Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

If only Jesse James had been a beer farmer September 8, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:13 AM
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Another craft beer, James-Younger 1876 Rye Ale, made right here in Minnesota honors the defeat of the James-Younger Gang during an 1876 bank robbery in Northfield.

CRAFT BEER LOVERS, here’s a new beer for you, James-Younger 1876 Rye Ale, a limited-edition beer selling this week during Northfield’s annual Defeat of Jesse James Days. Proceeds from beer sales will benefit the Northfield Historical Society.

Now I’m no beer connoisseur, but my husband and I like to try specialty beers such as James-Younger. He bought a six-pack a few weeks ago at Firehouse Liquor in Dundas. While this rye ale doesn’t suit our homogenized taste buds, I’m certain it will appeal to plenty of other folks.

That all said, if you pick up some James-Younger ale, I want you to turn the bottle on its side and read the small print: “Brewed and bottled for Bank Beer Co. by Brau Brothers Brewing Co. LLC. Lucan, MN”

OK, then, about Lucan—it’s a town of 220 residents in Redwood County in southwestern Minnesota and about five miles from the farm where I grew up. I think it would be accurate to say that Brau Brothers Brewing has put Lucan on the map with its award-winning beers.

As for the Braus, they are three brothers and a Dad who produce craft beers like Ring Neck Braun Ale, Moo Joos, Hundred Yard Dash and my personal favorite, Strawberry Wheat.

Since I’m not too knowledgeable about beer stuff, I emailed Brau Brothers CEO and brewer Dustin Brau to inquire about the James-Younger ale. His family-owned business brewed the beer and co-packaged it for Bank Beer Company, a contract brewery based in Hendricks. That town of 725 lies even further west, in Lincoln County only miles from the South Dakota border.

Anyway, Dustin credits Jason Markkula at Bank Beer for the idea, recipe, marketing and distribution of the James-Younger ale. Brau Brothers brewed and bottled the beer.

And because Dustin clearly knows beer, I asked him to describe James-Younger 1876 Rye Ale: “Basically, a rye pale ale. Not crazy hoppy, but just enough. The spice from the rye comes through a bit, reminiscent of pepper.”

As for the rye, well, it comes right from the Brau Brothers’ fields. And, if you check the company’s Facebook page, you’ll read that the Braus tag this growing and harvesting of rye as “beer farming.” You just have to appreciate brewers who think that way.

Cheers!

FYI: You won’t find James-Younger 1876 Rye Ale just anywhere. Look for it in limited supplies in the Northfield area during the Defeat of Jesse James Days, which continues through Sunday.

 

A chocolate cake tradition of love June 22, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:58 AM
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Homemade chocolate Crazy Cake frosted with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

THEY RAVED ABOUT the moistness of the cake. And three of them—all guys—forked up a second slice of the chocolate cake I’d made from scratch.

I almost said, “Ummm, guys, it’s the women who should have a second piece.” But I let them be, passing the cake pan around the table, plating more cake.

This is one moist, delicious chocolate cake.

Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I shared the story about this cake. They needed to hear it, to understand that they weren’t eating just any old cake but cake made from a special recipe.

This Crazy Cake, aka Wacky Cake, is the chocolate cake of my youth, the one my mom made every time she baked a birthday cake, I told my friends.

“We didn’t have much money, didn’t get birthday presents,” I explained as my friends savored each bite of chocolate cake. “So our birthday present was the cake, an animal cake my mom made.

She would pull out her cake book and let us pick the animal shape we wanted for our birthday cake—a lion, a horse, a duck, an elephant…”

“My mom had a book like that too,” my friend Jackie chimed in.

Mari, on the other end of the table, nodded her head. Likewise, her mother had a booklet that provided instructions for transforming round cakes and square cakes and oblong cakes into animal shapes.

By cutting the cake and decorating it with various candies and frosting, my mom transformed a plain chocolate cake in to a special animal-shaped birthday cake.

Those birthday cakes were magical. I never missed the birthday presents, never even knew I should receive gifts, because I had that cake, that special, special chocolate animal-shaped cake.

When I became a mother, I continued the tradition with my children. While I didn’t have an animal cake book, I had my imagination. I made a snowman, Garfield, Piglet, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, a horse (that looked more like a cow than an equine)…

Unlike me, my children got birthday presents, plenty of them. But I would like to think that the one they will remember is the annual gift of an animal-shaped birthday cake, a gift, really, passed down from their grandmother.

For in the passing down of that tradition, I’m honoring their grandma, my mom, who taught me that birthdays are not about prettily wrapped presents, but about love. And that love, for me, will always be symbolized by homemade chocolate Crazy Cake.

Chocolate Crazy Cake

3 cups flour

2 cups white sugar

½ cup cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

Mix the dry ingredients together and then stir in:

¾ cup salad (vegetable) oil

2 cups cold water

2 Tablespoons vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pour into a 9 x 13-inch cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35 – 40 minutes.

When the cake is cool, whip up a bowl of this creamy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

When cool, frost with:

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

6 Tablespoons butter, softened

½ cup cocoa

2 2/3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter in a small mixing bowl. Then add the cocoa and powdered sugar alternately with the milk, beating to a spreading consistency. You may need to add an additional tablespoon of milk. Blend in vanilla. Spread on cake. Makes about two cups of frosting.

The recipe yields two cups of heavenly, finger-licking-good frosting.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Recipes from The Cook’s Special, 1973, St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Vesta, Minnesota, and Hershey’s Easy-Does-It Recipe #10

 

Dancing the Irish jig at St. Patrick March 17, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:27 AM
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I’M NOT IRISH, not one cell of me. But I am the niece of an Irishman from Northern Ireland who married in to our German family. Does that count for anything on St. Patrick’s Day?

Despite the fact that I’m not Irish and I don’t celebrate St. Paddy’s day, in the spirit of the day, I’m posting these images of a lovely old building I discovered in 2009 while photographing a veterans’ memorial in Shieldsville for a magazine feature story.

Shieldsville is a tiny community along Minnesota Highway 21 west of Faribault. But it’s more than just a pause in the road. This town lays claim as Minnesota’s first organized Irish settlement, dating back to 1855.

If not for my fondness for meandering, I never would have discovered this quaint circa 1910 parish hall belonging to, ta-da, the Church of St. Patrick.

 

The old parish hall at the Church of St. Patrick, Shieldsville, is now used primarily for storage.

‘Tonight the parishioners of St. Patrick, and others who wish to be Irish, will gather across the street from the old parish hall in the new parish hall. There they’ll dance an Irish jig. They’ll feast on mulligan stew and Irish soda bread. And they’ll drink green beer in a toast to their ancestors.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

Sign above the parish hall door.

 

The front entry to St. Patrick's Parish Hall, photographed in 2009.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A mother’s love on a daughter’s birthday February 10, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:47 AM
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HOW CAN IT BE that I already have a daughter who’s 25? Where did the days, weeks, months, years go?

It seems like only yesterday when I welcomed my sweet baby girl and discovered the depth of love I held in my heart for this child of mine. Yesterday was February 10, 1986.

It really is true that, until you become a mother (fill in “father” here if you’re male), you cannot comprehend such love. There is much to be said for experiencing parenthood. I don’t think you can ever define the personal shift to parenting in words.

Thinking back on my first pregnancy and then my daughter’s birth, I remember, especially, how much my mother-in-law wanted a granddaughter. She had already been blessed with one granddaughter and then four grandsons in a row. Betty figured it was time for another girl.

She got her granddaughter and then another and another and another and another and another. If you’re counting, that’s six granddaughters in a row.

As for my husband and me, we honestly did not care whether we had a boy or a girl, as long as the baby was healthy. But, my gut instinct told me my unborn child was a girl. I was right, of course, as I was in guessing the gender of my other two children, although I didn’t have the boy figured out until my husband and I were en route to the hospital.

By the time my son was born, one day short of eight years after my eldest, my mother-in-law wanted a grandson. She got her wish, but never lived to see my baby boy. She died, at age 59, of a heart attack nearly four months before his birth.

Every year on the February birthdays of my oldest and my youngest, I think of their Grandma Helbling and how she got her wishes. I got mine too—three beautiful, healthy, wonderful children (the third was born in November 1987) who have given me love and joy beyond measure, and, yes, the occasional stress and maybe even some of my gray hair.

I love my trio with a mother’s love that cannot be defined in words, but can only be felt by the heart.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, oldest daughter of mine!

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts on my son’s birthday February 9, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:31 AM
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At our house we typically don't have birthday cakes. Rather, the birthday celebrant chooses the dessert of his/her choice, and often that's cheesecake like this one my eldest made for my September birthday. Today I'm making a chocolate chip cheesecake for my son's 17th birthday.

MY SON TURNS 17 today, a day before my eldest turns 25. It wasn’t planned that way—to have their birthdays one day shy of eight years apart. But it happened and the two have never complained about the closeness of their birthdays.

For those of you who don’t know my family, there’s another daughter in between, my 23-year-old, who is 21 months younger than her older sister.

I know, I know, I’m tossing a lot of numbers out there for someone who prefers words to numbers and sucks at math.

But here are some more figures as long as I’m spewing them out. Even though my boy was born 10 days early, he weighed 10 pounds, 12 ounces, and stretched to 23 ½ inches. Yikes, you’re thinking. Not to worry. Like his sisters before him, he was born by Cesarean section due to the fact that the eldest was frank breech, requiring an emergency, vertical-incision C-section.

She weighed 9 pounds, 7 ounces. Her sister came in at 8 pounds, one ounce.

Yes, I have big babies.

My son was so big, in fact, that the hospital’s newborn diapers didn’t fit him. I also had to return a package of newbie diapers that a friend had given me before my over-sized baby boy was born.

You would never guess looking at my lanky 17-year-old today that he was once a roly-poly baby. He’s tall and lean now, tall and lean.

I’m wondering, if you’re a mom, do you reflect on your child’s birth every year on his/her birthday like I do? I remember that first kiss I planted on my son’s soft, warm head right after his birth. He was then whisked away while the surgeon tidied up after my C-section and followed with hernia surgery.

That first week after my boy’s  February 9, 1994, birth is mostly a painful blur as I suffered spinal headaches so severe I couldn’t sit up, let alone care for my newborn. Instead, the obstetrical floor nurses mothered him, coddled him, loved him. They even carried my baby boy into the break room, which would be a definite no-no today. I’ll always be grateful for their care.

I am thinking all of these thoughts today, a day when I’ll hold my teen a little closer, a little tighter—if he’ll allow it—and embrace him with a mother’s birthday hug.

Happy birthday, son. I love you now and forever. (I know you don’t read my blog, but I’m telling you anyway, just in case you read this someday.)

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Saddle up and ride on over to Northfield for The Defeat of Jesse James Days September 10, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:35 AM
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THIS WEEKEND, IF YOU’RE IN NORTHFIELD, you’d swear you were in Texas or Wyoming or Montana. This southeastern Minnesota community of about 20,000 transforms into a hang-out for cowboys and cowgirls during The Defeat of Jesse James Days, which runs through Sunday.

From a professional rodeo to a western style steak fry, a theatrical performance of Jesse, bank raid re-enactments and lots more, a western theme prevails. And it’s all to mark the townspeople’s courageous stand 134 years ago against the James-Younger Gang.

On September 7, 1876, the outlaws rode into town intent on robbing the First National Bank. They didn’t expect to find a defiant Joseph Lee Heywood, who refused to open the bank vault. Heywood was killed as were Swedish immigrant Nicolaus Gustafson and two of the would-be robbers.

The restored First National Bank, pictured here, is now home to a museum and the Northfield Historical Society.

A marker at Christdala Swedish Lutheran Church near Millersburg honors Swedish immigrant Nicolaus Gustafson who was shot point blank by outlaw Cole Younger. The church marker tells Gustafson's tragic story.

Since 1948, Northfield has celebrated The Defeat of Jesse James Days, today one of Minnesota’s biggest community festivals. If you’ve never attended, saddle up this weekend and head on out to this historic river town that, as cliché as it sounds, is quaint and charming.

Here, a river walk hugs the Cannon River, inviting visitors to stroll and peruse the artwork set up during the Riverfront Fine Arts Fair Festival this weekend or, on other Saturdays from early June to the end of October, the 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Riverwalk Market Fair. The Market Fair also includes local produce and artisan foods.

This weekend's art fair will be similar to the Saturday Riverwalk Market Fair held from June through October along Northfield's riverwalk in the historic downtown.

Marsha Kolstad Morrill Kitchel displayed her artwork on a recent Saturday during the Riverwalk Market Fair.

A vendor sold fresh-baked fruit tarts at a riverside stand during the summer Saturday market.

Northfield’s abundance of eateries (some with outdoor riverside dining) and homegrown shops with everything from beads to antiques, books, local art and much more, draws visitors into a historic downtown that bustles with activity, but in a leisurely sort of way. Be forewarned, though, that during The Defeat of Jesse James Days, this town is a zoo.

Yet, Northfield is a pedestrian-friendly city where motorists actually yield to pedestrians, where a town square complete with fountain and popcorn wagon and summer concerts seems so “Norman Rockwell,” where the river walkway links a downtown defined by old buildings, where, honestly, you’ll feel comfortably at home.

This stray kitten showed up while I was dining recently on the patio of The Tavern, a downtown Northfield eatery.

And this weekend you’ll feel even more comfortable if you’re sporting the dress code of the day—western attire

Last year when I attended The Defeat of Jesse James Days Sunday afternoon Grand Parade, I spotted more cowboy hats and cowboy boots than I’ve ever seen in a single locale. On nearly every community float, even those from the big city, princesses replaced sparkling strapless gowns and crowns with western shirts, vests and jeans (or denim skirts) and cowgirl hats.

Western attire is protocol for princesses in the Grand Parade, which starts at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

The princesses bring their horses too when they appear in the parade.

They also brought their horses—plush pink ponies, wooden rocking horses, stick horses…with a few twirling lassoes and country western music to boot. Well, you get the picture.

Even the James-Younger Gang showed up with their guns ablazin’ as their horses galloped down Division Street.

Locals dress the parts of the James-Younger Gang for the Grand Parade and bank raid re-enactments, held through-out the weekend. Arrive early if you want to see the downtown shoot-outs.

Despite all that horse and outlaw hoopla, the parade presents one particularly memorable oddity. Northfield-based Malt-O-Meal gives away individual serving packages of dry cereal to parade-attendees.

I’ve received only one better parade freebie in my lifetime. Many years ago in Morrill in central Minnesota, a local bar handed out free cups of beer, which flowed freely from a parade float keg. Now that’s a parade even an outlaw could appreciate.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Celebrating cultural diversity in Faribault at International Market Day August 27, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:59 AM
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An Aztec dancer, garbed in a symbolic headdress entertains the audience during the 2009 International Market Day in Faribault.

TO THE STEADY BEAT of a drum, the 12 dancers sidestepped across the grass, their bodies moving in a rhythmic dance ritual that mesmerized.

As they twirled and kicked and circled just yards away in bare feet blackened by the earth, sweet incense-infused smoke drifted toward me. The smoldering fire of incense, said a member of the Aztec group, Ollin Ayacaxtli, symbolizes cleaning of the air and attracting “the good energy around us.”

The dancing was certainly creating plenty of good vibes among the crowd gathered last August in Faribault’s Central Park for performances by the Northfield/Owatonna-based dancers. Appreciative applause followed each short dance during the Faribault Diversity Coalition’s annual International Market Day celebration.

Everything about the performers spoke to symbolism steeped in deeply-rooted tradition. They dressed in colorful costumes patterned after those of Aztec warriors and adorned with Aztec calendar symbols like butterflies, fire, skeletons and flowers.

The belief that “most things in nature come from two things” is the basis of Aztec thinking, the audience learned in a brief cultural lesson. Nature encircled the faces of the dancers, who wore colorful headdresses sprouting plumes of feathers.

Later I would learn from dancer Jesus Torres of Owatonna that the Aztec culture is all about harmony and about rain, earth, wind and fire, and about respecting elders. The group formed, he said, to teach those involved and others about the tradition, values, costumes and history of the Aztec.

Ollin Ayacaxtli travels to events in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa presenting their symbolic dances that pulse with energy in every dance of the foot, in every beat of the drum, in every shake of a maracas.

Members of Ollin Ayacaxtli perform in front of the Central Park bandshell.

The drums are made from a very old tree and, like our grandfather, are to be respected, the audience was told.

A dancer moved across the grass, bells blending with the drum's beat.

Duo dancers, legs intertwined, danced in a circle.

Smoking incense and shells were integral to the performance with the shells symbolizing the sound that goes across the universe.

A member of Ollin Ayacaxtli dances with the group.

A girl snuggles in her Dad's arms while he watches the Aztec dancers.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote this blog post one year ago for another publication, which subsequently folded and did not publish this piece.

Tomorrow, Saturday, August 28, the International Market Day Committee and the Faribault Diversity Coalition are sponsoring a fifth annual International Market Day. The event runs from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. in Faribault’s Central Park, at Fifth Street and Second Avenue Northwest. Aztec dances, music and games; international food and market vendors; community resource information; and farmers’ market vendors will be part of the cultural celebration.

Please attend International Market Day and celebrate the diversity of life in Minnesota.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling