“Tis the season of holiday entertaining and cooking. If you’re looking for ideas on how to make your parties and food spectacular this year, check out The Affair, a culinary extravaganza at the Minneapolis Convention Center this weekend.  The event features experts on food, wine, cheeses, chocolates, table settings, and more. Meet the Star Tribune’s Taste editor and author of Come One, Come All: Easy Entertaining with Seasonal Menus, Lee Svitak Dean, at 11:45 both days as she shares her entertaining tips. Kim Ode, also of the Star Tribune and author of Baking with the St. Paul Bread Club, will lead a demo on holiday cookies at 12:45 on Saturday and Sunday. Bon appétit!

The Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College has just released a study that finds Minnesotans are leaders in voting and volunteering in the United States. The study, which you can download, was cowritten by codirecter of the center Harry Boyte, who is also the author of The Citizen Solution: How You Can Make a Difference, a hands-on guide to community activism using examples from Minnesota.

Guest blogger Iric Nathanson is the author of the new book Minneapolis in the Twentieth Centry: The Growth of an American City.

In my South Minneapolis neighborhood, the lawn signs are dueling during these final days of the city election campaign.  The red ones are urging a “no” vote on Amendment 168 on November 3, while the blue ones are calling for a “yes” vote on the same measure.  The controversial amendment to the Minneapolis charter abolishes an obscure city agency known as the Board of Estimate and Taxation, which sets the property tax levy for the city of Minneapolis and its  Park and Recreation Board.

Across the river in St. Paul, there are no “yes” and “no” signs because that city does not have a Board of Estimate and Taxation.  There, the city council and the mayor set the tax levy.  Unlike Minneapolis, where the voters elect the members of an independent Park Board, the St. Paul park system functions as just another department of city government.

While they may be known as “twins,” our two central cities are quite different when it comes to their governmental structures. In St. Paul, municipal government is relatively straightforward, with a mayor who oversees the day-to-day operations of city government and a seven-member council that functions mainly in a legislative capacity.

In Minneapolis, the organizational chart in city hall is considerably more complicated.  Here, the mayor and our thirteen-member council have worked out a delicate power-sharing arrangement, while independent agencies like the Board of Estimate and the Park Board function as mini power centers.
 
The current brouhaha over the Board of Estimate and Taxation is the legacy of more than a century of battles over charter reform in Minneapolis. Year after year,  the “no” votes have prevailed at municipal elections as  reformers have tried but failed to overhaul the city’s convoluted structure.

If history is any guide, the “no” votes are likely to prevail again when it comes to Amendment 168 on the Minneapolis election ballot.

Shinob Jep, Jim Northrup’s bitingly funny play parodying the game of Jeopardy from an Anishinabe point of view, was broadcast as a radio play last Sunday on KFAI’s First Nations Radio program. Rhiana Yazzie first interviews Northrup, Ojibwe elder, humorist, and author of several books and the syndicated column The Fond du Lac Follies. Northrup talks about his current writing projects and reads several poems. He also discusses losing and regaining the Ojibwe language, which he uses to introduce himself. The last third of the show features the performance, recorded at the Walker Community Church in Minneapolis by actors Cochise Anderson, Rafael, Joy Rivera, Gary Ten Bear, and George Keller.

Jim Northrup is the author of The Rez Road Follies and Walking the Rez Road.

According to the book Latino Minnesota by Leigh Roethke, Los Dias de los Muertos are days to honor and remember departed loved ones. “It is believed that the souls of the dead return to Earth for one day of the year–the spirits of the los angerlitos (little children) on All Saints’ Day (November 1) and the spirits of adults on All Souls’ Day (November 2). The celebration of Los Dias de los Muertos is neither somber nor macabre. It is a joyful time of reunion, feasting, and remembrance for families. Death is accepted as a part of the cycle of life, and maintaining a ritual of remembering assures the living that they too will not be forgotten in their passing.”

Stop by the Minnesota History Center now through November 3 to view an exhibit in honor of Los Dias de los Muertos.

The Northland Bioneers Conference will take place this weekend at the University of Minnesota. Produced by Northland Sustainable Solutions, the meeting focuses on environmental and social sustainability. For more information and a list of the speakers, see the TC Planet article about the event.

If you are inspired to cultivate your own plentiful garden next year, now is a great time to curl up with Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden for tips on sustainable agricultural practices–and a chance to meet Buffalo Bird Woman, a master gardener of the 19th century. “I sometimes say to my son Goodbird: ‘You young folks, when you want green corn, open the husk to see if the grain is ripe enough, and thus expose it; but I just go out into the field and pluck the ear. . . . I do not think you are very good gardeners in these days!’”

Northern Lights/Southern Cross: Tales from the Other Side of the Worldopens this weekend at the Guthrie Theater’s Dowling Studio. MinnPost describes the piece as a “cosmic collaboration between artists from the United States and Australia.” Both the play and Kevin’s book The Dog Says How relate his experiences surviving a near-fatal motorcycle accident. The Pioneer Press also reviewed the show.

Check out the 3-Minute Egg interview with Kevin about the show and video of Kevin at Interact Center in Minneapolis. Cathy Wurzer also talked with Kevin about the show on MPR.

Kevin’s newest collection of stories, Kevin Kling’s Holiday Inn, is in stores now. He’ll share stories from the book at the Minneapolis Central Library’s Talk of the Stacks on November 12 and at Common Good Books on November 17.

TC Planet features an article by Winona LaDuke for The Circle about the wild rice harvest and celebration on the White Earth reservation. She writes, “this ‘food which grows on the water’–a central part of the Ojibway migration story–remains central to the land, culture, and a way of life in Anishinaabe Akiing–this north country.”

To learn more about ricing, check out Thomas Vennum’s Wild Rice and the Ojibway People.

This Sunday, 10/25, noted mystery author Michael Connelly will be at Once Upon a Crime, THE mystery bookstore of the Twin Cities, at 2pm. He will be reading from his new book, Nine Dragons.

Connelly will also be appearing, along with many other illustrious authors (Jeffrey Toobin, Julia Glass, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, and Ronald Cotton), at the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s Opus and Olives, a lush event including dinner and drinks with tickets starting at $125. Opus and Olives is also on Sunday, 10/25, beginning at 5pm.

Cathy Wurzer’s Tales of the Road blog, Notes from the Road, features a picture of a sign for Highway 61 in the Czech Republic. Cathy invites readers and fans to share photos related to Highway 61 on the Tales of the Road Facebook page or Flickr. So if you are one of the many families traveling the famous highway on a mini-vacation this weekend for the fall break, stop and take some pics along the road to share!