Printer Friendly PDF Version

I’m having a dinner party and you’re invited!

By Mike Nistler

I was looking through recipe books to get inspiration for this issue’s “In the Kitchen” when I came across a cookbook given to me a few years back. It’s titled “Recipes & Remembrances” and was published by the Kimball Area Historical Society. Kimball was my hometown, sort of. I grew up on a farm about six miles north of Kimball in Maine Prairie Township, just a stone’s skip from Pearl Lake, or Marty.

I started paging through the book and found not only found mouth-watering recipes, but oodles of familiar names from my past and present. And those names sure did conjure up a few memories.

That gave me an idea. What if I were to go through and pick out some of my favorite foods, made by some of my favorite people, and intertwined their recipes with my stories?

It would be a like a dinner party with great food and great conversation.

So, without further adieu, let’s get the party started.

All great meals start with appetizers and for that, we’re going to rely on Margaret Arnold, (see recipes below) the wife of one of my high school buddies, John Arnold. John and Margaret live in Kimball, where John is a second-generation owner of the implement dealer in town. Margaret works as a public relations consultant. Margaret, who grew up in the Twin Cities grew up with a mother who was a dietician and home economist.

“My mother was always involving her daughters in preparing meals, baking and canning,” Margaret said. “She likes the science behind food and was a wise and patient teacher. Her goal was to involve us in filling the cookie tins, canning jars, the pantry and the deep freezer.”

While we enjoy Margaret’s Avocado Bean Dip, I’ll regale my guests with the story of John and his brother, Joe, who was in my graduating class. John was a year younger than Joe and me, but we did our share of hanging out at their house in Kimball. I thought the Arnolds were pretty cool. Dad Eugene ran Arnold’s Implement at the time and Mother Mariella was an intelligent, articulate woman who did some substitute teaching and loved to converse with us when we visited their house. It made me feel so grown up. Oh, and when we visited the Arnold house to play games and hang out, we got to eat a real treat in the mid ’70s — frozen pizza! It was a delicacy we didn’t have “down on the farm.”

I’m getting thirsty from all this talking, so it’s time to grab a beverage. Again, we’ll keep Margaret busy and have her whip up a batch of her Rhubarb Slush.

For our next course, we’ll dig in to a wonderful Cabbage Salad prepared by Allie Mae Lang, the mom of my classmate, Kevin Lang.

As with the Arnolds, I hung around at the Lang house a bit. Allie Mae and her husband, Dave, who is now deceased, were always welcoming. In fact, Dave Lang got me started saving money when he sold me a combination savings plan/life insurance policy as soon as I graduated. I still remember investing $25 a month in the plan. It was a good investment and a good lesson to learn so early. Thanks, Dave, and you, too Allie Mae, for raising a son like Kevin who not only was our class president, but one of the “classiest” guys you’d ever hope to meet.

Speaking of good guys, my friend Bob Greeley is represented here thanks to his sister, Mary (Greeley) Bartz, who stirs up a mean pot of Wild Rice Soup, not to mention just about anything involving beef.

Mary lives and works in Sleepy Eye today and was a classmate of my sister, Deb (Nistler) Scheibel, KHS class of 1970something. Mary ultimately became director of the Betty Crocker Kitchens for General Mills and eventually, Pillsbury. She joined the beef industry in the fall of 2004 as director of food communications for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA).

Mary’s brother, Bob, was a year behind me in school and a valuable member of our high school baseball team. We both went on to study at St. Cloud State University. In fact, Bob and I were roommates my sophomore year of school and remain in touch to this day. Ask Bob anything about growing up in Kimball and his memories of amateur baseball and he will not disappoint. In 20 years, he will be a wonderful historian.

I’m not a big veggie eater, but I feel that I must include one for two reasons. It’s healthy, and I want to mention Mariella Arnold one more time (see her recipe for Sweet Vegetable Melange). Mariella was a guiding light for me when I was graduating from KHS and looking forward to beginning a career. She was the one person most responsible for my getting a college education, and thus pursing a career in journalism and eventually magazine publishing. Thanks again, Mariella.

On to the main dishes. As a kid growing up near Kimball, a big treat was when the entire family loaded into the car and visited the Kimball Drive-In run by Merton Eaton. It was the place to go from 1962 to the mid ’70s. If you were really lucky, you could feast on a good-old barbecue sandwich. Unfortunately, being beef and hog farmers, my parents weren’t into spending money on meat. However, the small vanilla ice cream cones were delicious.

Two long-time Kimball residents, Gloria and Fred Jacobs, provide us with two more great entrees. (Don’t worry, this is central Minnesota, we need a lot of meat entrees at this table.) Besides great recipes, Gloria and Fred also provided Kimball with some great offspring, including son Jeff, who was another of my classmates. Jeff was the centerfielder on the team that helped us win a conference championship our senior year, and none of us will ever forget the mammoth home run he hit that helped us beat Annandale that glorious spring day in 1975.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a recipe from Mary Johnson, who gave me the Kimball cookbook. And, she even signed the inside cover, making it a collector’s edition.

And no meal is complete without dessert. For that, we turn to Jean Doran Matua, a classmate and the current editor of the Tri-County News, the local paper in Kimball. Jean was one of the smart kids in our class, graduating in the Top 10. Who would have thought that we’d both take paths that led us to careers in journalism?

Look at the time. Gotta run. It’s getting late. Hope you all enjoyed my little dinner party and trip down memory lane. Drive safely.