Central Cafe in Lester Prairie

The Central Cafe in Lester Prairie, MN with high tin-covered ceilings, big-old high back booths, each with a mirror on it's wall end. Why?(You can speculate why.)

Good farm-inspired menu, down-to-earth employees, the aroma of fresh bakery coming from the kitchen, and, you have to love'em mismatched old dining room chairs around each table in the open center area.

Nana and I love these simple, plainspoken towns and experiences. It's life in the North Central U.S. After our lunch we toured the old hardware store next door and bought just a couple of small things.

This is Peter's Pumpkins, a vegetable stand we stumbled onto while sightseeing the western Twin Cities towns. We weren't looking for pumpkins, but their sweet corn was perhaps the best I've ever had anywhere. Great tomatoes too. Such a good experience that we went back and bought more stuff a couple weeks later.

Turns out that the owner of this vegetable stand is the aunt of one of college-aged hikers who strayed over their border into Iran, where they are still detained by Iranian authorities for trespassing.

I don't recall ever having been to downtown Chaska before this visit, so I was very pleasantly surprised by it's early 1900's charm, including a sweet little pavillion, and lots of well-cared for hanging plants along the walkways.

Shady and restful center of Chaska, MN

Comments

Vivi said…

Fun pictures - glad to know you and nana are exploring out and about!

July 14, 2010 at 8:11 AM

Spring in a bottle

Sal and I both like tulips, so while winter still has a loose grip on Minnesota, we're enjoying some "bottled freshness". I remember planting tulip bulbs with my Mom when I was a kid growing up in Massachsetts I can still recall the frangrance of the bone meal that we always poured into the hole before pressing the bulb gently into place. I think they might be my favorite flower.

Welcome to the Wisconsin North Woods

Nana and I love going with very long-time friends Steve and Pam to their wonderful old Eagle River, Wisconsin cabin, about 250 miles from our MN home. The four of us generally drive up in one car. My assignment is to bring car snacks for everybody. Fall is great for apples and cheese, and some baked goodie, like cookie or brownie, plus nut-or-snack mix. The in-car visiting is non-stop. We decide when, where, or whether to do Friday night supper. Painted glass piece hanging in the cabin window overlooking loon-populated Bass Lake (Eagle River, WI) The fire, essential to a great northwoods cabin experience most months of the year. The boat and the dock at bottom of the cabin hill. The water level low due to the unusually dry summer in these parts. The driveway up to the main road. Bass Lake

The Gentle Smith Matriarch

We met in 1966 when she was 18 and I was 22. We began dating soon afterward, and as I recall never disagreed on much. Our childhood homes were 3000 miles apart and we loved Minnesota and each other, so we got engaged in July 67, married in December and moved into a house with a teenage foster daughter. This was followed by , Daughter 1 the following September, Daughter 2 three years later, Daughter 3, a year and a half later, ..and eventually Son, 3 years later. There were also about 15 different short-term teen-foster boys in those years. The gentle matriarch has worked her whole life, hard. I went to college nights for a few years, she worked outside the home part-time while the kids were growing. She spent frugally, loved lavishly, and has always cared first and foremost about her family. She is a gentle giant who has brought love, fun, discipline, imagination, good food, and artistic, creative homemaking to our big family....and as I write this she's preparing for Easter Dinner...

PTCPapa

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