Grinnell United Methodist Church Dinner

Ragbrai 2011 - Thursday Night

Grinnell United Methodist Church Dinner

Grinnell, Iowa

Chicken and Noodle with Mash Potatoes

This was the church’s 3rd time serving a church dinner for Ragbrai. They were prepared to serve 600-700 riders. There were two dozen people in line at 3:30pm and the dinner started at 4pm. By 5:45 they had already sold 350 tickets. At a certain point of the night they were  letting guests know there was the potential of being able to serve more, but they would have to let the already paid guests in first. At about 7:45 pm they sold their last ticket serving 760 plates of food.
Guests were sold tickets and could sit in a very comfortable church sanctuary listening to live Dixie Land music. Numbers were put on the board once a table in the dinning room opened up. 112 guests could be seated at one time in their dinning area. Once the guest’s number showed up on the board they would enter the pie line. Yes, why not pick your piece of pie first. The best part of the dinner… A great selection of 11 different types of desserts. Peach, Raspberry, Apple, Rhubarb, strawberry Rhubarb, Blue Berry, Pecan & Pumpkin Pies, Brownies, Cheese Cake, and Almond Bars. The first pies they ran out of was the Pumpkin and Pecan pie. At the end of the night they had leftover pies that they sold for $2 a slice.
Pastor Len Eberhart stated that their chicken noodle dish was perfected by church members who have done Ragbrai rides before and know what is important to riders. They had a very well thought out system from their 3rd time serving Ragbrai and other big dinners. You could feel the love in so many details. The dinning room had big round tables with a chicken themed center piece. The tables gave you a relaxing area to share with others at your table. It was truly wonderful to open their church sanctuary for the riders to come in and sit and relax, in a air-conditioned area listing to music after a long, hard day riding a bike. Other wonderful hospitality was refilling your glass with water or iced tea often. After a long hot day you need to make sure you are replenishing yourself.
Stop to talk to guest to ask them why they pick this church dinner then the other 3 church dinner being held that night. The top to answers people stated on how they pick a church dinner is location and menu. After a long hard ride most don’t want to walk many blocks to find a place to eat. But some did state if it is for the right type of dinner they will get there. One group happened to have a car so distance didn’t matter, they were just look for the steeples. What was nice about this church was the bells were ring helping you find its location. Some many of the guest stated they didn’t want spaghetti or lasagna and this was what they want to eat.
A special delight was the murals on the wall of the dinning room, the conference room and in the hallway created by Tom Moberg, T.J Moberg and Joe Sciorrotta. The mural in the conference room which is in color depicts the Highway 6 close to Grinnell. You can see two cars on the road. The first electric car was made in Des Moines, Iowa by William Morrison 1890-1891. Not sure if this is one of the cars Morrison invented but Pastor Eberhart stated this was one of the type of car that could be see around here. The dinning mural depicts parts from the bible blending from one scene to another. You can find a bible in a rock, Garden of Eden, the 10 Commandments, and a frog. They were happy to explain and handout more info about this beautiful artwork.

Trinity Lutheran Church Ragbrai

Church dinner

at

Trinity Lutheran Church

Boone, Iowa

Taste of Iowa Dinner

Planned to serve 700 meals

250 Pork Chops

250 Chicken Breasts

100 Beef Kabobs

75 Vegetable Kabobs

100 Beef Noodle

66 dozen ears of Peaches & Cream style Corn

120 pies from a local orchard

The Taste of Iowa was organized by Vicki who wanted rider to get a taste of Iowa. From the three types of local meat to the local corn called Peaches & Cream. The number one experience they wanted riders to have was Pork of course. It was also very helpful
that some of the volunters were in the pork business and donated the grill to be used for the dinner. Kevin Westrum, one of these members, stated they got about 15 pork chops per side and 30 pork chops total from one pig. They had 250 pork chops and if you do the math, it’s 9 pigs. Gets you think with all the pork chops eaten on Ragbrai thought out the week, is there a sale on pork products because of the high demand.

Alice Westrum donated 120 pies for this dinner. 12 different types -Apple, peach, apricot, plum, blackberry, grape, gooseberry, current, raspberry, black raspberry, rhubarb, strawberry Rhubarb and Blueberry. Each pie had an imprint on the center on the pie stating what kind it was. A total of 720 pieces of pies. Alice lives about 8 miles north of Boone where almost all of the fruit came from her Orchard. The only thing she had to buy was blackberies do to losing those plants in her orchard. The pies that went first were the Current, Gooseberry and Strawberry Rhubarb. Current and Gooseberry are harder to find on Ragbrai so maybe this is why they went first. I had to try the Plum pie that reminded me of Rhubarb pie but much sweeter.
The corn was cooked in turkey friers, but instead of oil they used water. They used 6 friers at about 14 ears at a time for 10-12 minutes. A total of 66 dozen ears of corn was picked just the day before and they had a shucking party that day. By the end of the night they still had corn left over.
A lot of guests were groups of riders from all over the US. The longest distant guest for dinner was from Hawaii. Only a couple of families came to this dinner. They didn’t get as many guests as they hoped. Because of construction it was hard to get from the main area. But they did sell out of beef and noodle 2 hours into the dinner at 6pm. Vicki said they had a number of great comments and also handed out postcards for guests to send back to the church. She said they got a lot of comments like “this was the best I ever had on Ragbria”
The church goal was to treat the riders to a great meal and use the money to improve their church. Some of their improvements are for the school attached to the church, it needs to have the ceiling and flooring replaced. All the meat was cooked by 7:50 PM and there were still people walking in. They might have not sold all over their food items by the end of the night but they came very close to it. They even started selling whole pies for $10. It is always wonderful to see your money going to a good cause.

Ragbrai

Ragbrai is almost here.

Ragbrai is a bike ride across Iowa though a lot of small towns. It is one of the biggest turnout bike rides in the world. People come from all over the world but mostly the US to ride the week long bike ride. One of the nicest things on Ragbrai are the friendly people of Iowa. At the overnight towns you can find dinners at local churches. Get in line because so many times they sell out very quickly. The feeling you get from a church dinner is so wonderful and you know the money is going to a good cause too. I will be riding most of the week and plan to photograph some church dinners, Mr Pork Chop and any other food related things on Ragbrai.

Setting up locations

Altoona, Iowa has 6 church dinners

Altoona United Methodist Church - Bake Potato Bar, Gluten Free Hamburgers, Fruit Pies, and Gluten Free Brownies.

Grinnell, Iowa has 4 church dinners

Grinnell United Methodist Church - Chicken and noodle served with mash potatoes and homemade pies. While waiting in line you can listen to live Dixie Land music. This is the 3rd time Ragbrai has pasted though Grinnell. This dish was created for biker by some veteran biker and past experience with big dinners from the past. Make sure to see the mural on the dinning room wall.

Boone, Iowa has 8 dinner locations

Boone First United Methodist Church - Hot Beef sandwiches served with mash potatoes and coleslaw. Homemade pies for dessert. Ice Tea and Lemon aid.
Trinity Lutheran Church - A taste of Iowa Dinner. All items are raised and grown in Iowa.
A choice of Grilled Chicken Breast, Grilled Pork Chop, Beef Kabob or Veg kabobs served with noodles and Peaches and Cream style Corn. For dessert many different types of pies and the Iowa Cow Pie (no bake cookie).

Wild Rice Restaurant in Bayfield, WI

All images taken with Canon 5D 

Wild Rice Restaurant in Bayfield, WI near Madeline Islandto see inside the Kitchen and more click here

Three Course Tasting Menu

First:

Mixed Baby Greens Salad

or

Creamy Wild Rice Soup

Main:

Pan Roasted Superior Lake Trout

smoked scallop, truffled coconut curry sauce, rapini salad,

pineapple pearl couscous

or

Wood Fire Grilled Teres Major Steak

scallion-sour cream mashed potatoes, grilled white asparagus, truffled mushroom sauce

Dessert:

Mixed Berry Chantilly, Puff Pastry, Fresh Raspberries, Raspberry Glaze

or

Warm Pecan-Wild Rice Cake with homemade Cinnamon Ice Cream

El Tapatio

El Tapatio

1111 1st St South

Willmar MN 56201

320-214-04444

Enchiladas De Camaron

The sauce is to die for. Light and creamy, not heavy at all. A pleasant surprise to a Mexican dish. So many Mexican restaurants give you the same old stuff, but this one was great. This was a great dish to share since we were going to have tea at Spicer Castle at 4pm.

The interior of the restaurant had very beautiful wood booths, chairs and tables with art work on them. I have seen the same booth and table in Arizona and somewhere else. But it is very beautiful artwork I have to say. The birds were on the tabletop.

It was so good Larry had to finish every drop.

The Blue Door

The Blue Door
1811 Selby Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55104
(651) 493-1865

Checked out the Blue Door after seeing the Show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives episode. We just love the restaurant Guy Fieri finds. What sets the restaurant apart is their burger. Stuffed burger with cheese...do I need to say more. So we just had to try it for ourselves.

For starts we ordered Spam Bites (cream cheese, pickles & spam deep fried served with a sweet chill lime sauce), Beer-Battered Green Bean, and Cheese Curds (from Wisconsin) I would order again the green beans. It was a great twisted to eating your green beans. They even still had a nice crispness to them.

We all tried different burgers and found we didn't want to share. I eat the Bangkok Blucy and it was so juice. The burger was stuffed with mozzarella cheese that is soaked in coconut milk and topped with pickled carrots, cucumbers, red onions, and ginger. The dipping sauce was so delightful but each time I dipped I would loss some of my burger. A very messy burger but the best burger ever.

Christmas in Arizona 2010

Christmas in Arizona 2010

How it is strange to celebrate Christmas without snow on the ground. We opened our gift on the patio in our shorts enjoying the warm weather. Oh how I miss that warm sun right now just thinking of it. My in-law winter in Mesa, Arizona and it is hard for them to drive to Utah for Christmas. So this year we traveled to see them for Christmas. We checked out places around Phoenix, seeing what Arizona had to offer. We hiked Lost Dutchman's trail and could see for miles and miles. Not like home.


Since we were in Arizona why not check out the Grand Canyon. First day was wonderful. Checking each stop to see all the different views of the canyon. I see a trip in my future back to the Grand Canyon staying at the El Tovar Hotel and hiking down the 8 mile trail to the bottom. And yes staying at the Phantom Ranch lodging at the bottom of Grand Canyon.


When we were leaving the Grand Canyon we know it was going to Snow/rain but, it snow harder than what the weatherman predicted. We know now when it snows not to be on Hwy 17... The roads weren't that bad for us, but it was for must of the drives. It turned into a parking lot for 4 hours and only traveling 2 miles. Lesson learned.


One of my favorite shows is Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Guy Fieri. When we are traveling we try to check out one of the triple D restaurants. On our way back to Phoenix we stop at Brandy's Restaurant & Bakery in Flagstaff, AZ. We enjoyed the Southwest Chutney Melt and Grilled Portabello Mushroom sandwich that was so tasty and filling. This helped us get though those hours stuck on the highway.

On one our days in Phoenix we had to stop at Over Easy Restaurant. Best Breakfast ever....Caramelized banana & pecan brioche French toast.. It just melted in my mouth.


Again I see another trip back to Arizona. Grand Canyon, Over Easy and who know what other places to find.