Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Connecting to community at the Faribault Farmers’ Market June 26, 2012

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A snippet of the Faribault Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning.

IT IS A PLACE of conversation and crafty creations, of canned garden goods and garden fresh produce, of homemade breads and muffins and sweet treats.

That, my friends, defines the Faribault Farmers’ Market in one swoop of a summary sentence.

Break that sentence down and you will meet Ken, the weaver; Bernie, the woodcrafter; Judy, the card maker; Sandi, the gardener; Denny, the candy maker; Rhonda, the crafter; Pat, the re-purposer of stuff; and many more vendors.

Bernie’s woodcrafted goods, right.

Saturday morning my husband and I shopped our local farmers’ market in Faribault’s Central Park because we appreciate these folks who work with their hands to bring us all that edible goodness, all those crafty creations, all those beautiful flowers and more.

Sandi’s stunning Asiatic lilies.

Cauliflower, from the chemical-free fields of a market vendor, in its natural, sun-exposed color.

More market flowers from a vendor who always sells beautiful, mixed bouquets.

We purchased Swiss chard, a bag of mixed green lettuce, red potatoes, cauliflower, a card to celebrate the birth of our new great nephew and four salted peanut bars, all for $12.25.

The red potatoes we purchased from Sandi, who planted her potatoes on April 13.

But the value of our shopping experience expands beyond our purchases. The value lies also in engaging with our community, with those who are our neighbors and friends and with those who become our friends through our conversations at the market.

Ken of Wegner Weavers weaves these tightly woven, superb quality rugs, runners, placemats and coasters.

After chatting with Ken, the weaver, I was blessed with one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received. Ken didn’t know me except as an occasional shopper. But he told me how much he enjoyed our visit, that I spoke in a comforting way. And, you know, I nearly cried for the unsolicited kindness of the weaver’s words weaving into my heart.

The vintage portable radio Ken, the weaver, brings with him to the market. In my opinion, Ken doesn’t need a radio; he makes music with his words. He says he doesn’t play the radio often as it can detract from business.

Satisfied customers leave the market with fresh onions.

Bernie’s kitschy yard art.

FYI: The Faribault Farmers’ Market is open from 7 a.m. – noon on Saturdays. Beginning on July 11, it will also be open from 1:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. Wednesdays.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

It’s berry pickin’ time in Minnesota June 18, 2012

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Berry picking at Straight River Farm near Faribault started two weeks ago and is expected to continue for awhile yet. Yes, berries are about two weeks earlier than normal this year in Minnesota. And, yes, Straight River is open weekdays. Call before driving out to the farm which is located in a peaceful country setting along the Straight River.

JUNE WOULD NOT BE JUNE without berry picking.

So on a recent Saturday morning my husband and I slipped into tattered jeans and worn t-shirts, laced our tennis shoes and grabbed caps as we headed out to pick strawberries at Straight River Farm east of Faribault.

Picking berries at Straight River Farm on a Saturday morning.

About 1 ½ hours later we’d harvested 21 pounds of fruit. We most definitely had to work for what we got. The berries really needed another day or two of sunshine. But we’ve come to expect that; all the berries cannot possibly ripen at the same time.

We usually have a competition to see who picks the most strawberries. This year we tied and picked a total of 21 pounds. See that fold-up garden kneeler in the right corner. I find picking much easier when I use that. But then I have an artificial right hip and I need to be careful how I bend and manipulate my body.

After dropping our two boxes of berries off at home, we took in the Faribault Heritage Days Soap Box Derby trial run and a garage sale before eating lunch and then getting down to the task of cleaning and bagging the strawberries.

My husband and I worked as a team to prepare the berries for freezing.

Plucking berries is the easy part. I’d rather creep between rows, back bent to the sky, than stand in the kitchen for hours washing, hulling, slicing and finally bagging berries. I’d rather chat with other berry pickers—including the young family next to us and the Florida retiree recently returned to his native Minnesota—than shut myself away in the kitchen on a gorgeous summer afternoon.

But such is the destiny of the berry picker.

I sliced and froze 13 three-cup bags of strawberries, no sugar added. I also saved some for eating fresh.

A shipped-in, store-bought strawberry can never match the taste of a fresh Minnesota berry, like those pictured here in this file photo of Straight River Farm berries.

FYI: We’ve been picking berries at Straight River Farm, 3733 220th Street East, Faribault, for years. To learn more about this multi-fruit and vegetable farm, click here.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My Minnesota hometown celebrates summer with its famous chicken, dancing in the street & more June 14, 2012

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I’LL NEVER FORGET the summer the neighbor boy coaxed me into riding with him on the Octopus during V-Esta Daze, my hometown’s annual summer celebration. What was I thinking as I settled into the amusement ride with Keith? What was he thinking?

I screamed the entire dizzying ride, scared out of my teenaged wits.

The same chicken dinner sign goes up every year inside the Vesta Community Hall. The price is updated when necessary.

While a carnival is no longer a part of V-Esta Daze, one aspect of the Vesta Commercial Club-sponsored celebration has remained constant. Since 1963, the Club has served its “famous barbecued chicken.”

It’s considered “famous,” I suppose, because V-Esta Daze became known for its chicken, just like Sauerkraut Days in Henderson is noted for its sauerkraut and Barnesville Potato Days is known for its potatoes.

The chicken dinner I enjoyed last summer at V-Esta Daze.

It is such comfortable familiarity, the same year-after-year offering of savory chicken grilled by the same volunteer men over a long pit of coals next to the old brick Vesta Community Hall that keeps locals and natives and those from neighboring towns returning.

This Friday, June 15, the crowds will be back, lining up at the hall between 5 – 8 p.m. for that famous chicken dinner.

The Lucan Community Band played under the shade trees outside the community hall and across the street from the elevator at last year’s celebration.

Outside the hall, members of the Lucan Community Band will settle onto battered folding chairs to entertain the crowd with old favorites while folks listen and visit, catching up on the latest.

Area residents brought their vintage tractors to town for a tractor and car show last year. This year the show has been expanded to include “anything with wheels.”

Over on Main Street, tractors and cars and more will line up for the “Anything with Wheels” show between 4:30 – 8 p.m.

My cousin Dawn’s son, Kegan, enjoyed a pony ride at the 2011 celebration.

The Vesta Vikings 4-H Club is sponsoring a petting zoo and will be selling root beer floats.

Kids picked up hoses in water fights at last year’s V-Esta Daze.

Kids will engage in water fights near the hall from 6 – 8 p.m. I remember, when I was growing up, how fire departments from neighboring communities competed against one another to push a barrel along a cable with water shooting from a fire hose. I can still hear the pounding of water against metal, feel the excitement as the barrel flipped and turned and rode the cable until one team slammed the barrel into a post.

The only contests this year are the bean bag tourney beginning at 6 p.m. and the pie eating contest at 10 p.m.

In between and after, from early evening until 1 a.m., two musical groups will entertain at the street dance. And let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like dancing on the pavement of your one-block-Main-Street hometown while drinking beer on a sweltering summer night.

At least that’s what I remember, from years ago.

The Vesta Community Hall, center of the V-Esta Daze celebration. To the left is the covered BBQ pit.

Along Minnesota Highway 19, this sign marks my hometown, population around 330 and home of the nation’s first electric co-op.

FYI: Vesta is located in southwestern Minnesota, half way between Redwood Falls and Marshall on State Highway 19.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

What would you do with this old bakery in Lamberton? May 31, 2012

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The former Sanger’s Bakery in Lamberton, a Minnesota farming community. I’d move the garbage bin in front of the building, replace it with a bench and add pots of vivid flowers.

I’VE PHOTOGRAPHED many an old building in a lot of small towns. My appreciation for history and architecture and for rural life keep drawing me back to Main Street.

One building in particular intrigues me. The former Sanger’s Bakery, a brick stronghold anchoring a corner in downtown Lamberton in southern Redwood County, possesses a sweet, timeless charm that causes it to stand out.

How long has this signage been painted on the front window of Sanger’s?

It’s not necessarily the exterior that catches my eye, although certainly the signage and sweeping arched front window and the fancy details in the brick appeal to me. Rather, it’s the interior which truly captures my interest.

The two times I’ve photographed the exterior, I’ve also paused to press my nose against the windows and peer inside to a snapshot of the past. You would swear the hands on the vintage 7-UP clock have not moved in decades. An old-fashioned candy counter and vintage lunch counter rimmed with stools look like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

A vintage sign suspended from the front of the bakery.

Honestly, you just don’t find places like this anymore. Martin Kuhar opened the bakery in 1928. The Sanger family purchased it in 1946 and eventually Bob, the youngest of Nick and Mary’s six children, bought the business in 1961. He was a 1955 graduate of the baking program at Dunwoody Institute.

All of this I learned on a recent stop at the bakery, where I found Bob’s obituary taped to the front door. He died March 30.

Just days before his death, this long-time baker was serving coffee to his friends. Oh, how I wish I could have been in that coffee klatch, listening to the stories.

I bet Bob would have shared plenty about the place where he served up baked goods, hand-scooped ice cream cones, malts and candy. He baked buns for local schools and churches and crafted wedding cakes. He also sold fresh eggs from his chickens and honey from his bees. He tended a garden.

After reading Bob’s obit, I desired even more to get into the bakery. I jiggled the front door knob, hoping the door might be unlocked. It wasn’t. I’m determined, on my next trip to Lamberton, to get inside the bakery, to share with you this treasure from the past.

In the meantime, owners of this building and Lamberton area residents, I hope you appreciate what you have here. I could easily see this former bakery reopened as an ice cream/sandwich/pie/coffee/gift shop. The location along U.S. Highway 14 only 10 miles from Walnut Grove, childhood home of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, is ideal. The area already draws plenty of tourists during the summer months.

The right owner, with the right ideas, a good business and marketing plan, and adept at using social media could turn this old bakery into a destination.

I can envision the possibilities.

Readers, what do you think? If anyone out there knows anything about plans for the old bakery, submit a comment. Or, if you simply have ideas, I’d like to hear those, too.

A side shot of the former bakery. Just imagine the possibilities for this spacious building. Let’s hear your ideas.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Piper pets a pig & more fun at tasty BBQ fest in Faribault May 21, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:48 AM
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One of the humorous signs I spotted on BBQ equipment at the Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival in Faribault.

FROM TEAM “Drop It Like It’s Hot BBQ” of Little Canada to “The Oinkologists” from Rochester to the “Uff da- That’s Good Barbeque” from Anoka to “Rebel Fire Que’n Company” from Lake City to “The Heat Is On” from North Saint Paul, the creative names of teams competing in the Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival in Faribault this weekend simply amused me.

Some 63 – 65 teams, depending on who you asked, vied for $10,000 in prizes during the Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned event at the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault on Friday and Saturday.

My husband and I each ordered pulled pork sandwiches from two different vendors for a taste-test comparison. Hog Wild BBQ and Grill served up a smoke-flavored, ham-like sandwich (above right) while Daddy O’s BBQ Shack presented a pork roast-like sandwich which I flavored with a North Carolina sauce crafted by Jeff LeBeau from The Depot restaurant in Faribault. We each really liked our distinct sandwiches.  However, the bun from Daddy O’s rated far superior to the one from Hog Wild.

This year the Faribo Drag-On’s car club moved its annual show to the fairgrounds as part of the BBQ fest.

From the tantalizing aroma of grilled and smoked meat to the savory taste of pulled pork sandwiches purchased from vendors to the friendliness of the BBQ teams to the tasty cheese samples served by area cheese makers to the 165 classic cars and trucks in the car show, it was an event that truly impressed my husband and me. You can bet we’ll be back next year for the third time.

Mark Born, who started the Minnesota in May BBQ contest 12 years ago.

Mark Born of team “The Heat Is On” from North Saint Paul has been participating in BBQ contests like this for 15 years and has the hardware to prove just how much he’s advanced from backyard smoking of fish and other meat. He’s a multiple grand champion BBQer in seven states and today competes in upwards of two dozen competitions annually as far away as New York, Florida and Las Vegas.

Not only that, 12 years ago Born started the Minnesota in May BBQ competition which has also been held in Cambridge and Austin. For the past two years, Faribault has hosted the event, this year adding cheese to the fest.

Fest-goers could sample and buy cheeses from Caves of Faribault, Alemar Cheese Company of Mankato and Shepherd’s Way Farms of Nerstrand at the cheese shack.

Judges evaluated 10 entries in the Grilling with Blue Cheese Contest. Each entrant received 9 ounce of St. Pete’s Select blue cheese from Caves of Faribault to use in preparing an entree or side dish.

Entries like this one in the Grilling with Blue Cheese contest were judged on appearance/creativity and taste.

Russ and Marti (no last names given; they’re judges) traveled 1 ½ hours from Forest City, Iowa, to judge their 32nd BBQ contest in seven years. As certified volunteer judges, they evaluate the BBQ entries for taste, tenderness and presentation/appearance. They try, they say, not to be too subjective in judging the foods which are delivered, six to a judge, in plain white Styrofoam boxes. Contestants who try “something too fancy” in presentation risk disqualification, Marti says.

And why does this Iowa couple judge BBQ competitions?

“You can’t buy barbeque like this anywhere in the country,” Marti says, explaining that the competitors use the best meats, the best everything, when they compete.

Talk to the BBQers and you’ll learn that some are competing for the first time while others have been at it for years, even decades. They all smoke/grill an abundance of meats, assuring the just-perfect entry to submit to judges.

A BBQer’s extra beef brisket not entered in the competition.

These folks are serious BBQers, pulling into the competitions with over-sized grills and bags of charcoal and secret BBQ recipes they won’t share.

But they also like to have fun.

The Oinkologists, brothers Andy and Mike Braun from Rochester and Hugo, brought along their “lucky pig.” It was their second competition, but first time using their good luck charm.

This pig, which oinks when you pass by it, rested on the hood of an old pick-up until 2-year-old Piper’s mom showed her daughter the pig. After initially backing away from the mascot for team “Drop It Like It’s Hot BBQ,” little Piper eventually petted her papa’s pretty pet pig. Try saying that three times: Piper petted her papa’s pretty pet pig.

A member of Rebel Fire Que’n Company of Lake City, in her fifth year of competing.

“It’s so kicked back,” my husband judged as we meandered among the BBQers’ tents and campers and BBQ equipment Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.

He’s right. The Minnesota in May BBQ festival rates as fun and kicked back—for both contestants and spectators.

DID YOU ATTEND or participate in the BBQ fest in Faribault this past weekend. If so, what did you think of the event? If you’ve attended/competed in a BBQ fest elsewhere, tell us about it via a comment.

CLICK HERE TO READ an earlier blog post from this weekend’s Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival in Faribault.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Touring the Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival May 19, 2012

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Grilling burgers Friday evening at the Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival.

ON THE EVENING BEFORE the big BBQ competition, the atmosphere at the Rice County Fairgrounds felt kicked back. Contestants settled into lawn chairs with bottles of beer, others clustered around campers, some tossed bean bags and yet other competitors chatted it up with the locals.

Next to the Two Little Pigs BBQ site, a bean bag toss competition was underway.

The guys from QU Smokin’ Krewe, Waukesha, Wisconsin, took time to tell me about their “pit” and show me the meat cooking inside the massive wood pellet fired grill behind them.

A pig on a vintage Ford pick-up, placed their by the team of two brothers and childhood friends originally from East Grand Forks, Minnesota.

Only a few focused on prepping for the competition at the Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival which continues today (Saturday) in Faribault.

Judging begins at 11:30 a.m. in seven competitive categories in this Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned event that has drawn 63 teams from all over—Appleton, Wisconsin; Rapid City, South Dakota; Storm Lake, Iowa; Delano, Minnesota…

They came with their stacks of wood and their bags and bags and bags of charcoal. They arrived pulling campers and massive grills. And they came with an attitude of fun, a sense of humor and a love of BBQ.

Many of the grills, like that of the Lone Star Smoke Rangers from Rapid City, South Dakota, are massive. But some contestants cook on ordinary backyard grills.

One of the many creative and humorous signs you’ll see at competitors’ sites.

Tami Schluter, co-owner of the historic Hutchinson House B & B in Faribault, brought her English bulldog, Butler, to the BBQ fest Friday evening.

One of the vendors at the BBQ fest.

Food vendor Hog Wild BBQ and Grill from Luck, Wisconsin, displayed its collection of trophies.

Daddy-O’s BBQ Shack, another festival food vendor.

FYI: For more details about today’s BBQ contest in Faribault, click here and follow this link to a previous blog post.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Come on over to Faribault for a BBQ & more May 17, 2012

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An example of the barbecued meat prepared for the 2011 Minnesota in May BBQ Contest.

MINNESOTA BARBEQUE LOVERS, this is your weekend.

The season’s first of six Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned competitions in our state kicks off this Friday, May 18, with the Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival at the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault.

And, folks, it’s free—unless you purchase food and/or beverages from vendors. And you’ll want to, once you smell the tantalizing aroma of BBQed meats. Vendors open to the public at 11 a.m. Saturday.

For the first time ever, Faribault hosted the Minnesota in May BBQ Contest at the Rice County Fairgrounds in 2011. Contestants cooked under tents during a morning downpour. By afternoon, the rain stopped.

Bubba and Sabrina’s home on wheels and traveling BBQ central parked at the 2011 Minnesota in May BBQ Festival. The couple owns Bubba-Q’s, a restaurant in Ottumwa, Iowa.

Artfully displayed bacon-wrapped pheasant prepared by a BBQ team from Appleton, Wisconsin, during the 2011 competition at the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault.

With $10,000 in prize money up for grabs, you can expect some top contenders vying on Saturday for awards in these divisions: turkey product, chicken, ribs, pork, beef brisket, anything butt and dessert. Contestants will be cooking all morning and into the early afternoon with judging from 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

These delicious-looking apple dumplings were entered in the 2011 dessert division.

Ten cooks will also compete in a “grilling with blue cheese” contest featuring Caves of Faribault cheese. Yes, we have some savory blue cheese made right here in my community and aged in sandstone caves. That contest is set for 3 p.m. Saturday.

Award-winning Amablu Gorgonzola from Caves of Faribault.

The Cheese Cave is a gourmet destination along Central Avenue in historic downtown Faribault. Stop by on Friday or Saturday if you’re in town for the BBQ Festival.

The Friday events, running from 4:30 p.m. – 7 p.m. include a Kids BBQ Competition,  BBQ Cook-Off and live music.

Now I’m not promoting this BBQ fest simply because it’s the nice thing to do. I attended last year and thoroughly enjoyed the festival, including chatting with numerous contestants. You would not believe how far these people travel, how much money they spend and how passionate they are about barbecuing. Click here to link to a blog post about the 2011 Minnesota in May BBQ Festival, which did not include cheese. Click here to read a post about BBQers Bubba and Sabrina from Iowa. And click here to read a third story from the 2011 BBQ fest.

The logo for the Faribo Drag-On’s car club on a member’s vintage car.

This year a car show, hosted by the Faribo Drag-Ons from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Saturday, has been added to the festival.

Other draws include a Saturday pancake breakfast from 7 a.m. – 9 a.m. ($5 cost), live music, food and non-food vendors and more. Click here to read a promotional flier about the Minnesota in May BBQ & Cheese Festival.

Contest and festival proceeds will benefit IRIS (Infants Remembered in Silence) and The Faribo Drag-Ons. Two more good reasons to attend.

If you can’t make it to the Faribault BBQ festival, you’ll have more opportunities from June through September to attend Minnesota barbeque fests—in Owatonna, Rochester, Marshall, Albert Lea and/or Worthington. Click here to read details from the Minnesota Barbeque Society.

HAVE YOU EVER ATTENDED a barbeque festival? Please submit a comment and share your experience.

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This file photo shows the Faribault Woolen Mill days after a flash flood in September 2010 and before the mill reopened a year later. The mill had closed in 2009 and was not in operation at the time of the flood.

P.S.  If you’re in town for the BBQ fest, take time also to check out the Faribault Woolen Mill retail store across the Cannon River just south of the fairgrounds. The store, in the recently reopened and revamped historic mill, opened Tuesday. Retail store hours are 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday – Saturday.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Morel Madness in Minnesota May 9, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:34 AM
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This morel measures about eight inches high.

MY SISTER, LANAE, and her husband, Dale, were giddy as two kids in a candy store when Dale walked in with the net bag plumped with a dozen morels.

Lanae grabbed her camera. I grabbed mine. And we photographed the largest morels I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen many of these tasty mushrooms…but the tallest, an eight-inch high chunky morel, certainly impressed me.

It’s been a bumper crop year for morels in Minnesota, according to my brother-in-law, who has been hunting for this savory spring treat since he was a kid growing up in southwestern Iowa. He remembers piling into the family car afer church on hot, humid mornings and heading to the wooded hills west of Defiance to search for morels.

Dale lives in southeastern Minnesota now and, through the years, has uncovered morel hotbeds. He revealed the location of his latest find—within a half hour of his Waseca home—and then instructed me, with a grin spreading across this face, that he’d have to kill me if I shared the specific location.

My lips are zipped.

However, Dale offered this publishable tip to finding morels: on the south side of wooded hillsides where there are dead elms or where elms once grew.

I didn’t realize just how serious my brother-in-law is about this morel business until he sat down at his laptop and clicked onto morels.com, an online community bulletin board/information center for “Morel Madness 2012.” Here you can see photos of the latest morel finds and, surprisingly, even find out where to find morels. Or you can inquire about buying and selling.

Dale tells me morels were selling recently for $20 – $35 a pound on Craig’s list and eBay.

While earlier this spring my sister and her husband bought morels, they have plenty of their own now. A week ago Saturday Dale harvested some 65 morels from one location. Morels are sprouting two weeks earlier and are more abundant than normal this year, probably due to the unseasonably warm April, he speculates. The season has nearly ended now.

But this morel-loving couple will still be eating mushrooms into the summer and beyond as Dale dehydrates them. For now, this pair savors fresh morels, sauteed in butter. Lanae even saves the butter and reuses it to fry eggs, to make grilled cheese sandwiches and to put on asparagus. The butter has a “nice nutty flavor,” she says.

All of this morel show-and-tell got me interested in morels, which I found once perhaps two decades ago in the woods behind my house. I’ll admit, though, to a bit of nervousness over identifying morels.

Dale showed me a photo of a poisonous false morel and then offered this advice: “If it ain’t hollow, don’t swallow.”

Translate that to mean that edible morels are hollow inside. If you click here to Mushroom-Appreciation.com, you’ll find even more useful identification tips. I wouldn’t want you heading into the woods uninformed.

Perhaps next year my brother-in-law will allow me to join him on a morel hunt, if I promise not to photograph anything specific to give away his secret location.

Dale’s latest stash of morels, harvested on Saturday morning near his Waseca home.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A sweet May Day surprise from dear friends May 1, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 3:13 PM
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TODAY IS MAY DAY, dear readers. Did you remember?

I had forgotten, until I opened the front screen door this afternoon and spotted a bag on my front steps. This bag:

The sweet May Day surprise friends dropped onto my front steps sometime today.

I knew, even before reading the tag, that this May Day bag (basket) came from my friends Tammy and Jesse and their children, Noah, Hannah, Jack and Amelia.

They are thoughtful like that—so giving and caring and simply the kind of family that you love because they are good and kind and wonderful and genuine.

I read the note wishing my family a blessed spring, untied the blue ribbon and found, inside, a plastic bag brimming with puppy chow. It is not dog food. I do not have a dog. Rather, this version is for humans and is made from crispy rice cereal squares, chocolate chips, peanut butter and powdered sugar. Yummy and addicting and my friends know just how much I enjoy this treat. I will stash away the puppy chow now or it will be gone before the husband and son taste even a morsel.

Love, love, love puppy chow...

CLICK HERE to find a recipe for puppy chow. Thank you, Tammy, Jesse, Noah, Hannah, Jack and Amelia, for brightening my first day of May with your unexpected gift.

Readers, there’s still time today to surprise someone you care about with an unexpected May Day basket/bag on their front steps.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Celebrating poetry and art in Zumbrota on a Saturday evening April 22, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 2:05 PM
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Artist Connie Ludwig's "Pantry Jewels," inspired by my poem, "Her Treasure." (Please excuse the glare on the glass; there was no way to avoid it while photographing the painting.)

Her Treasure

In the dark, dank depths of the dirt-floored cellar
she stocks a treasure-trove of jewels
in jars upon slivered planks—
golden corn nuggets,
amber chunks of ample beef,
ruby red tomatoes,
peas like unstrung pearls,
jade shards of dill pickles,
amethyst beets,
clusters of topaz apples
and an abundance of sauerkraut,
diamond of this hard-working German farm wife,
dweller of the Minnesota prairie,
tender of the earth,
keeper of the pantry
and guardian of the garden gems
that will adorn her dinner table
during the long winter months ahead.

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I MET “MY ARTIST” Saturday evening and saw the art she created, inspired by my poem (above).

And I use those words, “my artist,” because I feel connected to Connie Ludwig of Goodhue. She, like 25 other artists participating in Poet Artist Collaboration XI at Crossings at Carnegie in Zumbrota, took words of poetry and shaped them into art.

“Her Treasure,” under Connie’s paintbrush, became “Pantry Jewels.” The earthy watercolor painting of canned beets, pickles and peaches glows with the perfect balance of light and darkness, with sunlight filtering through glass and glinting off the golden rings that lock in garden goodness.

Connie understands my poem—the memories of my mother canning fruits and vegetables in her southwestern Minnesota farmhouse kitchen. She understands the dark dirt-floored cellar in which these preserves were stored upon rough boards. She understands the importance of honoring the women who honored the land by feeding their families with the fruits of their labors.

In the chapbook published for Crossings’ Poet Artist Collaboration XI, Connie writes:

My mother and aunts loved gardening and canning. They considered those “squirreling skills an essential part of themselves. I have wonderful memories of the ladies showing off, trading and sharing their canned jewels. And, of course, feeding them to us. The models for this painting came from the pantry of my husband’s cousin.

Connie, right, and I pose for a photo after a 90-minute presentation in which 26 poets read their poems and 26 artists talked about how the poems inspired their art. Note Connie's "Pantry Jewels" painting just above my head to the left. If I could buy this $490 watercolor on aqua board, I would in a snap. I love it that much and how it honors my rural roots. But I can't... If you're interested, contact Crossings.

Connie, thank you for transforming my poem into such down-to-earth, beautiful art that touches my soul. Your painting was all I hoped for in this process of poetry inspiring art.

A snippet shot of the crowd at Crossings at Carnegie, including Marie Marvin, center in blue. This place was elbow-to-elbow people during the hour-long gala reception before and after the poetry readings and artist talks held at the next door historic State Theatre. There were 26 poems selected from around 180 submissions for this juried Poet Artist Collaboration, now in its 11th year.

Thank you also to the artists and poets and guests who took the time to thank me for writing “Her Treasure.”

Thank you to my husband, Randy, for always supporting me in my writing.

To Crossings at Carnegie, and specifically Marie Marvin who opened the art center in 2001, thank you for acting as the driving force behind this collaboration. The phenomenal (or as I would say, overwhelming) turn-out is a tribute to the hard work of your team. I’d like to see more events like this through-out Minnesota that pair words and art.

To be one of the 26 poets selected for inclusion truly brought me joy. To mingle with so many poets and artists for an evening inspired and validated for me the importance of the arts in our lives.

Crossings at Carnegie, housed in a former Carnegie library, is a privately-owned cultural, visual and performing arts center in Zumbrota. I love the rural atmosphere with the hardware store and grain elevator just down the street. I need to return to Crossings as I was overwhelmed (crowd-wise and visually) on this busy evening.

I’d encourage you, if you have not seen this exhibit at Crossings, 320 East Avenue, to take it in before the April 26 closing date. Click here for more information.

Also check back here for an additional post from Poet Artist Collaboration XI.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling