Live Chef Demonstrations
The Minnesota Cooks
Chef Stage
We’re excited to have the Minnesota Cooks team back as our Chef Wranglers and event emcees for a second year. You know them from their Minnesota Cooks Calendars, The Farmer and the Chef book, and the PBS Farm Fresh Road Trip TV shows.
A project of Minnesota Farmers Union, Minnesota Cooks has supported and fostered connections among our state’s farmers, chefs, restaurant owners and local markets for over 20 years.
And now they’re center stage at MN Garlic Festival!
Download the 2023 Chef Demo recipe booklet HERE.
2024 Recipe Booklet coming soon.
Claudine Arndt,
Chef Wrangler
Claudine Arndt is the Director of Minnesota Cooks and Membership for Minnesota Farmers Union. She is the author of the stories featured in the annual Minnesota Cooks calendar and the primary author of the stories in The Farmer and the Chef: Farm Fresh Minnesota Recipes & Stories. With a background in nutrition, Claudine is a longtime fan of quality, local foods and all the goodness it brings to people, the planet, and local economies.
Her favorite ways to enjoy garlic include super garlicky pesto and roasted garlic spread on steak and veggies.
Chef Nettie Colόn, Red Hen Gastrolab
10:30 a.m.
Menu: Sopa Crema de Ajo Catalana (Catalonian Cream of Garlic Soup)
A transplant by way of New York and Puerto Rico Nettie Colón spent her formative years learning traditional cooking methods of the island with her grandmother on her farm in the remote Puerto Rican town of Utuado. She got the love of cooking from her abuela, and to this day, that influence is very much alive in every dish that she prepares.
Chef Nettie’s passion of traveling for food has led her to work all over the United States & abroad, with culinary adventures to West Indies, Wales, Spain, France, Sardinia, Southern Italy, Yucatan Peninsula, Costa Rica & Panama. She was Chef de Cuisine at Lucias Restaurant & Wine Bar for a decade. She also taught the history of Mayan cuisine in the Biosphere Reserve of Sia’an Ka’an in Tulum, Yucatan, where she fell in love with traditional Mayan cooking methods.
She is Chef/Owner of The Red Hen Gastrolab Concepts (Red Hen Gastrolab, Red Hen Chinchorro & Red Hen Table) which is committed to the preservation of the relationships built around food traditions in the kitchen and at the table. She is also Resident Chef at The Break Room Minneapolis at The Historic Machine Shop.
Morgan Baum - Clay Coyote Pottery
11:30 a.m.
Menu: Tagine Chicken with Preserved Lemons & Green Olives
Morgan (Jindrich) Baum is the Owner and CEO of The Clay Coyote, a Gallery and Pottery Studio downtown Hutchinson, MN. For decades her family has been making quality, handcrafted, functional pottery, and their year-round Gallery carries artists from across the country and is the perfect place to find a unique, handmade gift for a loved one (or yourself). The Clay Coyote Studio continues to carry on the family legacy with the Clay Coyote Chef’s Line of Flameware, bake-ware, and serving pottery; all designed to enhance your kitchen. And the Studio is also home to a small business incubator for emerging ceramic artists.
Meet up with her on Instagram @TheClayCoyote.
Chef Matthew Jensen & Amber Jensen, La Ferme & The Crowded Table
12:30 p.m.
Menu: Chocolate Beet Cake with Roasted Garlic and Brown Butter Ice Cream
After running farm-to-fork restaurant La Ferme for 11 years in Alexandria MN, Matthew and Amber noticed the disconnect between people and where their food comes from, often creating large gaps in the food chain. They had a desire to help reconnect people with the source of nourishing, clean local foods by bringing the table to the farm.
Now, they’ve spent over a decade fostering meaningful connections with local producers, supporting their businesses via La Ferme, and directing patrons to purchase their goods. But they wanted to take their commitment further and decided to do so by hosting curated multi-course meals directly on farms, often within the farmers’ homes: The Crowded Table. Their aim is to not only showcase the meticulously grown produce but also to educate diners on the significance of sustainable, organic, and locally sourced foods.
Beth Dooley, Beth Dooley’s Kitchen
2:00 p.m.
Menu: Great Garlicky Noodles
James Beard Award winning food writer, Beth Dooley, is a columnist for the Taste section of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune and appears regularly on MPR Appetites with Tom Crann. She co-authored The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen with Sean Sherman, winner of the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook, 2018. Other titles include: Savory Sweet: Preserves from a Northern Kitchen, In Winter's Kitchen: Growing Roots and Breaking Bread in the Northern Heartland, Minnesota's Bounty: The Farmers Market Cookbook, The Northern Heartland Kitchen and she coauthored Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland with Lucia Watson, James Beard Award finalist.
Beth is an Endowed Chair, Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA), and her latest book, The Perennial Kitchen: Simple Recipes for a Healthy Future, provides information about regenerative agriculture and sustainable growing practices to connect home cooks with these delicious, valuable ingredients.
Chef Beth Fisher, Arboretum Culinary Lead
3:00 p.m.
Menu: Garden Ratatouille
A creative force in the Twin Cities culinary scene for many years, Chef Beth Fisher has shaped a number of local restaurants and brands, including Lucia’s, The Whitney Hotel, Wise Acre Eatery, Thirty Bales, Rustica, French Meadow and Kruse Markit.
In 2023, Fisher joined the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, where she established the Kitchen Classroom and a new culinary curriculum for adults at the Burton and Virginia Myers Education Center and Foodscape at the Farm at the Arb. Fisher’s current focus is overseeing the relaunch of the Arboreteum’s cafe, which will serve to not only feed Arboretum visitors, but to also share the story of Arboretum-based research, education and conservation.
Recipes
