fiesta corn dip

Colleen George and Heather Lee are a mother-daughter team who used to run a pizza joint in Westhope, but now work alongside each other at Baker’s Market in the small town 2 miles from the Canadian border. Colleen does the baking, while Heather manages the grocery’s produce and deli departments and cooks a lunch special four days a week. Read more about the small-town grocery store and an effort to make the rural grocery business more viable here.

Cass County Electric Cooperative

A historic June 20 storm brought thunderstorms, extreme winds, large hail, tornados and even a derecho – a term reserved for the most intense, widespread and long-lasting severe thunderstorms. Wind gusts were recorded up to 101 mph 5 miles northwest of Linton, 99 mph in northern Kidder County and 94 mph near Elgin. Tornados touched down across the region, including a fatal one that killed three people in rural Enderlin. Another storm-related death occured in Stutsman County.

It was the most deadly tornado North Dakota has seen in nearly five decades.

meal in a pocket

At 104 years old, Ruth Iversen still lives independently on her Sidney, Mont., farm, where she mows her yard, tends a garden, reads voraciously, sews, quilts, cooks and bakes. The Lower Yellowstone Rural Electric Cooperative member maintains an old box of tried-and-true recipes, many of which were clipped from magazines years ago, including the whole-wheat buns she always has in her freezer, from a 1960 issue of Farm Journal.

Electric co-op leaders

Electric cooperative leaders joined President Donald Trump at the White House April 8, as he announced several executive actions aimed at protecting coal-fired power plants and the reliability of the nation’s electric grid. North Dakota’s Basin Electric Power Cooperative CEO and General Manager Todd Brickhouse, Bismarck, and Minnkota Power Cooperative President and CEO Mac McLennan, Grand Forks, were among those in attendance.

April recipe

Eating like our grandparents and great-grandparents may be a key to better health. Before the rise of processed foods, people ate diets rich in fiber, fermented foods and seasonally fresh produce, which helped ensure a well-balanced gut, says Shylah Schauer, a North Dakota naturopathic doctor who specializes in the gut-brain-microbiome axis. Why does the microbiome matter? Click here to learn more.

Raw Apple Cake with Caramel Sauce

Goldenwest Electric Cooperative member Syndi Musland Miske loves horses (read more here), especially when she’s riding in the Badlands with family. What makes it even better? When her mom, Darlene Musland, is cooking for a camp full of hungry horse riders!

Darlene, a retired schoolteacher who serves on Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative’s Operation Round Up board of directors, is known for her cooking. She’s taught folks the art of Dutch oven cooking and cooking over fire – with a side of history, of course.