Star Tribune
What’s behind the stereotype that Minnesotans don’t like spicy food?
“But where do we start to change these patterns? Over time, it’s very often younger generations who start to engage, to experiment,” Ubbink said. “It gets very slowly ingrained in the local culture.”
The concept of “Minnesotan” food has been shifting since before Walz first moved here 30 years ago.
Taste’s staff in 1988, from left: Ann Burckhardt, Lee Svitak Dean and Mary Hart. (Tom Sweeney)
When Lee Svitak Dean, the Minnesota Star Tribune’s now-retired Taste editor, started at the paper in 1980, some recipes involved a journey. She would drive around to little ethnic grocery stores in search of ingredients now stocked in the spice aisle of Cub Foods: garam masala, sumac, Szechuan peppercorns.
A greater number of Southeast Asian families began to settle in Minnesota at the end of the Vietnam War. Chinese restaurant chains were expanding their empires in the Midwest, inventing fusion staples like Leeann Chin’s cream cheese wonton. The Strib printed the phonetic spelling of the Greek gyro so readers could pronounce this novel word.
Svitak Dean grew up eating salt and pepper meat and potatoes. But she’d be hard-pressed to think of anyone she knows whose tastes haven’t evolved in the intervening decades. Even her 93-year-old mother is weak for spicy Thai drunken noodles, a marked departure from the mac and cheese she used to make from scratch for the kids.
The job of a food writer enabled Svitak Dean to explore vast culinary frontiers, and today she loves dishes that are packed with flavor. Nevertheless, when she thinks of the ultimate comfort food, it’s the mashed potatoes of her childhood.
A heavily traveled bridge over Hwy. 169 in Brooklyn Park that was hit from below days ago by a truck driver reopened late Friday morning following repairs, state officials said Friday.
More than 17,000 motorists who use the 77th Avenue/Brooklyn Boulevard/Elm Creek Boulevard bridge were forced to find an alternate route while the serious damage to several concrete beams was fixed, said Minnesota Department of Transportation spokesman Kent Barnard.
Barnard said the bridge was back in business at 11:49 a.m.
While the bridge over the northwest metro highway was closed, Hwy. 169 below remained open in both directions, as did ramps to and from 77th/Brooklyn Boulevard/Elm Creek Boulevard, Barnard said.
Star Tribune
Guilty of gun, drug counts against Derrick Thompson, still charged with killing 5 in crash
A federal jury Friday returned guilty verdicts on gun and drug charges against Derrick John Thompson in connection with the Minneapolis crash that killed five women in June 2023 after he sped off Interstate 35W in and slammed into the car they were riding in.
The verdicts on the fourth day of the trial in U.S. District Court in St. Paul were guilty for all counts: possession with intent to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl, being a felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a firearm “during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.”
While Thompson, 28, of Brooklyn Park and the son of former DFL state Rep. John Thompson, now awaits sentencing in this case, he also has third-degree murder and criminal vehicular homicide charges pending in Hennepin County in connection with the crash. In the meantime, he remains in federal custody in the Sherburne County jail.
The crash victims were Sabiriin Ali, 17, of Bloomington; Sahra Gesaade, 20, of Brooklyn Center; Salma Abdikadir, 20, of St. Louis Park; Sagal Hersi, 19, of Minneapolis, and Siham Adam, 19, of Minneapolis. On the night they were killed, the women were heading home after running errands before a friend’s wedding the next day. Their funeral was attended by thousands, and an online fundraiser to support the victims’ families raised more than $450,000.
A still image from body cam footage shows a bleeding Derrick Thompson near the scene of the crash that killed five women in June 2023 in Minneapolis. (U.S. District Court)
During this week’s federal trial, Thompson’s defense attorneys argued that the drugs and a loaded Glock pistol with an extended magazine discovered in the Escalade actually belong to his brother Damarco John Thompson — whom both the prosecution and defense said was a passenger in the SUV and fled the scene along with Derrick Thompson.
Damarco Thompson has not been arrested or charged with any crimes connected to the crash.
Police found three phones in the car, one for each brother and another they shared. They found video, text and voice messages on Derrick Thompson’s phone documenting narcotics being weighed for sale and negotiations over drug purchases.
A black leather bag carrying the gun and drugs was found beneath a distinctive blue cap Damarco Thompson was captured wearing earlier that night as he dropped Derrick off to rent the Escalade at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The bag held a loaded Glock handgun with an extended magazine and more than 2,000 blue pills containing fentanyl, 14 grams of powdered fentanyl and 35 grams of cocaine.
DULUTH – The memorial service for an unassuming northern Minnesota park ranger who died while attempting to rescue a Wisconsin family amid wind and wicked waves on Namakan Lake is set for Sunday in the gymnasium at Falls High School in International Falls.
Grossheim, 55, died Sunday trying to bring to safety a man and his two sons, who were stranded on an island. Five-to-eight foot waves were reportedly rolling on the lake in Voyageurs National Park. Grossheim’s park service boat capsized. The family was able to swim to safety, but the longtime park ranger known for his commitment to safety did not resurface. His body was found hours later. Grossheim was wearing a life preserver, according to law enforcement officials.
Betsey Warrington of Kabotegama, Minn., described Grossheim as a private, unassuming person who everyone loved. He likely did thousands of good things that no one ever heard about, she said.
“If he saw something that needed to be done, he just did it,” she said Friday.
Grossheim, of Kabotegama, married Jill Chytil in 1996 and together they lived a quiet life.
Various organizations have banded together to support Grossheim’s family in the aftermath.
The MN 100 Club, which provides financial contributions for lost wages and funeral expenses when a First Responder is killed or critically injured in the line of duty, said this week that it will give $50,000 to Grossheim’s family.
