Recipe Roundup

After spending most of his 20s “running from North Dakota” and working at resorts and restaurants in Minnesota and Florida, Jeff Benda changed directions.

The Grand Forks native and son of a U.S. Air Force veteran found himself working toward a teaching degree in Valley City and surrounded by a group of friends who introduced him to
hunting.

“It was hunting that kept me here in North Dakota,” he says. “Being out in the country, in a small town like Valley City, I’d finally developed a sense of place and belonging, and just fell in love with it.”

A new project on the Spirit Lake Reservation is connecting the Dakota people with their cultural heritage, while tackling the issue of food insecurity.

Construction of a new indoor gardening center is underway at the Spirit Lake Food Distribution building. Once completed, the gardening center will provide more than 1,000 tribal members with access to fresh, locally sourced food year-round, in addition to providing skilled jobs on the reservation.

Why eat vegetables and fruits?
Let the wide assortment of fresh produce available at summer’s end inspire you to add some color and nutrition to your plate. Fruits and vegetables provide fiber, vitamins A and C and minerals, such as potassium. Eating more fruits and vegetables can lower our risk for cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Eating more vegetables and fruits also can help us lose weight or maintain our current weight.

“It’s a niche market, but it’s getting more popular,” Jayden says. Restaurants and grocery stores on the coasts have a demand for bison meat, pushing the retail price about $1 a pound more than beef.

Jayden attended Canada’s National Meat Training Center in Alberta and graduated as a professional meat cutter after four months of full-time training. While he was training, he and Roy sent 25 or more sketches back and forth, detailing their dreams of a processing facility.

The plant opened in December 2019, on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve always tried to make things fun as best I can,” Deb says.

Fun meant the lunch line was always decked out for the holidays or changing seasons. Rabbit droppings disguised as Cocoa Puffs cereal littered the way to Deb’s office door around Easter. October brought a spooky thrill, with Halloween lights and themed menus that included “ogre fingers” and “eye of newt.” Her lunchroom Halloween spectacle even drew a TV news crew from Fargo one year.

MOUNTRAIL-WILLIAMS ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE
NDAREC President
▶    FAMILY | Wife, Helen. Four children and eight grandchildren.
▶    BOARD SERVICE | Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative board since 1981, currently vice president. NDAREC board since 1998, currently president.
▶    WHY I SERVE | I believe in the mission to improve the quality of life for every member through the delivery of electricity. It is so enjoyable to be involved with all the important issues we are involved with in our local communities and state.

“Clean-up is the hardest part about cooking!” says 10-year-old Adelyn “Addy” Boling.

(Agreed, Addy. Agreed!)

And based on the sheer volume of meals, recipes and cakes Addy has made, she’s done her fair share of dishes.

A fifth-grader in Miss McDonald’s class at Des Lacs-Burlington Elementary School, Addy plays volleyball, flute and ukulele, enjoys art and has become quite the chef.

“She’s been cooking since she was 4,” Addy’s mom and mother of four, Aftin Boling, says. “She’s always been my creative one.”
 

“What drives me is when I can go to the store and see all the products that our ingredients are in, and know that I, or us, as a company, have played a role in establishing that product,” Bartsch says.

“Emmit’s a mini-Eric,” says Candace Sieg, the family’s matriarch. “He remembers everything and anything that comes out of Dad’s mouth.”

Emmit’s two older sisters, Isabel, 18, and Avery, 10, are also part of Eric’s fan club. You can see it in the way they look at their father and talk about one of their favorite family activities – hunting. All three children grew up hunting with their dad; Eric started them young.

“When they were 3 years old, Eric would dress them up at 5 in the morning, and they would go lay in the blind,” Candace says.

Even though the title eluded her, she surely exemplifies what it means to be a “county woman.”

“She is the vet, cook, fence fixer, gardener, rock roller, digger, truck driver, bookkeeper and, most important, mother and wife,” says her daughter, Stacy Adams.