Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Praise, polkas and more at St. John’s Germanfest September 26, 2011

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The Ray Sands Band played from 1 - 3 p.m. under the tent at Germanfest.

“APPLES, PEACHES, PUMPKIN PIE, who’s afraid to holler I…”

Above the plaintive baaing of a goat in the petting zoo, the old-time band pumped out the polka which isn’t about pie at all, but about love.

And so, under the tent, the bands played—Tim Chlan and Friends, The Ray Sands Band and The Stuttgart Three—at St. John’s United Church of Christ’s annual Germanfest in Wheeling Township near Nerstrand Big Woods State Park.

My husband and I arrived mid-afternoon Sunday to take in this annual celebration of the congregation’s German heritage during a polka praise service and more. As we sang the near-and-dear words of age-old hymns, the tangy scent of vinegar drifted into the sanctuary. “Just as I am, without one plea…Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee…”

The Stuttgart Three from Rochester led the polka praise service inside St. John's sanctuary.

A musical quartet presented "Cleanse Me" and "Reach Out to Jesus" during the praise service.

Afterward we broke bread in the fellowship hall over a German buffet. Sauerkraut and sauerbraten. Brats. Rinderwurst and beets and green beans with bacon. Vinegar-laced German potato salad and mashed potatoes and more foods than I can remember. Homemade. Three hundred pounds of potatoes peeled. Nearly 60 dozen brats boiled and grilled. Bread pudding made from grandma’s recipe. Good, hearty food that tasted of the Mother Land.

It didn’t matter whether you were Deutsch or Dutch, Lutheran or Catholic or a long-time church member, whether a first-time attendee from Centerville or Faribault or a faithful former member from Blooming Prairie, you enjoyed, simply enjoyed, the hospitality of this congregation.

Diners enjoyed a German buffet in the fellowship hall before and after the praise service.

Deutsche food: German potato salad, red cabbage, sauerbraten, rinderwurst, a brat, sauerkraut, beets and green beans on my plate.

Volunteers kept the buffet trays filled with delicious homemade German foods.

Bingo and a quilt show. Geese and ponies and goats and birds in a petting zoo. Woodcarvings at the silent auction. Homebaked goods in the country store. Jars of apple jelly, glistening like gems in the sun. All of it, together, creating a memorable afternoon at this country church set among the flat corn and soybean fields of eastern Rice County.

This is the season of church festivals and dinners—of lutefisk and Swedish meatballs and ham and of vegetables dug from the earth.

It is a time to gather close, to remember the homeland from whence we came, to celebrate our heritage, to rejoice in the harvest.

The sanctuary was decorated throughout with harvest vignettes, including this one on the altar.

St. John's members make apple jelly and apple butter from fruit growing on an apple tree in the churchyard. The jelly and butter are sold at the festival.

Juniper, 15 months, enjoyed the birds and animals at the petting zoo.

As is typical of most church festivals, attendees could play bingo outside under a tent.

Many of the volunteer workers dressed in German costumes.

Each member of St. John's was asked to bring a quilt for the quilt show in the sanctuary. Quilts were draped over pews with brief information attached to each.

The Bultman family poses for a photo outside the stone church.

The brat and root beer stand next to the music tent.

The festival grounds at St. John's U.C.C., Wheeling Township.

St. John's sits among the farm fields along Rice County Road 24

DO YOU ATTEND CHURCH dinners or festivals? If you have or know of an upcoming must-attend dinner, submit a comment. I’d like to hear about it.

ALSO, CHECK BACK for more photos from Germanfest.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

I’ll skip the sushi April 18, 2011

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WHAT FOOD IMAGES pop into your mind when I say “Japanese restaurant?”

Rice? Vegetables? Sushi?

That’s the extent of my Japanese culinary knowledge.

But that will change with the opening of a Japanese restaurant in my mid-sized Minnesota town. I noticed a sign last week in an empty strip mall space along State Highway 60 in Faribault advertising this new restaurant.

A Japanese restaurant is opening in the strip mall in the 600 block of Fourth Street/Highway 60 in Faribault.

Although I don’t eat out all that often and once tried homemade sushi, promptly spitting out the wrapped raw fish and rice, I appreciate another dining option in my community.

We have plenty of fast food and pizza places and restaurants that serve traditional American fare.

We have several Mexican restaurants (like Gran Plaza Mexican Grill and El Tequilla Family Mexican Restaurant) and a Mexican bakery.

Baked goods at a Mexican bakery (once at the center of controversy because of its exterior paint color) in downtown Faribault. The bakery has changed ownership since I took this photo.

Faribault also has three Chinese restaurants, a Somali eatery and a recently-opened Thai restaurant (that I have yet to patronize, but about which I’ve heard rave reviews).

The Southern China Cafe is among four restaurants in town serving Chinese food.

Banadir, a Somali restaurant, is located in historic downtown Faribault.

Now we’ll soon have Japanese cuisine to throw into the cultural mix.

To those of you who live in larger metropolitan areas, the opening of a Japanese restaurant may not seem like a big deal. But in outstate Minnesota, where our dining choices are more limited and where getting the locals to try something new, like God forbid sushi, this ethnic restaurant opening is worth noting.

I have no idea whether the new Japanese restaurant will serve sushi. But I expect it will.

I hope Faribault area residents are daring enough to step outside of their safe pizza, burgers and fries, steak, batter-fried walleye, enchilada, lutefisk comfort zones to try Japanese food. Count me in the door to sample Japanese food, just not the raw fish sushi.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Trying vomacka at the old feed mill April 28, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:22 AM
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The Feed Mill Restaurant menu and specials, listed on a recipe card.

TYPICALLY, WHEN YOU walk into a restaurant, sit down and ask for the day’s specials, the waitress rattles off the choices.

But not at the Feed Mill Restaurant in historic downtown Jordan. During a recent visit there, the waitress hands me a lined white recipe card with the neatly-printed specials.

Now that’s different, I think, as I put down my menu and scan the card.

For $7.99, I can have liver and onions or hamburger steak served with mashed potatoes and gravy and soup. Hamburger steak? That’s different. How can hamburger be steak? (Later, when I google “hamburger steak,” I discover this to be a fancy word for hamburger patties.)

I continue reading the recipe card.  For a dollar less, I can have a hot beef, pork or hamburger commercial. A fish sandwich, chicken and tuna salad sandwich and hot dog options round out the specials.

Considering I don’t like most of the selections, I order a hot pork commercial and, given a choice, pick green beans over applesauce.

My hot pork commercial.

And then, when presented with the soup options, I face an unknown. Should I try the vomacka or stick with the more traditional vegetable beef barley?

“What’s vomacka?” I ask the waitress.

It is, she explains, a Czech creamed vegetable soup and vomacka means “gravy.”

I figure, what the heck, I may as well expose my taste buds to something foreign.

As my husband and I wait for our meals, I hear the waitress tell the elderly woman two tables away that carrots, green and yellow beans, potatoes, onions, celery and cream comprise vomacka. Dill seasoning flavors the mix. I don’t even have to eavesdrop. Her loud voice carries across the room where, even though it is the prime lunch hour, only my husband and I and the woman and her female companion are dining here.

Our beef and pork commercials arrive promptly. My pork commercial is just OK. The vomacka is tasty and I’m glad I’ve tried it.

Vomacka, a creamy Czech soup

And even though I expect a more historic feel to this restaurant, which is housed in a 1914 circa feed mill, I enjoy the view of rushing Sand Creek through huge plate-glass windows in a late 1970s addition.

When the waitress sees my camera, she suggests that I photograph the creek from a nearby foot bridge. “We’ve had professional photographers in here and it doesn’t work,” she says, looking toward the windows.

I want to tell her that I’m a professional writer and photographer too and that I know shooting images through these windows will not work. But, I hold my tongue. Clearly, she thinks that I am just a woman having lunch here with her husband.

My photo of Sand Creek, taken from a foot bridge near the Feed Mill Restaurant in mid-March. The dining room overlooks the rushing creek.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling