Shine a Light for Community-MN Artists

If you come South Minneapolis, you need to visit the Community-MN artists stall in the global market, off of Chicago and 27th.  This stall consists of artwork from at least 30 Minnesota artists. The show case items included things like postcards and jewelry made out of old, used wristwatches.  Also recycled materials that have literally been melted down from an artist's stove in order to make earrings.  Finally yarn weaved ornaments that resemble animals like cats and birds, dragons and frogs.

"Yes Chef" by Marcus Samuelsson.

  "Yes Chef" a memoir:by Marcus Samuelsson. One boy and his sister were born in Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Adaba. When their mother dies of  tuberculosis, the girl and boy are sent to live in Sweden with a new family.  From there, the boy:Marcus would make a life for himself as a chef in all parts of the world:including New York.  He begins by studying at the Culinary Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden. 

  I enjoyed when the narrator talks about the first time he: felt gushing water from the faucet as a child in Sweden, or when he first ate a piece of fruit, and spit it out after the first initial bite, or when he thinks of his mother. 

 "When I think of mother....", he says, "She is berbere.  For that is what all Ethiopian women are.  Its woven into the genes, and all Ethiopian women know how to make berbere." (Berbere is a hot-tasting Ethiopian paste made from garlic, cayenne pepper, coriander, and other spices, often used in stews)   

Samuelson goes on to say that most Ethiopian women go their entire life without their picture taken.

He can picture his new adopted mother in Sweden, and how (Global Dig)she cooked with frozen food: canned corn and canned pineapple. 

 But on the weekends,  he'd visit his grandmother Helga.  This was the woman who taught him how to cook.  His grandmother lived in poverty as a young adult.  She was a house servant, and she did what she knew how:cook.  And she cooked all her meals from scratch.

I enjoyed how the author describes the way to eat shrimp, take the shrimp and dump out the insides of its head into your mouth.  

I thoroughly enjoyed Samuelson's journey to Switzerland, by train and how he met people of all backgrounds, and the closer he got to Munich, the more diverse it became. As he was on the train, traveling to his new cook's job,  he says that he encountered Greeks who would share their olives and breads, and spreads that were similar to humus and how each culture shared their food, but the French didn't share with him at all, even as they caught his eye on the train. 

You could see this very brave journey made by a man who was only nineteen-years-old at the time, and how he talks about how going to college wasn't what he wanted to do.  He knew he wanted to be a chef, so he would have to take an unpaid internship as a cook, for the time being, until he could became the chef he wanted to be.  

 One of Samuelson's dreams was to cook in a french restaurant. He sent many letters and requests for positions in France.  Then finally, he received a reply that their may be an opening for a chef.  When he takes an hour long train ride to France he is turned away three times by a worker who says that the chef is not available.  When he finally is met by the chef, he is turned away because of the color of his skin.  And he is not even offered shelter for the night in exchange for one days' labor.   

 I liked when Samuelsson knew he was successful in the restaurant business, when his restaurant "Aquavit" in New York, received three stars.  You know when your restaurant is good, he says, when your reservations are all filled up, when your getting flowers and food from supporters.  Getting three or more stars is like the the Academy Awards.  You know when your successful, he continues, when Swedish chefs are asking to work at your restaurant.

 It wasn't all sunshine and roses for Samuelson's, when Samuelsson opens a restaurant in Minneapolis (the author of this blogs hometown!!).  The restaurant, Aquavit is forced to close. 

"How the hell does a Swedish American restaurant fail in a Swedish American Heartland, we would move on, that was the one thing I knew how to do" Samuelsson says.(Global Dig)