it keeps up with the times. Whether it’s an evening of Minnesota bands, sponsored by The Current, or craft beer, the fair is all over it. Back by popular demand for the third year, was the Land of 10,000 Brews exhibit, also in the Horticulture Building. This is where there are six options for four-beer flight from Minnesota breweries. The selections vary daily. Sometimes there’s fancy stuff, but mostly it’s a way to support our burgeoning craft beer industry.
[Update from the interim between writing and posting: Some asshole robbed the exhibit at gunpoint a couple hours after the Fair closed for the year. Armed robbery of over $10,000.]
Does she look like she’s actually having fun?
Major annoyances.
I’m pretty sure I ranted about this last year, too, and every year before that. If it’s not old enough to walk under its own power, it’s most likely not old enough to really comprehend, and therefore actually enjoy, what is going on at the fair, and should therefore be left at home. Your doublewide stroller isn’t doing anybody, and I mean anybody, least of all you, any favors. Tell the truth. Do you actually enjoy pushing that thing through the throng, having to constantly apologize to the crowd around you for needing non-standard space accommodation, the crowd which is already annoyed by the rest of the crowd? Are you having fun when the tot is screaming because it wants cotton candy, or is over-stimulated, or is over-tired? And when it falls asleep, well, what was the point anyway?
It’s a parade. Yay.
While we’re on the subject of hindrances to the already crowd-hindering crowd, what about the daily parade? I guess some people watch it, but it seems like it’s mostly meaderers scattering to the curbs to make way. I find it particularly purturbing because on either side of the street it goes down are some of the things I’m most interested in, such as the aforementioned Horticulture Building and the abeermentioned Ballpark Cafe, from whence the Mini-Donut Brown Ale (and many other fine, Minnesota brews) is served, and because I always manage to encounter it. I just want to cross the damned street. Call me a chicken if you must, apropos to the fair.
It’s a Pronto Pup. Or is it a corndog. Huh?
Fair food.
Unless you live in a cave, you’ve likely heard of all the any-state’s fair food you can get on a stick. Minnesota’s fair does food on a stick like no other. However, I mostly avoid it. Battered, deep-fried delights are so far from how I typically eat that it doesn’t take much of it to do me in. But I’ll always get a corndog. I don’t like weiners but I love me a corndog. I am a poor Minnesotan because I’m still not sure exactly what the difference is between a corndog and a Pronto Pup. What I do know is that this year I got a Pronto Pup rather than a corndog and I didn’t like it as well. I think a Pronto Pup is more of a batter batter while a corndog is more of a cornbread batter. Next year I shall go back to the corndog.
Corn!
What never disappoints is the roasted corn on the cob. Minnesota sweetcorn, grilled in the husk. ’Nuff said. Oh, except for that they compost all the discarded cobs.
How much time do I have?
Weather, more beer, more food.
All afternoon I felt like I had blown it with regard to the weather. The day before, Saturday, was a little less warm, a little less humid, less unsettled. Sunday started out overcast and not-warm, but of course by the time I got pedaling the sun came out and the dewpoint started creeping up. The forecast was for a clear afternoon with rain and thunder likely in the evening. It approached more quickly.
Hanging out with Summit Brewing founder, Mark Stutrud. Well, a reasonable facsimile of him, anyway.
I made my move in the direction of the exit when I figured, based on radar panel number three, that I had about forty-five minutes before the heavens would open. I need about twenty-five for the bike ride. Fortunately, the main Summit Brewing counter, in the International Bazaar, is right on the way to the entrance I use next to the bike corral. Summit had a fair-only brew this year, but it was not on offer on Sunday (unless it was at an auxiliary location). Nevertheless, I ordered one of the beers that was available and participated in what was their genius marketing ploy for the fair, taking a selfie with the life-sized cutout of founder Mark Stutrud. I have actually hung out with Mark several times in person, so this was a little weird, and yet, necessary.
Tacos al pastore y asada.
I had just about decided that I was out of weather-time and had every intention of heading out, when I was dazzled again by what had caught my attention on the way in, tacos from Los Ocampo. I wasn’t exactly hungry, but wanted to eat, and figured that if I ate a little more at the fair, that would be enough for the day. I went for one each of the al pastore and the asada. The nice people sitting on the bench next to me approved of my choice (having vast, it seemed, experience at one of Los Ocampos’ restaurant locations) and gave me a piece of their fried plantains. It was all very good.
Hopefully I’ll beat this home.
I finally, finally, uncorraled my bike and headed home, a little later than I meant to. On the other hand, it wasn’t already raining so I knew whatever happened, I wouldn’t get it too bad. As it was, I only got spritzed on during the second half of the ride. I got home and took my second full shower of the day. I tied my hair up in a different way that proved to be a beneficial way, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with the fair.
Southwestern Summer Vegetable Pie (recipe)
August 30, 2013
This is one of those wonderful recipes that comes out fantastically no matter how hard you try to wreck it. If you broadly generalize, you only need three ingredients—2 cups cooked grain, 6 cups chopped/sliced vegetables, 3 ounces grated cheese—well, and seasoning. The beauty of it is you can use whatever you have lying around, as you will see below when you compare how I made it tonight with the original.
As are many of my favorite vegetables, tomatillos are currently in season and I wanted to get some at the farmer’s market this afternoon. I found an excellent tomatillo soup recipe (by the way, disregard the photo of the red soup that is the default and click through until you find the lovely photo of green soup in a square white bowl—that’s how it really is, and I pulled the chicken rather than diced it) but since we’ve been in the depths of the summer sauna for the last week, soup is kind of the last thing on my mind, delicious though that recipe is. Then I remembered the Cooking Light (magazine) roasted vegetable tart that I’ve been making for years and knew I could make a Southwestern version based around the tomatillos. I trotted over to the market and filled my bag up with the fixins, then quickly retreated back to the subpar air conditioning in the office.
Thursdays during the non-winter season (this is Minnesota, we were still having snow in April and May this year) the market happens downtown on Nicollet Mall. It’s an offshoot of the larger, daily market on the west edge of downtown. It’s pretty good, though I’d estimate that about half of the vendors don’t grow anything and peddle the B- or C-string commercial produce that stores and restaurants reject. I’m a little skeptical that those bananas were grown here in the northwoods.
For actual farmer-grown stock, it is my impression that the best bet is the stalls on the north end between 5th and 6th Streets. And if they don’t grow what they sell themselves, at least they have the courtesy to hide the commercial waxed cardboard boxes and remove the stickers from the items. But I’m confident that their offerings are homegrown. I remembered from a couple years ago that the one family had tomatillos—big, giant, fresh tomatillos. Tomatillos are one of my favorite, newer ingredient discoveries. I gave them a shout-out three years ago. You should try them if you are unfamiliar with them. My favorite way to use them is in my “Mexican” pizza—you can get the scoop on that under the third photo in this post.
Anyway, I’ve kept you long enough. Here’s the original recipe, and below is how I made it tonight. For simplicity’s sake I copied and pasted some of the instructions but that doesn’t mean I’m a plagiarist (erm…). I’m just lazy. You don’t be lazy and make this!
Southwestern Summer Vegetable Pie
(adapted from Cooking Light)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup regular quinoa, cooked
1/4 cup red quinoa, cooked
1/4 cup black rice, cooked
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1/4 cup Swiss cheese, grated
1-1/2 cups sliced red bell pepper
1 cup sliced onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed/minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups sliced tomatillo
1 medium tomato, sliced
salt, pepper, oregano, crushed red peppers to taste
1/2 cup pepper Jack cheese, grated
Directions:
Cook the grains according to package directions. Combine in a medium bowl and let cool.
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 450°F. Toss the bell pepper, onion, garlic, and olive oil together in a bowl. Place mixture in a baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 450°F for 15 minutes.
Because the tomatillos and tomatoes cook down and get watery, I did the following. Place the tomatillos in a second baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 450°F for 10 minutes. You can do this concurrently with the peppers and onions. At the same time, sauté the tomatoes until their liquid is reduced, about 7 or 8 minutes. Combine all cooked vegetables in a bowl. Stir in seasoning.
Reduce the oven temperature to 400°F.
Combine the egg white and Swiss cheese with the quinoa mixture. Press into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes. Remove from oven.
Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.
Sprinkle 1/4 cup pepper Jack cheese over quinoa crust. Top with vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup pepper Jack cheese. Bake at 375° for 30 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.
5 random things about me
July 24, 2012
Zucchini zaniness!
July 17, 2012
Getting ready to get ???Bossy???
March 26, 2012
Yesterday, Bossy Acres, the entity whose CSA (community supported agriculture) I bought into for the upcoming summer, held an orientation coffee meet-up. I was eager to learn about my first-time vegetable venture, but I was also excited because my mom is visiting this weekend and I knew the presentation would be a good information exposure for her with regard to my switch-over to the co-op/organic/free-range, etc.
My parents will never come over to the organic side because they’ll never be able to get past the greater cash expense. But I was glad that my mom could hear a third-party talk about it. Karla, she at least recognized your passion for farming. But in the end, all she keeps saying is, “I remember when Carol Koehn did that and she ended up cooking head lettuce because there was so much.” I said, thanks for the positive reinforcement.
Well, everybody has their opinion. I sort of tried to convince my mom with taste, the taste of delicious, organic butter. The two things about my switch-over that have stood out are how much thicker the brown egg shells are, thereby necessitating a much firmer whack to break them, and how incredibly much more flavorful the butter is. People joke about eating sticks of regular butter. Free-range butter actually merits the declaration!
So the Bossy info session was, I thought, very exciting. It was fun to hear Karla extoll the virtues of returning vegetable scraps for her worm beds, and funny to hear Elizabeth interject the well-timed joke about the business end.
We voted on which of three varieties each of tomato, pepper, and melon we thought Bossy should grow (ironically, the only one of my votes that won was for the melon, which I care about least). Then, we sampled fare from their CSA add-on partners. Beez Kneez sent along tastes of their regular clover honey and their less usual buckwheat honey to try. My mom got really excited about the buckwheat honey but again balked at the cost when I asked if I should get some in the summer. I might get it anyway and give it to her.
Barkley’s Bistro had dog biscuit samples to send around. I liked the peanut butter ones. See the thing is, they’re all natural, too. Bossy Acres grows the vegetable ingredients. Barkley’s informed us that the biscuits were basically what they’d make for human consumers but because their market is canines, they leave out the added salt and sugar. Fine by me! The lamb ones were pretty good, too.
Bossy’s final add-on partner is Moonshine Coffee. That’s the one that I might actually get in on. And they contributed a jar of beans for each of us to take home. I made some of the coffee this morning, the Brazilian beans. Pretty good indeed, even though it was a fairly light roast and I usually prefer very dark roasts.
Finally, Karla and Elizabeth sent home with us a box of their famous microgreens (are they famous yet? I assume they are!) as well as a dirt-box of pea shoots. Yummy breakfasts will ensue for the following week, because I will fold brown, lightly scrambled eggs over chevre, topped with Bossy microgreens.
I can’t wait for the harvesting season!
Maybe I mentioned this already in my Meatless March introductory entry. Because I have decided to deprive myself, ALLLLLLLIWANTISMEATMEATMEATMEATMEAT. But for once in my life, I am actually engaging in some willpower. I know it doesn’t happen often, so don’t fall off your chair.
Here is the accounting of the first full week. I was hoping to have had time to prepare food at home more but I have eaten out a lot, and kind of made the same thing or a variation thereof when I did manage to make it myself. Oh well. I make the things I make because I like them. I’m really diggin’ the quinoa at present.
Saturday
Folded over egg thing w/quinoa et al
Baja Sol veggie tacos
Pizza Lucé tri-pepper pizza
Sunday
Folded over egg thing w/quinoa et al, grapefruit
English muffin, orange
ww tortilla tofu quinoa pizza thing
Monday
eggs-chevre-sunflower shoots, orange
Real Meal Deal veggie sub, chips
refried bean pizza
Tuesday
eggs-chevre-sunflower shoots, orange
Acadia black bean burger*, orange
quinoa pizza
Wednesday
eggs-chevre-sunflower shoots, tomatoes, orange
Acadia veggie melt
quinoa+chevre
Republic black bean burger w/mushroom, Swiss
Sawatdee tofu pad tai, cream cheese wontons
(oof)
Thursday
Sawatdee tofu pad tai (leftover)
salad w/tofu and orange
ww tortilla+pepperjack
Groveland Tap veggie burger
Friday
Bruegger’s Everything bagel+cream cheese, orange
D’Amico fresh mozzarella salad, caprese panini (more toasted than the one last week), chips
Longfellow Grill garden burger w/salad
*Due to this whole Meatless March thing, I have been trying everybody’s veggie burger. Acadia Café, you hands-down have the best with your amazing Black Bean Burger. None of the others come close! Republic, you have good flavor but it doesn’t hold together. Longfellow Grill, yours was pretty tasty, too, but it all squished out of the bun by the time I was half-finished.
Cooking with beer: Odell IPA ???Hop On??? Chicken
September 6, 2011
All in all, it was a decent Labor Day weekend. I had kind of meant to go to the Minnesota State Fair. The weather was perfect with highs barely reaching 70°F/20°C, but I ended up doing a lot of cooking instead. My favorite vegetables have come into season at the Nicollet Mall farmers market—zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, red bell peppers–and for each of the last two weeks, I’ve bought far too much. So I must cook it all up into tasty dishes. Today’s tofu zucchini stroganoff was okay at best, but last night’s dinner rated an A+.
For most of the week I had been trying to finish the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix audiobook so that I could watch the movie at the weekend. Didn’t quite make it after falling asleep on it twice, but I got to the last chapter and I’ve come to learn that the main action is usually concluded by the second or third to last chapter so I decided not to worry about it.
Also for most of the week, I had been chomping at the bit to make the Odell IPA “Hop On” Chicken recipe that they posted. As you may recall, I tried making the Double Pilsner bread substituting whole wheat flour (with baking powder and salt) for white self-rising flour. The flavor if not the density was good, so I was excited to try another beer recipe.
To make use of a lot of the vegetables, I found a recipe for Italian Stuffed Eggplant from one of my favorite cookbooks, The Low-Fat Way to Cook (Oxmoor House, 1993, p. 126). I adapted it to use lentils instead of brown rice, and feta cheese instead of mozzarella.
The eggplants went into the oven to heat through and I set to work on the chicken.
I assembled those ingredients. This was the first chance I had to practice what I would like to be my new meat-buying philosophy after seeing the Wikipedia article about that horrible Smithfield pork producer. I don’t mind eating animals but I decided that I’d at least go to the co-op for more humanely raised meat. The chicken breasts were about three times more expensive but I think it was worth it.
I had gotten the chicken marinating the afternoon before, so they ended up marinating for 24 hours. I only got three breasts (or breast halves, I guess) because they were giant, and cut each of those in half.
I used my grill pan. I wanted to sear both sides before I left the chicken cooking. The pieces were thick, I think it ended up being about 20 minutes.
The eggplant halves came out of the oven looking perfect.
The chicken grilled up in the pan and came out looking perfect.
But more importantly, this was one of the most delicious meals I’ve ever made for myself! I put in the Harry Potter movie, poured one of the remaining Odell IPAs and had a very enjoyable date night for one. Who needs a restaurant?
Cooking with beer: Odell Double Pils beer bread
August 29, 2011
As I await an official Odell Brewing beer dinner in the Twin Cities (I am told I missed one last year and if I think about it, I perhaps vaguely remember its announcement), I decided to do my own mini-dinner at home centering around the baking of a loaf of Odell Double Pilsner beer bread, to serve with the vegetables I grilled and roasted last night.
Odell Todd gave me the recipe when I went to a beer and cheese pairing Wednesday night. Turns out he had made the three loaves of the bread that they served. I only had a taste because I got there a little later, compared to the whole slices that were served earlier. Todd assured me it was easy, and indeed, it only has three ingredients:
3 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup sugar
12 ounces Odell Double Pilsner
Combine ingredients in a large bowl. Spoon into buttered pan. Bake at 350°F for 50 minutes, brush with butter, bake for 5 minutes more.
I decided to make it with whole wheat flour, because I try to avoid the processed, white versions of things if at all possible. So I did:
3 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
4-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
12 ounces Odell Double Pilsner
I baked at 375°F for 50 minutes, brushed with butter, baked for 5 minutes more.
If I made it again with whole wheat flour, I would use 6 teaspoons of baking soda and less sugar, maybe only 1/4 cup, as well as use my smaller loaf pan. Or just use white, self-rising flour. It tasted good but I was disappointed that it didn’t rise up higher than the sides of the pan. I do realize that “whole wheat quick bread” is probably an oxymoron.
I cut a couple of slices, topped them with thin slices of feta cheese, and baked for 10 or 15 minutes and broiled to brown. I served with my leftover vegetables and had a nice meal.
Collection: produce stickers
August 4, 2010
I never meant to end up with a collection of stickers from my fruits and vegetables. It happened accidentally. It probably started when I was unpacking after a trip to the store and realized, hey, look at all these different stickers, I think I’ll stick them on my cupboard door.
Each sticker comes from an item that I myself consumed. The only exceptions are a couple of banana stickers that my mom brought me and one sticker from something that someone had at the office; I can’t even remember what it was, only that it was organic and that on the day I couldn’t resist grabbing the sticker, even though I knew that was cheating. There are also no duplicates.
I have thoughts of discontinuing the collection. But until I take down the old stickers, I will continue to add new stickers.
August 1, 2010
Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog 