Fans vote for their favorite Minnesota State Fair vendors

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Photos by Jeff Rutherford
Minnesota State Fair fans chose their favorites in the Great Minnesota Get-Together’s third People’s Choice Awards. In a ceremony held on Aug. 28 at the International Bazaar Stage, State Fair General Manager Jerry Hammer presented the following awards honoring fairgoers’ favorite vendors. Best Food or Beverage: The Sandwich Stop

Best Attraction: Foci – Minnesota Center for Glass Arts (glass blowing demonstrations at West End Market)

Best Value: Minnesota Apples

Best Customer Service: Railroad Art by John Cartwright

Best Product or Service: Borgert Products Inc. (concrete pavers, stones, retaining walls, fireplaces, outdoor ovens, and fountain kits for outdoor living spaces)

The awards program began in 2012 with the goal of recognizing outstanding vendors, while allowing fairgoers to determine the best of the best. During the first five days of the State Fair, visitors were invited to nominate their favorites in these five categories at any information booth, according to the State Fair. Continue Reading

GLOBAL GROCERIES | Need sunscreen? Diapers? Steichen’s Market is an oasis among food on sticks

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If you’re looking for something on a stick, Steichen’s Market and Deli at the Minnesota State Fair is not for you. The store’s motto is “Cease the grease. Nothing on a stick since 1933.” But for anyone looking for diapers or allergy medicine, this market might be your best friend.Those who actually stay full-time at the Great Minnesota Get Together – people who run the Midway rides or operate a food booth or who brought a four legged 4-H project to show – already know about Steichen’s Market and Deli. It’s the only place to go when you need cleaning supplies, diapers, cereal, aspirin, antihistamine, shampoo, deodorant, bandages, sunscreen, canned tuna, and even dental floss.But, even if you don’t work at the fair, if you’re one of the nearly two million people who attend only as a visitor, you’ve probably seen the signs for the store. You may have thought the place was off limits to sightseers. Continue Reading

The hands that feed us: Workers at the Minnesota State Fair

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Every year crowds of people head to the Minnesota State Fair, thinking about the food they’ll eat, the rides they’ll take and the people they’ll watch. But how often do we notice the people who make this whole thing happen? From the people who make and serve us the food, to the ride operators, to the folks who clean up after us — who’s working behind the scenes at the fair? This photo essay is just a start in telling the story of the many people who work behind the scenes to give us the Minnesota State Fair. Continue Reading

Food for thought, pennies for farmers

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For decades, my dad complained that people didn’t understand how little of the food dollar goes to the farmers who grow the food. Every time the farmer’s price went up — for milk or corn or pigs — the grocery store price went up by even more. When the farmer’s price went down, the grocery store price usually didn’t follow in that direction. Continue Reading

Audubon Society presses stadium authority on bird safety

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The shape of the Minnesota Vikings stadium is beginning to rise above the construction pit on the east side of downtown Minneapolis. The building will feature enormous transparent surfaces to let people inside the stadium see the downtown skyline, and to let those outside feel some of the excitement of what’s going on inside. [Audio below]

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Finding new keys to land ownership, careers in farming

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At a creative farm south of St. Paul near the town of Coates, two things about fruit, vegetable and horticultural growing are immediately clear. You cannot plant and raise perennial crops when renting land on a year-to-year lease. You cannot even think about having an orchard unless you own the land.

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Video: Exploring a Hmong land cooperative

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Minnesota is home to a large Hmong community of which many farm. One complication is that many do not have access to land that is affordable and near their homes. One group has committed to making a difference. The Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA) was awarded a Bush Foundation Community Innovation Grant which will allow the nonprofit organization to explore organizing a land cooperative.

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Tar sands, trade rules and the gutting of human rights for corporate profit

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A new report released today from IATP takes an in-depth look at how tar sands have developed from an unconventional, inefficient energy source to the spotlight of the corporate agenda as conventional oil supplies dwindle. Tar Sands: How Trade Rules Surrender Sovereignty and Extend Corporate Rights follows the development of energy policy from NAFTA up to current free trade negotiations to illustrate that while energy sources evolve, one trend remains constant: The protection of corporate profits at the expense of human rights, sovereignty and the environment. With new free trade agreements in negotiation, the time for action is here: The public needs a seat at the negotiating table. Continue Reading

Private sector to the rescue?

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As a newly minted think tank fellow seven years ago, I heard Bob Poole, the libertarian Reason Foundation’s thoughtful and nonpartisan transportation expert, argue in a local luncheon speech that private investment offered the only feasible way out of America’s chronic shortfall in funding roads, bridges, transit and other ways of getting around. Continue Reading