August hodge podge

As a coworker and I tucked into a possible last meal at Totino’s Italian Kitchen in Northeast Minneapolis last month (their hand-made cheese ravioli was very good), I thought again about the loss of a long-standing neighborhood restaurant. There are the obvious connections between food and comfort, but a restaurant—or bar—has to offer ambiance to stay in business. Can ambiance be concretely defined?

No.

When I lived in Chicago, I ate at least weekly at an Italian restaurant housed in an aging, substantially run down brick building next to the El tracks. The booths were wooden and mostly uncomfortable, the tables teetering, and, once, after an annual fumigation, the occasional cockroach crawled from the walls in its death throes. At that time in my life, sharing an apartment with earwigs in an old, otherwise well-kept brownstone, I just turned an empty water glass over the wheezing insect and continued eating. “Yeah, it’s an old building,” a server said, after observing my table guest trapped in the glass. “Show me one in this city that doesn’t have a few.”

The lighting was dim, the servers hip and attentive, the wine good and cheap (empty bottles lined the dining room walls, the labels signed by the regulars who drank them—yes, my friends and I had a couple up there), and everything was prepared from scratch, down to the pasta. When I moved back to Minnesota, I went through serious withdrawal. I went so far as to call down to the restaurant’s kitchen in the midst of trying to recreate one of their simple white wine sauces, and the chef walked me through the process. I still remember him shouting through the phone, “And as soon as dat butter is melted, it’s done!”

When I go back to visit, I still stop in, although the restaurant has moved to a new building. The old one was demolished for a condominium development. The food is the same—made from scratch, tasty and inexpensive—but the vibe isn’t. I miss the old place.

I am sure that’s the same feeling many long-time Northeast residents feel about Totino’s. I was never a regular, having visited there maybe once or twice before. I lived in Northeast Minneapolis in the mid-1990s, when people were just considering the neighborhood as a redevelopment opportunity, and the last five years have brought considerable change to both the atmosphere and population of the old working class part of Minneapolis.

While places like Whitey’s and Kramarczuk’s will continue to anchor the area, what new restaurant will establish itself for a decades-long run? Food quality, price point and the elusive “ambiance” factor in. There’s a few candidates in the running, Brasa Rotisserie from Alma chef and owner Alex Roberts being the most recent. A co-worker and I swung in for lunch a day after its opening, and enjoyed our experience. It’s a casual joint, with garage doors (it was formerly a service station) opening to what I assume will become an outdoor seating area. The interior is warm and simple, as is the menu: traditional Southern-style-with-a-twist fare, spice-rubbed rotisserie chicken and slow roasted pork shoulder, and a slew of side offerings, including collard greens, sweet potatoes with Andouille sausage and pink beans and yellow rice. There’s beer and wine, everything’s priced very reasonably while meeting Roberts’ Alma quality standards and its eat in or take out. All good starting qualities for regular, repeat business from area residents. It will be interesting to see how the restaurant evolves its character.

In my neck of the woods in St. Paul, at the intersection of Western and Selby avenues, there are four eateries: W.A. Frost and Moscow on the Hill on the upscale dining end of the restaurant spectrum, Costello’s on the bar-fare end, and Fabulous Fern’s smack-dab in the middle. All quite different, yet each draws a steady crowd of regulars from the neighborhood, and many cross over from one to the other on different nights. Why? Their menu is good and priced fairly for what it is, and each have an intangible ambiance that their customers crave as much as their food. And, if any were to leave, much like the hole Totino’s will soon leave in Northeast, each would be sorely missed.


The school issue

As we do each month, we have one or two “theme” articles. This month, for example, we focused a bit on restaurant design (see the front page story titled “Filling the space”) and school foodservice trends (read the other front page story, titled “Raising the grade”). As does any magazine that relies on advertising, the erstwhile ad rep tries to “sell” these feature ideas to potential advertisers, whose services could be viewed on pages with or near these articles. Well, let’s just say there was a lot of interest out there.

School nutrition is big news, and schools have become a competitive market for manufacturers. Why? Thanks, in large part, the Child Nutrition and WIC (Women, Infants and Children) Reauthorization Act of 2004. Times they are a’ changin’ in the school lunchroom. Actually, they were before the legislation. Most of us can remember one option in the school lunch line, and the dawn of “a la carte” programs (items sold in large part to make up for budget shortfalls, and included everything from vending machines to burger and fry concepts in lunchrooms).

A la carte items were frequently not the healthiest, but certainly weren’t the main cause of the current childhood obesity epidemic. For that, we can thank the proliferation of fast and processed food diets and a decline in physical activity.

I’m simplifying this, of course. But the short story is, there is a renewed and long-overdue interest in child nutrition, and our schools have taken a leading role to steer the right course. The responsibility is awesome. School foodservice programs have added breakfast to help kids tackle the day and added ethnic and special-diet foods. School districts have instituted Wellness Programs, which include guidelines for nutrition and physical activity.

School foodservice and nutrition, in our minds, deserves regular coverage, and, for that reason, beginning this month, we will dedicate a page covering those issues. Keep an eye out for it.


Action at ICCC

FSN has reported on the International Chefs Culinary Center in Burnsville since its opening in 2004. It’s a premier banquet facility, but also an educational center for working chefs and culinary students. Now, ICCC partners Ron Achterkirch and executive chef Jeff LaBeau are ramping up that latter part of the business.

The ICCC has been in touch with Southwest Minnesota State University to hold some of its culinology program classes at ICCC. Further, the ICCC is looking to establish it’s own culinary program. “It would be one year, full-time, for $10,000,” Achterkirch said, and include an internship program.

Achterkirch includes community education as a piece of the equation, and recently hosted at the ICCC a cooking class for single mothers to teach them how to prepare quick, healthy meals for their families and basic nutrition information from a University of Minnesota nutritionist. With its massive kitchen and multiple banquet rooms, Achterkirch thinks the ICCC is ideal to handle the various programs, and hopes to get them all up and running soon. Those interested in getting involved, contact Achterkirch at 952-808-1111 or rona@grandemarketplace.com.