In the Press: Coming Home: Story Feast in the Place Where It All Began
With my grandfather Peter Bragelman (and a very unfortunate haircut) after a fishing trip on Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota where my grandparents had a cabin. photo: Evelyn Bragelman
Reflections on Our Inaugural gathering at St. John's Abbey
A few weeks after our gathering at St. John's Abbey, writer Dianne Towalski published a piece in The Central Minnesota Catholic about my career and the event. Reading it felt like watching my life play back in a way I hadn't quite seen before, the threads connecting my grandparents' kitchen to monastery kitchens on four continents, and finally back to Minnesota.
I'm so grateful to Dianne for taking the time to listen, to ask the right questions, and to tell this story with such care.
Read the full article: "St. Cloud native 'will travel for food'" →
Where It Started
I grew up in St. Cloud. I went to Sts. Peter and Paul School, then Tech High School, before leaving for the University of Minnesota, followed by five years of outdoor adventures in Seattle, and eventually culinary school in New York. But before any of that there was my grandpa, my grandma, and my mom.
With my amazing culinary school classmates at Manhattan’s Institute of Culinary Education. I genuinely love these people and many of them are still close friends. The people who cook together stick together!
My grandpa was a food lover before the concept was celebrated like it is today. He once drove us to South Dakota on a whim because he'd heard of something called a bison burger and wanted to try it. His curiosity about food, where it came from, who made it, what made it taste the way it did, shaped everything about how I move through the world. "Will travel for food" started with him.
My grandma was an incredible cook. We spent hours together canning vegetables from my grandpa's garden, wrapping fish in waxed white butcher’s paper for the basement freezer, making meals from whatever we'd harvested or caught that day. She taught me that cooking is how you take care of people.
And my mom, she made stained glass as a hobby and would sell her creations at the fiddling contest and art sale that St. John's used to host each year. That's how we spent our weekends: walking around the lake at St. John’s, taking in the fall leaves, stopping in for Johnny bread or maple syrup or honey.
For special occasions, midnight Mass, holidays, we always went to St. John's. It felt magical to be there.
They Were There
When I stood in the Great Hall last November, watching 180 guests gather for dinner in the same space where monks have shared community for generations, I felt their absence. My grandma, my grandpa, my mom, all of them gone now.
But I also felt their presence.
I know they were there somehow. Enjoying it right alongside me. Watching us bring together everything they'd taught me, about food, about curiosity, about gathering people at a table and making them feel welcome.
St. John's will always be theirs as much as it is mine.
Prepping for a photoshoot at Art Culinaire. Freezing on Grimsey Island on the Arctic Circle, three hours by ferry north of Iceland, with Chef Gunnar Karl Gislason of Dill in Reykjavik. Gunnar and I wrote the cookbooks North: The New Nordic Cuisine of Iceland and The Hygge Life together. This was the final day of a two year shoot for North so even though it was bitter cold, we were happy!
Thank You
To Dianne Towalski, for telling this story so beautifully. To Brother Aelred Senna, who helped bring the event to life and who understood from the beginning what we were trying to create. To Mateo and Erin Mackbee, who cooked a meal worthy of the setting. To every guest who joined us.
And to my grandparents and my mom, for giving me a roadmap.
Read the full article in The Central Minnesota Catholic →
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