Jacob and Jamie: A Week in Minnesota

Thursday, 26 September 2013

A Week in Minnesota - Part 1

My delicious and much needed toasted sandwich

Again, before we flew out, it was planned that we would be staying with friends of friends back in the UK who live in Minnesota. The drive from Chicago was supposed to be just over seven hours which for me isn't usually a problem at all but we hit some really bad traffic as soon as we joined the interstate as a truck/lorry had keeled over into the central reservation. It didn't look good. Anyhow, this added another hour or so to the journey and in the rather unseasonal weather with temperatures soaring above the nineties, it was a pretty tough drive.

We got there in the end, though this is where the surprise comes in. The friends whom we were invited to stay lived on a huge farm. It was so great to be ushered into their church dining room, geared to seat (if I'm correct) over a hundred and sixty people, and be fed toasted sandwiches (they make the bread themselves) and tomatoes and peppers grown in their own garden. By this time I was getting pretty excited and that's when I saw the kitchen... It looked awesome!

Now, for me as a wanna-be chef, the idea growing and making your own produce is just fantastic. You personally are in charge of quality control every day and menus you can plan according to the seasons which is much healthier and the produce is so much more flavoursome. Fantastic!

Dicing pineapple for a sweet 'n' sour sauce

The day after next, I was introduced to the art of mini-barns which are great fun to work on. To make one you need, for want of a better word, a recipe so I caught on. After I helped make dinner in the kitchen and made a sweet 'n' sour sauce from scratch while frying kilograms of wild rices. That's hot work!

Stay tuned, there's a whole lot more to come...

Jacob