Dinner in the Vineyard

They say a picture is worth a thousand words , but our Locally Grown Chef Leon wanted the real thing and spearheaded, with his wife, Lori, a meal in a vineyard.

He’d been reading a wine and food magazine when he saw a picture of a table in a vineyard. It was adorned with plates and wine glasses ready for a meal and a bottle of wine to be passed.

Laurel Petersen (l) and Lori Dawkins (far right) have helped Vicki Severson and her late husband, Bryan, harvest grapes every year since the vineyard began.

Leon knew just the vineyard to host it - Dancing Loons Vineyard near Underwood, MN.

With his wife, Lori, Leon has joined between 10 to 20 friends picking grapes each year for Bryan and Vicki Severson, the vineyard owners.

Bryan died two years ago, but Vicki has kept his passion for the vineyard alive by pruning the branches and nurturing the almost 4 acres of vines. She was excited to host the dinner which was, for everyone who attended, a tribute to a special man.

The night was dedicated to Bryan Severson who died two years ago and to his wife, Vicki, who has carried on his passion for nurturing the vineyards.

LIke all Locally Grown Meals, this one was sourced almost entirely of locally grown and produced goods.

The protein was bison from Rolling R Ranch near Pelican Rapids, MN. Check out their story at thelocalgrowers.com/make_locally_raised_bison_for_dinner.

I requested around a 3 pound bison roast from PJ Breen who, with his wife, Karla, operate Otter Tail 23 Meats, the marketing arm of Rolling R Ranch which was started by Karla’s parents, ……… PJ agreed around a 3 pound roast should feed a group of six. Actually the roast was more like 3.5 pounds and, as he said, it was a “beautiful roast.”

Bison is. a lean meat to begin with and this roast was very meaty. The trick is to cook it low and slow and Chef Leon had just the recipe to highlight the bison flavor and keep it moist.

Leon went to the Alexandria, MN Farmers Market where he purchased buttercup squash and sauerkraut from Rick and Alex Foss of Glenwood and red, yellow and orange peppers plus onions from Peter Wydo of Glenwood. Butter came from the Millerville Co-Op Creamery and bread from Falls Baking Company.

I purchased salad greens from Ryan Pesch of Lida Farm by Pelican Rapids and micro greens from Rick Abramhamson of Homegrown Gardens.

Vicki Severson provided some of the vineyard’s Dancing Loons wines plus potatoes she gleans from potato harvests and her own garden’s sweet corn.

Our dinner guests were Jon and Laurel Petersen who’ve been part of the grape picking crews during the fall harvests and a great friends. Couldn’t imagine the night without them.

This year the grape harvest was phenomenal. A whopping 17,646 pounds were picked. While Dancing Loons has no winery of its own, the grapes are sold to wineries in North Dakota and southern Minnesota, Vicki said.

Welcome to our table

While the menu was complete, there was still a lot of work to make the dream picture a reality. Leon worked with Vicki in finding the right table. Actually it was a wooden door standing in one of the farm’s sheds. Leon sanded and finished the door which became the perfect table once perched on two sawhorses. Vicki provided the wooden folding chairs and Lori buffed them up for the night’s meal.

Leon hauled his gas grill, a table or two and his camp stove to the site plus all the fixings which he prepared before dinner ready to be cooked.

The time for the meal was 5 p.m. but Leon arrived several hours early to make sure the roast was cooking by 1. He used a cast iron Lodge Pot which is a dutch oven. In a heavy duty pan he placed charcoal then placed the Lodge Pot in it. Once the roast was put in Lodge Pot with beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, onions and mushrooms, he topped it with the lid. On top of the lid he put more charcoal. All the charcoal was lit which provided the slow and low cooking temps for the roast.

Ruger, Vicki and Bryan’s dog, kept a “watchful” eye on Leon’s food preparations.

Leon said he’d used the Lodge Pot before for a couple of beef roasts so he had experience preparing a meal with it plus the use of charcoal.

He cubed the squash and prepared it on the gas grill with an apple cobbler (apples provided by Vicki) and the potatoes.

The one thing I enjoy when doing these stories is taking the pictures of Leon preparing the food as we talk about the cooking methods. Through these talks, I have discovered I really like kitchen gadgets and often say, “I need that!”

On my must haves of Leon’s gadgets is not only the item that cut the wedge shape in the potatoes, but, look on the upper part of the picture, that’s container with many herbs in it. Kind of a herbs to go thing. Gotta get me one!

Well, Leon has the neatest potato slicer! This slicer creates a ridge effect so you could make waffle fries with this slicer. For our meal, however, Leon used it to cut that taters in half. The potatoes were placed cut side down on the gas grill.

Full recipes will be coming in another story, so stay tuned. And please forgive me if, once you see the recipe, you recall this story with my details. Go by Leon’s recipes. I just add a lot of side notes and strive to glean as much info from our chef as I can!

There was a special ambiance in the vineyard. Vicki’s dog, Ruger, laid near Leon as the cook moved about checking on the meal’s progress. The occasional yellow jacket buzzed around and, before the festivities began, we enjoyed a glass of Dancing Loon’s Cherry Rhubarb wine.

I am a merlot…okay, you can say it….snob. I like my wine dry. Lori, on the other hand, likes sweeter wines. We both liked this and a cherry wine served with the meal.

It was perfect as we toasted Bryan for everything he built in the vineyard.

Bryan and Vicki were married for 46 years. He became interested in vineyards in 2002 telling Vicki he could do that. The next year he retired from teaching and purchased his first vines.

This was an inaugural venture for Bryan, but he didn’t let his lack of grape growing experience deter him. She recalls the amount of research he conducted before planting the first time and in the early years of their vineyard. He contacted individuals from the University of Minnesota, read a number of articles on grape production and called others who had their own vineyards.

After awhile, Bryan was someone who was contacted with grape production questions. He started out at a time when there were few vineyards in the area, Vicki said.

Vicki would’ve liked a winery, she said. It could be a place for wine tasting and socializing which is a perfect fit for her. Bryan, however, didn’t want to be a licensed wine maker, but they worked together for the vineyard they created together.

Other vineyards that purchase their grapes make wines from their fruit which is then labeled Dancing Loons and why the name, you ask?

Every year the adolescent loons gather on the lake surrounding their property and beat their wings moving from one end to the other. Those loons aren’t old enough to mate, but it’s their socializing, Vicki said. So the name Dancing Loons for the vineyard seemed appropriate.

“And we always said were like a pair of dancing loons,” she said with a chuckle.

More stories on this event will follow including recipes and Leon’s comments on the meal prep and more. Plus more stories on local growers.

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