How Rachel and Alison Help Make Up for Missing International Pickle Week.

Keeping an advertising blog while traveling is highlighted by happenstance. Today's post is powered by the appearance of a jar of Gedney State Fair Baby Baby Dills in our rooms here in New Prague. I had forgotten that Minnesota is so much of a “pickle state.” Wisconsin gets cranberries; the Land of 10,000 Lakes gets kosher dills.

Among many other varieties and circumstances. You can eat your way through the State Fair on pickles as Baking Junkie blogger Aimee demonstrates, “...a Pickle Dog. A pickle spear wrapped in cream cheese and pastrami. Absolutely fabulous and just like eating a giant pickle roll-up (another typically midwestern appetizer)”

International Pickle Week was last May, according to Minnesota Monthly writer Marie Flanagan, who also offered the classic Deep Fried Pickle Recipe...from Gedney. Which is why it's a pleasure to note that constant exploration and food purchasing by Rachel Baron and Alison Bond is such a great payoff for a marketing blogger like Signalwriter.

Not only didn't I remember the pretty darn famous Gedney Pickle Company from up here, but I didn't know that the...pickle giant...had been marketing a perfect peck of pickle products for this part of the world: its “State Fair” line-up.

Briefly, the first Gedney pickle factory opened in Minneapolis in 1881. A hundred or so years later, as a Minnesota State Fair sponsor, the company began packing and marketing top-prize-winning pickle recipes from ribbon winners there in 1991 with the Kosher Dills of Genevieve Spano and the Bread & Butter Pickles from Nita Schemmel. (The present jar of Baby Baby Dills is a prize-winner from Kathy Earnest, Lindstrom, MN.) And the locally famous jingle, “Get me a Gedney, it's the Minnesota pickle,” created by freelancer Sandy Buckholtz, grabbed hold up here.

Gedney has grown far beyond selling pickles from the back of horse-drawn wagons – it expanded by buying brands like Cain's to capture New England; and produces pickles for both Del Monte and Target's Archer Farms brand lines. Most important: Gedney's State Fair line maintains a resolute local focus, the “pickles here” of grocery marketing and promotion. For a company like this, thinking local continues to pay off, whether local equals Massachusetts or Minnesota.

Travel broadens one's view of advertising and promotion, alongside regional foods and events. Good to pick up a little fresh knowledge (and some pickles) while on the road. We'll be trying out these at the Slavik family reunion. Maybe I can tell you how Kathy's recipe has turned out.

PS: You betcha – that's Kathy right there on the label.

Schell's Blonde

About 150 years back, Augie Schell started a brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota. It was just one of hundreds of breweries in the state. I recall being told that, as late as 1950, there were more than 200 independent brewers still operating in Minnesota; by the time I moved to Minneapolis in 1972 there were just a handful left.

August Schell Brewing Company was one of them; the outfit keeps on keeping on. Now that I'm 1300 miles away in Texas, it's hard to be certain just why Schell has survived and thrived, but I put it down to good brewing – and hanging on 'til the micro-brew trend caught on. (In this regard, it's acting like Shiner's in Texas.) Today, the New Ulm brewery lists two “original” brews, five year-round craft beers, two Grain Belt brand beers and seven – count 'em – seven “seasonals.”

So here I am in Minnesota on during a gorgeous, completely unseasonal early summer week. Sure enough, the craft-brew culture is alive and well here. I stumbled onto Schell's blonde double-bock, Maifest, and I gotta say it's outstanding. I'd asked about what the restaurant was offering and when Nick-the-Manager said he had this seasonal from Schell so I had to sample it – it's part of my job, right?

Smooth as smooth and malty sweet (a “unique” taste), Maifest is a seasonal specialty beer offered in the spring months. It is brewed with a blend of three different specialty malts and the finest imported and domestic hops. It's a Helles Bock-style beer from Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in Munich, classic “May beer” and ohboyohboy it is tasty!

I hereby report that this is fine beer* on a Monday afternoon at the beginning of June. If you don't believe me, double-check with Barbara who helped me sample it. Years ago, Ranier Brewing in Washington state made a hit of advertising “the beer here.” Today, in rural Central Minnesota, Schell's is still showing why that counts.

As nearly as I can tell, the advertising is word-of-mouth big-time. So here's the word. Try Maifest before its season is over. Ta from the road...

*Served and consumed at The Fishtale Bar and Grill (no “e” on the end, bless 'em), New Prague, MN.

Yankee Land

Way down upon the Wabash
Such a land was never known.
If Adam had passed over it
The land he’d surely own.
He’d swear it was the Garden
He play’d in as a boy,
And straightway called it “Eden”
In the State of Illinois.

Well, that’s where we’re headed now. Eventually. Off on our “late spring break” of a road trip. Yankee Land. Minnesota is our first destination, then on to Chicago for a family wedding. All around, we’ve been promised fair weather…no snow, in other words.

I’m not certain I believe those promisers, even if they’re family. You know as well as I do that the states “north of the Line” are the next best thing to Arctic regions.

Bless ‘em, they’re channeling travel ads, just like the verses that begin and end this post. This traditional folksong was damned popular in the early 1800s. Property speculators used it to attract settlers and sell land in the “fertile land of El-A-Noy.” Don’t you dare believe it – I have been in Chicago in the middle of winter and the wind that comes off Lake Michigan freezes the cones off the pine trees. Starting around October.

Today we’re driving north. Unlike those early 19th Century settlers, we’re using our Prius. The mpg’s not as good as oxen but we’ll get there faster. I’ll keep up the blog while on the road. Later, y’all.

She’s bounded by the Wabash,
The Ohio and the Lakes,
She’s crawfish in the swampy lands,
The milk-sick and the shakes.
But these are slight diversions
And take not from the joy
Of living in this garden land,
The State of Illinois.

Alien Visitors

There’s nothing more enjoyable than watching “foreigners” enjoy Houston. So the visit here last week by Art and Bridget Hoffman (our niece and nephew-in-law) from the Frozen North was welcome. Their company was worthwhile in so many ways – Barbara and I would like to thank them for braving Southeast Texas in high summer; for being excellent guests; for causing me to drink more beer in seven days than I’ve had in seven months; and for the enthusiasm with which they tackled this part of the state.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a couple “learn” the city so quickly, the way they did: Houston is not an easy urban area to traverse and they handled our traffic and our streets effortlessly. They visited Austin. They visited Galveston. They visited strange eating places and even stranger bars. And they still had time for a great day in the pool with our grand-daughter Maddy (the one in the middle).

It’s also a bit strange to be out with a couple who got carded at virtually every bar and restaurant we went to. One waitress graciously offered to scrutinize my driver’s license, which made me feel – for an instant – somewhat more youthful than I normally behave.

The fact that their visit brought sunshine back to town was the biggest non-human treat of all…and we kept enjoying it after they returned to Minnesota. Bridget enjoyed the sun; Art discovered one of Texas’s natural wonders: Shiner Bock. A fine time was had by all. Thanks for the visit. Y’all come back soon, y’hear?