Michelle Mazzara’s company, Luvafoodie, started out in 2014 as a dating website where single foodies could meet. From there it quickly evolved into a love affair with food, starting with chocolate and caramels and moving into spice blends.

Scott Pampuch, chef at 4Bells and the new Minnesota Prince of Porc, didn’t make a big deal about winning this year’s Cochon 555 event. He said it was a minor thing compared to the big news of the week.

Persimmons infiltration of quick-service restaurants is expected to grow by 101 percent in the next four years, according to the United Fresh Produce Association’s spring insights report. The majority of persimmons will be shipped frozen, since the squishy fruit is more challenging to ship fresh.

Minnesotans are a hearty bunch, but weather and other unforeseen factors impact our restaurant scene. To get some sort of barometer on how the industry is doing, Womply a front of the house software company for restaurants, has analyzed daily transactions for the 2018 calendar year at 42,223 local restaurant in the U.S., including Minnesota.

Being greeted by an oddly realistic dinosaur—if you ignored his semi-hidden jean-clad legs—was just one of the treats in store for visitors to the National Restaurant Show in Chicago the extended weekend of May 18-21.

Within six weeks of applying to get her Tipsy Pies into the Minnesota State Fair in 2012, Sara Hayden was scrambling. She had heard rumors in the food community that it took years to get into the fair, so when she got the call, she wasn’t mentally—or piewise—prepared.

Add one more kudos to Sue Zelickson’s long list of accomplishments: She’s a lifesaver. At the annual women’s breakfast sponsored by Women of Perspectives, Jalilia Brown, a former participant in the Kids Café program, said the woman who is the founder of Kids Café in St. Louis Park, Women Who Really Cook and a host of other programs that help women, turned her life around.

Bite Squad, which was founded in Minneapolis and acquired by Louisiana-based Waitr, has added breakfast service for individual and small group orders in its home market. Breakfast will be delivered every day starting at 8 a.m. The expanding morning delivery services, launched on Tuesday, April 16, and it’s the second Bite Squad market in the country to offer this new option.

Feeling particularly creative and lucky? The deadline to submit your application to the Powderhorn Park Culinary Arts Show in October is June 3.

There aren’t a lot of firsts in the competitive world of foodservice, so it was quite the coup d’etat that Reinhart Live was the first-ever food show held in the revised historic Minneapolis Armory, on April 16.

If you’re looking for something to celebrate in May, look no further than the humble hamburger. May is National Beef Month and National Hamburger Month. You can plan seven days of diner visits during National Hamburger Week, the second week of May. Or, fire up the grill on May 28, National Hamburger Day. Not enough for you? Don’t worry: Americans love burgers so much that July 28 and December 21 have also been designated Hamburger Days. If you like cheese, make note that September 15 is National Double Cheeseburger Day and September 18 is plain old National Cheeseburger day. Whew—that’s a lot of beef!

It’s not every day that the James Beard House takes its dinner on the road, so we thought we’d give you the menu of the Minneapolis stop of the Celebrity Chef Tour, held at Eastside in Minneapolis, April 14 (highlights from the event will be in the editor’s letter in the May issue).