American Swedish Institute: “Papier” Opens At ASI

The Midwest debut of “Papier” at ASI has been made possible in collaboration with @swedeninusa.

You don’t need to be in a romantic relationship to enjoy these seasonal specials!
Eater Twin CIties: Whether you love or hate February 14, it is a day of bright colors and spontaneous desserts in the middle of a month of old, gray snow. For that reason alone, it has the potential to be something to look forward to — even if just to break up the monotony of a Minnesota winter.
Everyone should be able to enjoy what Valentine’s Day has to offer, whether they’re in a relationship or not. Really: what about all the people are single by choice? Or those who are heartbroken? To quote the ever-so-wise Dr. Akopian from the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, “Love doesn’t have to be a person. It can be a passion.” (You know, like food.) So celebrate love in whatever form you have it: self-love, familial, friendship, or otherwise. Brush off those societal expectations and order yourself something special.
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Travail’s indulgent kit is listed as serving two or more people, but as with all of these options, let’s leave that up for interpretation. The dinner includes elevated dishes such as beef Wellington with a lemon truffle sauce, prosciutto-layered pave potato, king crab salad with crackers, curried deviled eggs, red velvet chocolate cake trifle, chocolate-covered nuts, and a butterscotch pancake mix for breakfast. If you really want to go for it, the $350 luxury box, recommended for two to four people has all you could ever want and more. And then some more.
Preorder on Tock to pick up your meal at Travail starting at noon on February 13.
Do you know who deserves a five-course dinner just because? You do. Enjoy onion dip with caviar and crunchy potato chips, a bitter green salad with citrus vinaigrette, wood-fired lamb shoulder in mole poblano, fresh tortillas by Nixta, wood-roasted vegetables with herbed chile butter, and a chocolate mousse layer cake from Patisserie 46. Each dinner comes with reheating instructions and other tips from the Petite León team. To pair with the meal, two wines are also available for pickup: a pink, bubbly Tissot Crémant du Jura Rosé, $32, or a bottle of Alvaro Palacios Camins del Priorat, $25, a rich red.
Preorder on Resy for pickup on Sunday, February 14 from 12 to 5 p.m.
Grand Cafe has put together the ultimate luxurious and decadent dinner kit for February 14. For $185 you will receive instructions to prepare the cotes de boeuf with pommes puree and accouterments at home, while the rest of the menu will be prepared for you. The other stunner dishes include Norwegian king crab with baguette and butter, kale and wood-fired vegetable salad with sherry vinaigrette and blue cheese, and a chocolate pot de creme with mandarin and yogurt. Add-ons include $30 for a floral arrangement and a $100 bottle of Veuve Fourny Blanc de Blancs Champagne. Live it up.
Preorder and pick up at Eastside on Saturday, February 13. Email info@grandcafemn.com with any questions and for details on dietary substitutions, special pickup times, or delivery arrangements.
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Union Hmong Kitchen’s Valentine’s option, is, in their words, a “Surf ’n’ Turf party with a side of nostalgia.” The dinner kit includes smoked trout, a 12-ounce New York strip steak, khao soi (coconut red curry broth, egg noodles, beef brisket, crunchy fried noodles, and pickled mustard greens), a romaine and cabbage carrot slaw salad, string beans with oyster sauce, carrots, sticky rice, and Thai tea pavlova with dark chocolate and coconut for dessert. This package comes with all you need to sip on strawberry passionfruit night-mosas, which, one can assume, are some delicious fruit juices to mix with bubbly.
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For a meal perfectly portioned and plant-based, Hark! Cafe is offering cold-packed dishes with instructions to heat and serve at home. Dinner options for one and two are available and 100 percent vegan, gluten-free, and celiac safe for anyone with dietary restrictions. Start your feast with a truffled mushroom amuse-bouche, rissole with romesco sauce, grilled broccolini with preserved lemon and pomegranate molasses, “lobster” pot pies (made from black pearl mushroom stems from R&R Cultivation), and the choice of either an orange-cranberry cheesecake or orange-caramel and chocolate tart. Add-on your choice of white or red wine pairings by Libation Project for an additional $35.
Preorder before February 7 for pickup from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m, on February 13 or 14.
Saint Dinette’s Valentine’s dinner will be prepared for pickup, so there is no reheating required. Each meal includes meat and cheeses and your choice of side, entree, and dessert. Choose between grilled carrots or grilled cauliflower and marjolaine (chocolate, hazelnut buttercream) or pot de cheesecake for dessert. Entrees include brochettes (skirt steak, vadouvan, eggplant) and lumache (pasta with escargot, maitre d’hotel butter, and breadcrumbs). Since you have the option, pick one of each entree and try a bit of everything. Add on some Hamm’s, sparkling rosé, or an Old Fashioned kit depending on the mood.
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For those who don’t want to bother assembling or reheating multiple dishes, a cheese tray featuring a selection of best-selling cheeses, prosciutto di parma, fresh fruit, Valrhona chocolate, house-made crostini, and jam is yours for the taking. There is also an option to add some bubbles for $30 or cold-weather red wine for $20. France 44’s website says this tray is “for two”; we say it’s for two days. Order this and snack on it for a couple of days in a row. It’ll keep.
Preorder for pickup Saturday, February 13, or Sunday, February 14.
Brasa is offering a more than reasonably priced dinner that comes with a rotisserie chicken, gumbo fried rice with shrimp, mixed green salad with cucumber, tomato, and vegan ranch dressing, signature green sauce, Creole sauce, 16 ounces of chocolate pudding, and two gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. There are options to add wine to your order include either cava, rose, or malbec, of course. Reheat the dishes at home, pour yourself a glass, and put your feet up.
Preorder for pickup Saturday, February 13 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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Order a Treat Yourself experience with Chowgirls Catering founders Heidi Andermack and Amy Brown talking wine pairings with Angie Heitz, a sommelier, wine rep, and owner of the forthcoming wine bar Coquette & Colibri on Valentine’s Day at 4 p.m. on Zoom. For $80, they will lead tastings of wine and charcuterie. Spend an additional $50 for three bottles of wine: a brut rosé, Côtes du Rhône, and primitivo. However, you have the option to source your own wine for the experience as well. An added bonus is that a portion of sales from the virtual event will go to Minnesota Central Kitchen. There are boxes for two available as well.
Consistently, Cooks of Crocus Hill offers innovative and seasonal cooking classes for home cooks of all skill levels. Whether you know a little or a lot, cooking along with charming chef instructors is a guaranteed way to get better. This year, participate in the comfort of your own kitchen. Sign up for the macaron class on the 13th, Valentine’s Dinner surprise, or Big Heart Valentine’s brunch.
All three of these virtual experiences are $50 each, not including ingredients. One week prior to the class date, Cooks will email you the virtual class login information, recipes, equipment list, and ingredient list for shopping ahead of time.
Check out their February classes here.
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A cake for one, you say? Yes, but hear me out. Jojo & Co, a new online boutique patisserie from longtime local pastry chefs Joanna Biessener (Surly Beer Hall, Solera) and Els Young-Haug (Butcher & the Boar, Pazzaluna) has desserts to die for. If you want to buy a whole cake and eat a whole cake, we won’t judge … at all. If this black chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting appeals, I’m just saying, you’ve got options. You can freeze slices for a future treat or cut up a slice or two and pop them in some Tupperware to leave on a friend’s doorstep. Other smaller options available for preorder include 12 bonbons filled with passionfruit ganache, salted caramel, or dark chocolate ganache, Valentine’s Day hot chocolate bombs, and more. If dessert is your cup of tea, check out Jojo & Co.
Hot Hand’s Valentine’s pie is a milk chocolate passionfruit mousse with passionfruit syrup and a chocolate cookie crust. Preorder a pie for pickup and enjoy something ever-so-slightly pink. Freeze what you can’t finish and you’ll have pie on deck for the next time the craving strikes.
All pies are available for pickup only from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. To place a pickup order for any other items, like biscuit sandwiches or hot items, visit orderhothandspie.com.
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Milkjam Creamery has everything you need to make and devour a sundae that will surely make your friends jealous. The kit includes two pints of ice cream (I ❤ You, a white chocolate ice cream with raspberry rose jam and XOXO, a dark chocolate ice cream with hazelnut chocolate waffle cones, chocolate-marshmallow bar), passionfruit caramel sauce, berry lychee sauce, homemade rose and salted caramel brittle, and a little something they’re calling “chocolate-covered everything.” If you aren’t a chocolate fan, order February’s other two seasonal flavors instead. Ruby Rose is a bergamot and lavender ice cream or Drunk in Love, a rosé and hibiscus sorbet with edible flowers.
Preorder the kit to pick up on February 13 and 14 from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.
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To hit two birds with one stone, so to speak, preorder a floral cupcake “bouquet.” For $39, you will receive seven beautifully piped vegan cupcakes. For only $2 more the cupcakes can be made gluten-free. If you prefer cookies to cupcakes, the Valentine’s Day cookie kits go on sale starting Monday, February 1, at the Uptown location. Cookie kits include eight unfrosted heart-shaped cookies and three bags of cookie frosting. Decorate them for yourself or gift half to a friend.
Preorder for pickup from the Uptown location 9 a.m. to 3 p.m on February 13 and 14.
Steve Sisu Solkela (July 9, 1996 – Sometime after today) is a Musician/Comedian/Stuntman/Opera Singer/Actor/Composer known for his non-sensical sense of humor, creative mind, unpredictable musical combinations, and immense pain tolerance. He was raised on a farm in Palo Minnesota where he studied (sometimes) at the nearby Mesabi East High School. There he excelled in band, choir, speech, lunch, theatre, track, basketball, cross country, football, and several other clubs. Averaging GPAs lower than the floor, no one expected him to amount to much academic success, however, through effort, charm, and creative ways to teach himself the material he regularly caused the smart kids to worry about their class rank. Ranging from the Dunce to the Tutor, Solkela left that school broken, scarred, and longing for his return visits as an alumni. At 5’9, and 177 pounds of pure danger, you wouldn’t think there would be much athletic success, but Steve known for his aggressive nature and disregard for his own safety and health made him a decent athlete. This fearlessness towards danger may have been what enabled the birth of his stuntman career.
He went on to study music at Rowan University in Glassboro New Jersey where he was a star in the opera program, several bands and choirs, and was mostly famous for his “Overpopulated” One-Man Band that now performs all over the country and sometimes Finland and Canada. The band started out as a joke in high school. He started playing Accordion out of spite of the guitar players getting all the female attention for knowing 5 chords and the Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here Bass Line. One Day Steve bought a cowbell to cheer people on at cross country meets when the idea to play it with his foot came along. Slowly but surely, more insane ideas came along and now there’s a 14 piece One-Man Band running around the country. The band is made up of Cowbell, Hi-Hat, Double Bass Drum Pedal, shaker, triangle, slinky, bicycle horn, cymbal, train horn, spin whistle, both hands of the Accordion, trumpet, and one Blonde guy who sings. This band is possible due to the combination of static muscle memory, multi-tasking skills, and above average Accordion skills. There are other instruments that are added for occasions, but generally the 14 piece band is what is travelled with.

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All his life Steve has been a huge advocate for the state of Minnesota. Even at college in New Jersey he left several people calling it pop and pronouncing Sauna correctly. Having written hundreds of songs with Minnesota as either the theme or the flavor, this state writhes within his soul. When being interviewed about Minnesota Steve once said, “Oh sure, ya am from nort’ Minnesota dere den. It’s not too bad a deal you bet.” and “If The United States was a high school, Minnesota would be the hot popular chick that didn’t change to become popular, who still got a 4.0, was talented in sports, volunteered all the time, and had modeling contract offers but chose to go kill it at college instead. She makes everyone feel inferior, but is the first one to come support you if you’re feeling down about it.” Steve is especially grateful for the community that packed the cannon, and the cannonball will always roll back no matter how far he goes.
In Minnesota, being of Finnish heritage is like being in a cult group. A cult that prides themself on bettering their community and honoring those who probably hate the fact that they deserve it. Stereotypically speaking, Finns are introverted, humble, and logical. Steve does not fit this description of course. As a creative performer with an extroverted dominant personality, most stereotypes solely are entertaining. Traveling all over Minnesota, you meet ol’ Finns all over. One thing I have always adored and appreciated is that they all treat me like their own young Finnish grandchild. Having performed in Finland and several areas of Finnish heritage in The US, I have become ever grateful for the strong community that it brings.
With resilience and good humor. Check out @stevesolkela and smile. From his “Overpopulated” One-Man Band to Tandem Talks, music videos, and YouTube he’s on his way up.
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That realization shifted Ong’s path. Slowly, the outfits in her feed transitioned from black-and-white to more vibrant colors, while the backdrops changed from hotel rooms in far-flung cities to the grass in her backyard. Her captions got longer and started delving into topics like politics and sustainable laundry practices. By 2020, the transformation was so complete that one might easily have mistaken Ong for an entirely different person from the blogger once known for creating Neon Blush.

Jenny Ong in her garden. Photo: Courtesy Jenny Ong
Her new goal was “to make conscious, slow living seem as beautiful as, if not more beautiful than, life lived at full speed,” she says. She became a “homestead hobbyist,” sharing pictures of vegetables she’d grown and the antics of her colorful egg-laying chickens. Sponsored outfit pictures still appeared, but they featured a more narrow curation of brands and were often shot against a vegetable garden backdrop.
In some ways, she couldn’t have been better prepared for the coming pandemic — from a content perspective, at least — if she had tried. Half the country seemed to be planting victory gardens or building chicken coops for the first time, and Ong made doing so look magazine-worthy. In a world where travel, runway shows, crowded fashion parties and restaurant dining disappeared overnight, Ong’s depictions of a good life that consisted mostly of spending time outdoors without other people became extra appealing. Soon, that lifestyle was getting co-signed by the likes of Teen Vogue and the New York Times, which ran style pieces celebrating farmers and gardeners as the pandemic stretched on.
Ong’s not the only influencer whose content bridges the worlds of fashion and a life connected to the land. Kristi Reed makes her primary living selling secondhand clothing via her business Windy Peak Vintage, but she knows it’s her charming images of life on a homestead in rural Montana that initially draws people to her page.
“I think a lot of people that follow me fantasize about living rurally,” Reed says. “I try to portray the magic of the country.”
Kristi Reed gathering eggs from her chicken coop. Photo: Courtesy Kristi Reed
Through Reed’s lens, that looks like a yard full of goats, bunnies and chickens; children bathing in wheelbarrows; piles of hand-split firewood and big-sky Montana sunsets. The fact that Reed is always impeccably dressed in her pictures — hanging laundry in a billowy Dôen blouse, gathering eggs from the chicken coop in a flowy Christy Dawn dress — certainly adds to the fantasy of idyllic rural life. Reed admits that she’s not always actually dressed like that while doing chores, but all that means to her is that curation is part of the magic.
“Half the time I wear sweatpants and a baggy shirt when I go feed the chickens and don’t feel too inclined to take photos,” she says. But when she gets dressed up for work and likes her outfit, she makes sure to snap a photo doing whatever needs doing on the homestead, and those are the snippets of her life that followers see.
Reed’s approach is a bit different from that of Indy Srinath. As an urban farmer and educator in LA, Srinath isn’t painting a picture of rural life so much as casting a beautiful vision of what it looks like to forage, garden and grow your own food without moving away from an urban center. Srinath’s feed is certainly aspirational, albeit in a slightly different way: It features her own poetry, gorgeous vegetable flatlays and pictures of her foraging for mushrooms in earth-toned outfits.
Though Srinath’s background is more in farming and foraging than fashion, her well-defined aesthetic has attracted brand partners like Free People and Eddie Bauer. But Srinath insists that the clothing she wears in pictures really does reflect what she looks like as she goes about the business of growing, foraging for and harvesting food.
Indy Srinath with some beets. Photo: Courtesy Indy Srinath
“When people volunteer at the urban farm where I work on Skid Row, they comment like, ‘Whoa, you really do dress like this at work,'” she says. “I have to be like, ‘This is me dressing down — it just happens to be matching and accessorized.'”
Regardless of what they wear when no one else is around, Srinath, Ong and Reed are all helping make a certain kind of lifestyle seem aspirational. The visual worlds they inhabit walk a line that feels more fashion-y than outdoor sports-y but is not quite as dainty or purely aesthetics-driven as the cottagecore cohort. They may use their visual brands to sell clothing, but ultimately the backdrop is a lifestyle that can’t be escaped once the camera’s put away. The tomatoes and okra and chickens still need tending even when there’s no sponsored content to be made.
It’s this commitment that can lend an air of authenticity to the posts of all three — no matter how much they present idealized windows into their lives, it’s clear there’s a real lifestyle involved that can’t be totally faked. That’s not to say there’s no difference between them and, say, full-time farmers, most of whom don’t have time to snap pretty pictures of themselves doing the work required to keep such an operation going. It’s just to note that they represent a slightly different category of content creators whose aesthetic can’t simply be purchased and delivered in a well-packaged mailer. On at least some level, it has to be lived.
This sense of authenticity carries through to the way that the three talk about clothing, too. With content so focused on plants, animals and the outdoors, it makes sense that Ong, Reed and Srinath integrate environmental concerns into how they market clothing. For Reed, that means promoting primarily vintage. For Srinath, it’s including plenty of brands that rely on organic cotton or offset their carbon footprints. And Ong broke ranks with her former agency so she could be more choosy about which partnerships she accepted, focusing on brands that use natural or recycled materials.
Kristi Reed chopping wood. Photo: Courtesy Kristi Reed
Still, hardcore activists might have bones to pick with any of them: Brands like Uniqlo and Free People being included in their rosters would incite cries of labor abuse and cultural appropriation from some, while others might just question whether it’s even possible to be a “sustainable” fashion influencer if slowing consumption is what the planet needs. But these women would likely counter that their sponsored posts enable them to keep creating free content that educates followers on everything from zero-waste lifestyles to how to engage their state representatives.
Beyond the clothing influencer bit, there are other complications involved with romanticizing living off the land. Indigenous people on the continent settlers named North America sustainably stewarded land right up until it was violently stolen from them, and many still advocate for “putting Indigenous Lands back in Indigenous hands.” And even after the American project began, access to land ownership became a privilege that was systemically and strategically denied to Black people.
As a white woman, Reed’s skin color has played a role in the kind of relationship she has with the land. Living in a rural part of the U.S., Reed felt that tension strongly in the summer of 2020 as the nation faced a reckoning on racial injustice. As protests began to gain momentum around the nation, Reed found herself far from any major cities where she could’ve at least joined in-person demonstrations in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. But she says using her platform to connect in some way to the movement felt useful.
“A lot of my followers are white farmers, so I feel like it’s good to push boundaries with people,” she says. “And it feels good to be able to have a little bit of a voice and to show that not all of rural America is Trump supporters.”
Ong’s means for engaging with the political turmoil in the country has involved researching and writing lengthy posts that pair her sunny imagery with information on voting, text banking and climate action. Early on, this attracted “stay in your lane” comments from followers who were expecting nothing but fashion and beauty content. But these days, Ong says most of those people have unfollowed her, so she doesn’t get much pushback anymore.
Jenny Ong feeding her chickens (and making a statement about voting). Photo: Courtesy Jenny Ong
Srinath also talks explicitly about politics, racism and land access issues in her posts. But in many ways she sees her presence in agricultural and outdoor spaces as powerful in and of itself.
Growing up in North Carolina and being involved in clubs like Future Farmers of America, Srinath experienced firsthand the ways that agricultural spaces can conspire to make Black people feel unwelcome or unsafe, whether that’s simply because everyone else in the room is white or because of more overtly racist symbols like the Confederate flag being flown. Her goal is to counteract some of that through her online and in-person presence.
“I want to be a refuge where people can go and realize that Black lives do matter, Black joy matters, our passions matter and we aren’t always doing the emotional labor of educating on injustice,” she says. “We’re also living our lives, growing food, making pickles and exploring nature.”
Srinath has also begun fundraising for a Black-owned, Black-led community farm in LA so she can extend that influence beyond the world of social media. Having invested “sweat equity” into numerous white-owned farms, she dreams of a day where she works the soil of land that can’t be taken away from her.
“I really want folks to know that growing your own food is accessible. Being a person of color in outdoor spaces is hard but it’s doable,” she says. “And there’s always a need for more organic produce in Black and Brown communities.”
Indy Srinath with mushrooms. Photo: Courtesy Indy Srinath
Until she reaches her funding goal, she’s going to continue relying on content creation for at least part of her income.
With vaccine rollout promising that there’s an end in sight for the pandemic — even if it’s still further off than anyone would like — it’s unclear whether the appeal of the farmer/forager lifestyle will start to decline. Will urbanites still fantasize about leaving the city behind to live off the land once their favorite bars, restaurants and performance venues open up again?
If there’s anything the pandemic has made clear, it’s that trying to predict the future is futile. But many are hopeful that Covid-19 has forced the world to slow down in a way that might have positive, lasting implications even once vaccines are widely distributed. If that’s so, growing one’s own food and forging purposeful connections with the land may be here to stay in our collective aspirations.
“At my core I believe as human beings we all inherently have that connection to nature and growth,” says Ong. “We just need to trust our intuition on how to best steer it.”


Connecting Farm and Family since 1996
Our longtime friends Mike and Malena, of Easy Bean Farm in Milan, MN have run a successful farm share operation for over 20 years. We look forward to their fresh veggies every year! Please check them out.
Organic and family run
Toadstool Gardens is an organic family farm in Owatonna, MN. They specialize in heirloom, non-GMO, hybrid and exotic garden veggie plants, produce and seeds.