Days gone by . . .

Our lives are currently up in the air because our future plans decided to take a hard left turn in the last month.  So we’ve been exploring different possibilities.  One of which was moving back to Decorah, IA, where we first met.  Through various discussions, we decided against this and are planning on staying in the Twin Cities for the foreseeable future.  But these discussions had me reminiscing about when we lived down south.  Below is a list of some of the highlights of one small town in the “good corner of Iowa”.

A very regular stop from when I first moved down there was Oneota Food Co-op.  As I explained to people more than once, this way I got at least one healthy meal per week.  As true as that may have been, I also made it a regular stop because the food was really, really good.  This was almost entirely due to one cook there, Ruthie, but I’ll get to her in a bit.  The Co-op was also my go-to place for anything that the normal grocery store didn’t carry.  Which for 99% of my very early experiments this was a great place for supplies.  A few years ago they moved into a larger space and overall it was a very good idea.  However (and there always is one, isn’t there?), I miss the smaller, more intimate feel the old store had.  Of course along with the new store and new merchandise they had a bunch of new hires which completely diluted the pool of people I knew which didn’t help the coziness factor.  Still a great place, but like everything else it changes.  Not good or bad, just it’s different from what it used to be.

A welcoming sign.

Two of the community projects that I got involved in were the Puppet Project and Edible Alien Theatre.  The Puppet Project came about as a brain-child of one of my then bosses.  She was always involved in musical theater and did at least a workshop (possibly more, but I don’t remember) with a group here in the Cities called In the Heart of the Beast.  Heart of the Beast does puppet theater and parades with puppets of all kinds and sizes.  What we did was build a bunch of backpack mounted puppets for the annual parade.  That was a yearly occurrence for awhile and a huge hit with everyone.  Around the same time a different project got started.  This was the Edible Alien Theatre.  The idea was centered around dinner theater.  A little song and dance to go with a really good meal.  I was involved in various capacities with the first six years.  I was everything from backstage help to a troll to a cross-dressing cabaret girl (true story).  You may ask why I would put myself into embarrassing situations like this.  The truth is two-fold.  It was 20% because I missed my theater days from high school.  The other 80% was Ruthie’s cooking.  Oh, I should mention that Ruth was half of the brains for EAT (again, more on Ruthie later).  I’ve been called a food-whore many times in the past.  And, well, it’s true.  I will do anything given the proper food incentive.

I'm the troll on the left. And yes, that is the hostess under the sheet that we kidnapped for the show.

Again, me on the left. Not one of my better drag outfits. I look better in a slinky black dress.

One of the interesting people that I met through Edible Alien Theatre was David Cavagnaro.  He let us use his house one year for the show.  David is an amazing photographer who specializes in nature and garden photography.  He is well known for his shots and for good reason.  He has the dedication to find heirloom varieties of various vegetables, plant them, nurture them to beautiful fruition, and then finally arrange them and take breathtaking photos.  Total respect for him and his work.

Carrots are only middle-ish on my favorite veggies list, but this picture makes me want to eat lots of them.

And finally onto one of my longer standing food crushes.  Ruth is a self-taught cook (and rightfully proud of it) and a good ol’ Iowegian country gal.  I’m sure I first ran into her cooking at the co-op, but what I really remember is her catering the second StoryPeople Christmas party that I went to.  In each bite you could taste the love and passion she poured into the dishes.  I know that it’s a very over-used phrase, but I’m not using it flippantly.  Each little nibble was an excursion into the realm of food-gasm.  I’m not too proud of it, but I did eat myself stupid that night.  The copious amount of good wine probably didn’t help matters either.  Yes, it was a night of culinary hedonism.  This theme was repeated for quite a number of years and in quite of a number of places.  One of my favorite memories of Ruth is when she was cooking fried rice at the co-op.  The back entrance led through the amazingly tiny kitchen.  It was so small that having a cook and a dishwasher in it at the same time was ok as long as the dishwasher only leaned to grab stuff.  I’ve seen Ruth cook in this kitchen for years, but my favorite was the fried rice because it seemed like she was doing twenty different things at once.  Reaching for ingredients to throw in the wok, tossing the wok, scooping up some rice for the next batch, putting out plates to serve on, and I think you get the idea.  I realize that this is really no different than any other kitchen anywhere else during the lunch rush, but she has such a grace about her while doing this it was amazing to watch.  Also, she was more than happy to chat with you while you were waiting to grab your to-go box.  Or it could just be because the fried rice was my favorite dish of hers.  Since I’ve been several hours drive away from Ruthie’s cooking, I was extremely pleased to see that she started her own webpage called AWEsome Cookery!  She developed a gluten sensitivity around the time that I left Iowa, so she is an excellent resource for really good gluten-free dishes.  Oh, Ruthie, how I miss thee.

I couldn't find a decent image of Ruth, so I went with the next best thing: her fried rice!

To finish things off, a quick shout-out to my StoryPeople People.  Thanks for the best job ever!

This is a two piece sculpture that I designed while working at StoryPeople. Never a big seller, but I like it.