The Jucy Lucy at Matt’s Bar in south Minneapolis was declared the “Burger King” of Minnesota.  My mouth is watering, I can’t wait to try it.  Plus, it’s only $4.50.

Here’s their take on the burger:

1 – Matt’s Bar  www.mattsbar.com, their menu,

Location:  Matt’s Bar, 3500 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55407

Inherent Awesomeness: 38

If there was one ringer in this bunch, one place I was absolutely certain would make the final cut, it’s Matt’s, the venerable south Minneapolis bar that either invented the Jucy Lucy—or just perfected it. (If you’re an out-of-towner, the Jucy Lucy—purposefully misspelled—is made by crimping two beef patties around a filling of cheese and cooking it all until the cheese becomes like molten lava. This tastes loads better than it sounds.) Sure, the thought did cross my mind: What if Matt’s was off its game? What if they didn’t make the cut? There was no need to worry—it would have been like going to Paris and finding the Eiffel Tower missing. This place is as critical to the heart of south Minneapolis as Lake Nokomis. A recent visit found Matt’s in all its glory: The guys at the bar were a mix of the old and cowboy-hatted, the young and dreadlocked, and the middle-aged and computer-bag toting. They were all eating Jucy Lucys and half-orders of thin, pale fries. There was even a recent Chicago transplant at the bar: “All the burgers downtown are $10,” he said. “I have a problem with that. My employees told me, ‘Go to Matt’s.’ I’ve been here three times in five days. You put crack in these things or what?” Spoken like a true out-of-towner. Crack? Please. Matt’s Jucy Lucys are bigger than crack. It’s all about the grill. For about 15 minutes, Matt’s Jucy Lucy sits up on the hot, ancient, always-in-service grill and sizzles, sizzles, sizzles until it gets crisp and well-charred on the outside. That makes all the difference. Matt’s has been making these well-charred, unspeakably delicious Jucy Lucys, the best in the state—the best, no doubt, in the world—since, legend has it, 1954. Matt’s Bar, 3500 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis, 612-722-7072, mattsbar.com

The All-American McDiet!

Unsurprisingly, Chris Coleson stayed away from the Big Mac, fries and shakes and opted for mostly salads, wraps and fruit.

What is odd is what inspired him to start this crazy diet:  “His inspiration came from his two children and from the story of a blind war veteran who rode a tandem bicycle cross-country.”  I guess the point is that if a blind war veteran can ride across the country, then a regular guy can lose weight by eating at a fast food chain every day.  I’d say the odds are about even.

Why McDonald’s and not Burger King you ask?  “The 42-year-old businessman from Quinton says he chose McDonald’s because it’s convenient.”

First off, the ruins of the old mills.

The city of Minneapolis grew up around the grain processing and flour producing businesses, powered by the energy of the Mississippi river and the St. Anthony falls. They were able to channel part of the river into the banks and use water turbines to drive their machinery. The hydro power plant located at the falls is the second oldest (by only a couple weeks) hydro power plant in the western hemisphere! It began operation in 1882. There is a hydro plant still in operation today at the same site.

An old turbine and the museum:

The partial remains of the old mills are still visible today and there is a Mill City Museum (will visit soon) to capture the history of the industry in the city.

And even some wildlife among the ruins along the riverbank:

Minneapolis was the flour milling capital of the nation from 1880 to 1930. Gold Medal Flour is now General Mills and now owns Pillsbury (since 2000).

A series of 29 locks and dams along the Mississippi River has been installed to make the river deeper and wider. They are designed to maintain a depth of at least 9 feet along the entire river. Here’s a tour boat rising through the lock near the falls:

Running from Lake Itasca, Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi is the 4th longest river in the world, behind the Nile, Amazon and Yangtze and drains over 40% of the lower 48 states.

St. Anthony Falls:

Some sights along the river…A view of the under-construction I-35W bridge just downstream:

The photogenic Guthrie Theater with its Endless Bridge (the bridge has no end!) jutting out over the street:

(view from the river).

The architect recently won the prestigious Pritzker Prize in Architecture.

A flock of segways on a tour:

Can someone tell me why all these trees are leaning the same direction? (east bank of the river)

The Minneapolis skyline from the stone arch bridge:

The rest of the pictures here.

“Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.”

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, Gary Thuerk, who at the time worked for Digital Equipment Corp., sent what is believed to be the first spam message, an invitation to an open house for a new DEC computer (a VAX 11/780?) that he sent to 400 of the 2,600 or so people who had email accounts on the ARPANET at the time.

Thuerk claims that his email generated about $12 million in new sales. However, many people who received his email also got highly irritated, complained to US Defense Department (which operated the net) which in turn told him never to do it again. Thuerk says he never did, either.

Thuerk also said in the story that “people have one of three reactions when they meet him: Some are excited to meet someone with an unusual claim to fame; some want to beat him up on the spot; and others just avoid him like the plague.”

There was an AP story last week on the Army’s “exoskeleton” robotic suit being developed by Sarcos Inc (now owned by Raytheon) that potentially will “multiply a person’s strength and endurance as many as 20 times.”

“Jack Obusek, a former colonel now with the Army’s Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center in the Boston suburb of Natick, foresees robot-suited soldiers unloading heavy ammunition boxes from helicopters, lugging hundreds of pounds of gear over rough terrain or even relying on the suit to make repairs to tanks that break down in inconvenient locations,” according to the story.

The suit is still not practical: it is very expensive, and the suit’s battery life currently lasts only 30 minutes.

Pioneer Press: The substance is about 200 times as sweet as sugar, contains no calories and has some advantages to the food industry because it doesn’t degrade when heated or when mixed with other foods. Stevia is commonly used in Japan and parts of South America, but it’s rare in this country outside of health-food circles.

Cargill, based in Wayzata, MN, is the nation’s second largest private company, employs 158,000 employees worldwide and is involved in all sorts of agricultural operations: including grain, cotton, sugar, petroleum and financial trading; food processing; futures brokering; health and pharmaceutical products; agricultural services such as animal feed and crop protection; and industrial products including biofuels, oils and lubricants, starches, and salt.

The Wikipedia profile includes this note about Cargill’s political end economic views:

Cargill is an active proponent of free trade policies. It lobbied for China’s membership in WTO, as well as for increased trade with Cuba and Brazil. Cargill’s position is based on its strong support of neo-liberal economic principles. First, lesser trade barriers in countries where Cargill does business will lower prices on Cargill’s products, and likely increase their volume of business. Second, the decreases in the cost of food in developing countries theoretically result indirectly in higher income per capita but lower income for local farmers. Cargill benefits from increases in consumer income, because better-paid consumers become inclined to eat a diet higher in wheat, protein, vegetable oil, and processed foods. This improves opportunities for Cargill to sell its products. Cargill’s economists have reasoned that this is true of the lower income countries in particular. As a developing country grows from $1,000 to $6,000 in mean income per capita, Cargill expects the greatest profit growth from its businesses in that country.

Cargill has maintained a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI) released by the Human Rights Campaign since 2003.

Other random facts:

- It is responsible for 25 percent of all United States grain exports.
- It supplies approximately 22 percent of the United States domestic meat market.
- The company exports more product from Argentina than any other company.
- It is the largest poultry producer in Thailand.
- All of the eggs used in McDonald’s restaurants in the United States pass through Cargill’s plants.

And, what’s the big deal about “food miles“? A new study from two Carnegie Mellon University researchers says you can counter greenhouse gas emissions and earn some climate change absolution (while continuing to eat out-of-season foods) simply by giving up red meat for one day per week.

Q:  How much of the US corn crop is used for ethanol?

I was surprised to find out today that about a third of the US corn crop is used to produce ethanol!  That’s according to this USA Today article discussing the expected higher prices for corn this year.  The article fingers biofuels mandates as one major contributor to the higher demand, and thus, the higher price of corn.

High energy prices have increased the cost of production. In addition, the U.S. and other nations have mandated increased use of biofuels, including corn-based ethanol. That has led to competition for acreage, contributed to a doubling of many grain prices and caused food riots in nations such as China and Pakistan.

With ethanol demand surging, U.S. farmers last year planted the largest corn crop since 1944. Even with the predicted decline in acreage, the 2008 crop could be one of the largest on record. Still, with the ethanol industry expected to claim about a third of the corn crop, and the USDA saying that stockpiles are lower than expected, there is the potential for shortages.

“Basically, we’re spending our tax dollars to raise the price of our food so we can subsidize the ethanol and big oil companies,” says Ray Atkinson, Pilgrim’s Pride director of communications.

Which is exactly my point in this post.  Some well-intentioned government farm aid programs produce counter-productive incentives by helping one groups of people (farmers get paid to not plant) and hurt another group (higher food prices for consumers in the US and globally).

Conversely, many US farm aid programs are in place to keep the prices of crops and related food products, like sugar, high at home to help farmers at the expense of the consumer.

Unfortunately, neither of these types trade incentives is good for the average person. In the US, we overpay for sugar or substitute corn-syrup as an alternative to support corn production over sugar production. Meanwhile Egyptian and Indian rice growers will be hurt by the lower prices of their crops because the demand is domestic-only which in turn causes consumers in rice importing countries, such as the Philippines, to pay much more for rice than they would otherwise.

Fortunately, there are some rice reserves in Vietnam and Thailand.

To a lot of people, the price of rice is a big deal:

Rice prices jumped 30 per cent to an all-time high on Thursday, raising fears of fresh outbreaks of social unrest across Asia where the grain is a staple food for more than 2.5bn people.

These foreign sales restrictions have removed about a third of the rice traded in the international market.

“I have no idea how importing countries will get rice,” said Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association. He forecast that prices would rise further.

Rice is also a staple in Africa, particularly for small countries such as Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Senegal that have already suffered social unrest because of high food prices.

Thai rice, a global benchmark, was quoted on Thursday at $760 a tonne, up about 30 per cent from the previous daily quote of about $580 a tonne, according to Reuters data. Some traders, however, said the daily jump was not as steep, adding that Thai rice had already traded at about $700 a tonne this week.

Rice prices have doubled since January, when the grain traded at about $380 a tonne, boosted by strong Asian, Middle Eastern and African demand.

Something to think about the next time you have a plate of combination stir-fried rice.

More of this story.

This piece in the Guardian discusses why the UK is about to fight the EU’s pending biofuels quota of 10% by 2020. Not surprisingly, the EU’s quota could result in higher food prices. Does anyone actually expect a government quota to produce positive results? Or even, results without unintended negative consequences?

In central Appalachia, ramps are most commonly fried with potatoes in bacon grease or scrambled with eggs and served with bacon, pinto beans, and cornbread. Ramps, however, are quite adaptable to almost any food style and can also be used in soups, puddings, ketchup, guacamole and other foods, in place of onions and garlic. Some people like them raw, but others say the aroma of raw wild leeks stays with one for days.

The community of Richwood, West Virginia holds the annual “Feast of the Ramson” in April. Sponsored by the National Ramp Association, the ‘ramp feed’ (as it is locally known) brings thousands of ramp aficionados from considerable distances to sample foods featuring the plant. During the ramp season (late winter through early spring), restaurants in the town serve a wide variety of foods containing wild leeks.

In Canada, wild leeks are considered rare delicacies. Since the growth of leeks is not as widespread as in West Virginia and because of destructive human practices, wild leeks are an endangered species in Quebec.

Trivia:

The name of the U.S. city Chicago is said to originate from “Checagou” (Chick-Ah-Goo-Ah) or “Checaguar,” which in the Potawatomi language means “wild onions” or “skunk.” The area may have been so named because of the smell of rotting marshland wild leeks (ramps) that used to cover it.

Ramp Eating Contest eating technique:

Here’s a WCHS TV news report on the Richwood Ramp Festival with video.

Enough with the lesson on ramps, back to the title of the post. The other day my uncle was driving through WV and spotted a sign advertising Ramp Pizza, mmm…. delicious!

Although I was born in West Virginia, I have never been to a ramp festival.

Read on…

• Whitetop Mountain Ramp Festival, Whitetop VA
• Richwood Ramp Fest – Feast of the Ramson, Richwoo, WV
• Wild leek, Wikipedia