The Cookie Behind the Legend: What makes Sweet Martha's so good?

"I've never felt like I was in the cookie business.  I've always been in a feel good feeling business.  My job is to sell joy.  My job is to sell happiness.  My job is to sell an experience. "  --Debbi Fields

Mrs. Fields knew that cookies make people happy.  At the Minnesota State Fair, cookies are more than another snack; they are part of the quintessential State Fair experience.  

At its two locations, Sweet Martha's Cookie Jar sells over one million cookies every day of the Fair, head and shoulders above any other vendor.  Over the entire twelve days, Sweet Martha's takes in over two and a half million dollars on its only menu item:  chocolate chip cookies (plus milk to wash them down, of course).

Here's the thing:  I work at Sweet Martha's.  I will admit I've sampled a good number of cookies--and I've served thousands of them--so I know that not all batches of cookies are the same.  I know that some visitors have waited over an hour for these cookies.  Even so, everyone reaches the front of the line with a smile.  What is it about these cookies that makes these people so happy? 

Behind the Scenes

Maybe there's something in the batter.  To start out, here's a little background on the cookie-making setup.  Life for a cookie begins when it is mixed up in massive mixing bowls by one of a few "specialists" (we can't give the recipe to just anyone).  The enormous bowl is then wheeled over to a group of four employees working a mechanical dolloping machine.  They rapidly plunk the dough onto sheets, stack them on tall racks, and put the rack into an oven.  About 1,400 cookies fit onto a rack.  The scale is massive, but everything is made right in the booth.

After eleven minutes of bake time, the racks have a few minutes to cool before servers stack them into a bucket or cone for the happy customer.  Beyond the basic cookie-making-and-serving tasks, employees like me put baked cookies into pails (the cooler cookies form a base for the hot cookies so the whole thing doesn't form a globby mess), slap stickers onto the lids (so you know we sell frozen cookie dough), clean everything, water flowers, and run things between the two booths.  They certainly keep us busy!

The majority of workers are high school and college kids getting a little income before the school year picks up.  Like me.  The other main group of employees are fun-loving adults who love to chat with customers and other workers, making puns and just having a good time.  They're basically the cookie experts.  A few times a day the higher ups (like Martha--yes, she's a real person) come through to see how things are going.  

To get a job here, you have to have a reference who already works at Sweet Martha's.  That means that pretty much everyone knows one another, and if we don't, you are mixed around enough to meet the rest.  The whole establishment feels like a family--maybe the extra love helps!

On Your Side of the Counter

My favorite job is serving.  I love getting the chance to chat face-to-face with the customers, especially as I stack the cookies as high as I can--within reason, of course.  Little kids stand on tiptoe to get their chins onto the counter, staring at the cookies they've been waiting for, eyes getting wider and wider as the stack gets taller and taller...even grown-ups start laughing at the sheer volume of cookies they are about to receive.

That could be a big part of Sweet Martha's popularity.  You get a lot.  The take-home pail gives you about four dozen cookies.  At about 30¢ per cookie, that's the best deal at the booth.  The cones are trickier to balance, but you still get a lot of cookies for the price--a welcome abundance in a world of expensive fair food.  Plus the stacking process is another form of entertainment.

Perhaps people love the cookies because they are so hot and gooey.  Who doesn't love a gooey cookie?  Since they are all made on-site by real people, they feel every bit as homemade as the ones you snitched off the counter when your mom wasn't looking.  Except you can eat as much as you want.  Granted, batches are different, and they don't always have the same gooey center or abundance of chocolate chips; still, you get enough that the few cookies that are only good usually are accompanied by plenty that are great.  

The Cookie Experience

I think the real reason that Sweet Martha's makes people happy is simply that it does.  Fairgoers know the cookies are good.  Everyone talks about how good they are.  Many visitors stop by to finish their State Fair "bucket list" with a bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies, just like they have every year.  Others have been told, "You have to stop by Sweet Martha's!" and are joining in the tradition.

These cookies are unique in a world of pronto pups, cheese curds, and funnel cakes, but they are as much a tradition as the Great Minnesota Get Together itself.  The Fair just wouldn't be the Fair without a bucket of hot, gooey Sweet Martha's cookies.

More Info:

Another Minnesota "Mystery": The Karst of Southeastern MN

On the surface of things, Minnesota is a beautiful state.  We know that.  Descend underground, though, and Minnesota still cannot fail to impress.  There's the mystery of Devil's Kettle and the disappearing waterfall.  There's the Soudan Mine and the high-energy physics lab it houses.  And there's the entire southeastern corner of the state, home to karst topography and most notably Mystery Cave.

Karst topography occurs in areas of water-soluble rock such as limestone or dolomite, and is characterized by features such as caves, sinkholes, springs, and rivers that drop underground.  The southeastern corner of Minnesota has plenty of sinkholes and even claims to be the sinkhole capital of the United States.

Mystery Cave is the longest cave system in the Upper Midwest, stretching at least 13 miles (plus some possibly undiscovered passages).  It was found by farmer Joseph Petty in the late 1930s when he noticed suspiciously snowless areas during a Minnesota winter (the cave remains 48 degrees year-round, and it had melted the snow on the ground above it).

Mystery Cave and nearby Niagara Cave are popular sightseeing destinations.  The underground worlds display natural artworks beyond traditional stalactites (c for ceiling, t for top) and stalagmites (g for ground).  Some favorite features of Mystery Cave are ribbons of rock called cave bacon, rivulets of color caused by minerals carried on the water, large and small fossils, and Turquoise Lake.  Niagara Cave boasts charismatically-named features like Paul Bunyan's Bed, Elephant's Head, an echo chamber, and, of course, a 60-foot waterfall.  There are tours for all levels of adventure.

The caves of southeastern Minnesota may be invisible when you return to the surface, but the karst geography has a big effect on the environment.  Chilled water that has flowed through the caves provides the ideal habitat for trout.  Unstable ground doesn't hold standing water well, so there are few mosquitoes.  The area is also "driftless," meaning it wasn't squashed by the last round of glaciers, but runoff from the huge chunks of ice formed deep, cutting rivers that resulted in steep valleys and bluffs.  This results in a varied landscape that can provide home to an abundance of animals, compounded by its location between two biomes: tallgrass prairie and deciduous forest.

The long and the short of it is, southeastern Minnesota is a great spot for an August campout: plenty of wildlife, few mosquitoes, cool caves to beat the heat, and geologic sights to see.  And that's not even taking into consideration historic Forestville.

References and Photo Credits

The Bottomless Pit that Ate Half the Brule River

The Brule River flows 14 miles from Vista Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, drops 800 feet as it flows through Judge C.R. Magney State Park, splits in half, and just before reaching its target of Lake Superior, becomes one of the unsolved mysteries of the natural world.  Half the river follows the traditional route, cascading 50 feet and then flowing onward towards the Great Lake.  The other half, for all intents and purposes, disappears entirely. 

But where does it go?

To answer this question, scientists have turned to the age-old and popular method of throwing stuff into the hole.  This has been largely unsuccessful.  Scientists and hikers have tossed in dye, ping-pong balls, even logs, and nothing has turned up either downstream or in Lake Superior.  Why don't they just throw in a GPS tracker?  First, the thick rhyolite rock blocks any transmission signal from a GPS or other tracking device.  Second, Devil's Kettle (the mysterious wormhole the vanishing half of the river disappears into) is very violent.  The pressure, temperature, vibration, and violence of the water are all reasons they haven't been able to throw cables, cameras, or scientists into the hole to see where it goes.

 How does it just vanish?

Scientists have described and dismissed a number of possibilities based on the geology of the area.  It's not uncommon for the pounding force of a waterfall to bore a hole through rock.  This forms potholes and giant's kettles, but typically water fills the depression and flows over the side.  Some have proposed that Devil's Kettle was a pothole that bored through the rock into an underground river.  This is highly unlikely, as underground caves and rivers tend to form in soft rock like limestone, and the nearest limestone to Devil's Kettle is hundreds of miles away in southern Minnesota.  

Perhaps the waterfall bored into a lava tube: a kind of tunnel that forms when the outside of a lava flow hardens while the inside is still liquid, letting the inside drain out to leave a long tube.  This could form in volcanic rock like basalt, which is found in the Lake Superior area.  However, in order for lava tubes to form, lava has to flow down the side of a volcano--in Minnesota, it bubbled up out of a fissure and spread in flat sheets.  Lava tubes cannot form this way, and no lava tubes have been found in the area.  For the sake of argument, let's say nature bent its rules and one formed by chance.  Even so, it is highly unlikely that it would be oriented in just the right way for the water to flow through it, or even for the waterfall to break through the hard, volcanic rhyolite (which never forms lava tubes) to reach the basalt layer 

One last suggestion:  fault lines.  Sometimes disturbances along a fault line can create openings where water could accumulate--but only in small amounts, never in the type of volume that crashes into Devil's Kettle.  On top of that impracticality, there is no evidence of a fault line in the area to begin with.  

An open case

For now, this spectacle in a remote corner of Minnesota remains an unsolved mystery.  You can check it out by visiting Judge C.R. Magney State Park near Grand Marais; the hike is a little over a mile from the park entrance and contains 200 steps.  But while you're elsewhere in Minnesota, keep an eye out for accumulations of dye, ping-pong balls, and logs--just in case.  

References/Further Reading

The Gem of Lake Superior

(Apologies for the hiatus.  I was moving and both time and internet were iffy)


The Lake Superior agate became Minnesota's State Gemstone in 1969.  It defeated some tough competition, including Binghamite and silkstone, jaspers rich in iron that reflect Minnesota's iron ranges; Thomsonite, found only in Minnesota along Lake Superior; and Pipestone, which was made into peace pipes by Indians in the area of the same name.  The Lake Superior agate was chosen because it was widespread throughout Minnesota, captured the importance of iron, and tells the story of Minnesota's geological history.  And I would add it's just plain pretty.

Prehistoric Origins: From Fire and Ice

Over a billion years ago, when all life was still microscopic and the atmosphere was just beginning to accumulate oxygen (thanks to a new innovation called photosynthesis), the area that would become Minnesota was splitting apart.  In the midst of the catastrophe, lava rich in iron flowed up from the fissure that would eventually become the trough of Lake Superior.

The massive lava flows cooled, fraught with small bubbles of water and carbon dioxide (these bubbles are called vesicles).  Groundwater eventually began to flow through the rock, carrying dissolved minerals (including ferric iron and quartz) that crystallized onto the inner walls of these bubbles in layers of a silica mineral called chalcedony.  Lake Superior agates are unique because their bands are red or orange, a color they picked up from the oxidized iron.

Over time, some of these agates were released from their bubble prisons by erosion of the softer lava around them.  Many more were scraped up by the glacial ice that arrived 15,000-10,000 years ago with the Great Ice Age. These were dragged south, tumbled and polished as they went along.

So You Want to Be a Collector

Agates are widespread in Minnesota, giving every Minnesotan (or interested visitor) a chance to collect.  On the surface they can be found in northeastern and central Minnesota into extreme northwestern Wisconsin, and underground they are expected to stretch even farther.  Because of their glacial rearrangement, as well as subsequent movement down streams and rivers, agates can be found in much of Minnesota.

While the shores of Lake Superior are often the most popular location to search for agates, these picked-over areas may or may not yield many finds.  Avid collectors have the best luck after a big storm, which tends to turn up new pebbles, and on a calm, sunny day when agates may be easily glimpsed through the still water.  Agates can also be found in a wide variety of rocky areas: lakes and streams, gravel pits, and rural gravel roads (usually made from local rock).  True hunters avoid granite or limestone and search more diligently in areas of basalt and quartz.  Even so, many agates are found by accident in fields and backyards.

What to Look For

Agates are sometimes hard to find, as their bands may not be visible.  They are generally round (molded in round bubbles in the lava), with pitted surfaces from other softer rock in the vesicles and a reddish or yellowish color from the iron.  Sometimes layers may have broken off, leaving a peeled appearance.

The most common type of agate is the fortification agate, which features concentric bands.  Rarer types include eye agate, which boasts round bands on the rock's surface, waterwashed agate, which has an almost perfectly smooth natural surface, and moss agate, which contains tree-branch shapes.  Most agates are pea-sized, but a few up to 20 Lbs (about the size of a bowling ball) have been found.  An agate that is greater than 2 Lbs with perfect shape, color, and banding is called an "all-timer."


You can learn more about agates and Minnesota's geological history at the Moose Lake Agate & Geological Center.

References/Credits

Dawn of the North

Though more common farther north, the northern lights (aurora borealis) may often be seen from Minnesota.

The term Aurora Borealis means "Dawn of the North"

The light of the northern lights comes from the sun.  As the sun rotates, its magnetic fields twist into knots, then release bursts of energy as solar wind--particles of plasma that hurtle outward and can reach the earth in about 40 hours.  These storms ebb and flow over about an 11-year cycle.  We are currently in a weaker solar cycle.

Southern Lights, as seen from the International Space Station

When the ejected particles reach our atmosphere, they are deflected by the earth's own magnetic field and drawn towards the poles.  Somewhere along the way they collide with molecules and atoms in the atmosphere, releasing their energy as light.  When plasma particles hit oxygen, they produce green or yellow light.  Interactions with nitrogen can release red, violet, or blue light, but colors are also influenced by altitude.  The dazzling light show may be accompanied by sound; the atmospheric collisions can produce crackling noises as they burst into light.


Native Americans have many myths and legends about the northern lights.  Some tribes believed they were spirits, or reflections from the fires of warriors or giants of the North.  The Ojibwe story of the northern lights tells part of the history of their people.  After a great flood ravaged the earth, the world was off-balance and left in darkness.  A race of people (now known as the "Mongols") prayed to God, the Great Manitou, to be saved from the darkness.  The Great Spirit took pity on them and promised to lead them to a "New Land"--but to get there they had to journey through the harsh northern wilderness.  The journey was long and dangerous in the darkness, so the people again prayed for help.  In response the Great Manitou placed giant, mountain-sized ice crystals on the top of the world to reflect the rays of the hidden sun, splitting them into the many colors that form the aurora borealis.  By this light, the people crossed into the new, fertile land and spread across the continent, ancestors of the many tribes of North America.

REFERENCES/CREDITS

The Story of Minnesota State Parks

...to protect and perpetuate extensive areas of the state possessing those resources which illustrate and exemplify Minnesota’s natural phenomena and to provide for the use, enjoyment, and understanding of such resources without impairment for the enjoyment and recreation of future generations. (Minn. Stat. §86A.05, subd. 2 (a))

Mississippi headwaters at Itasca State Park (photo by Tastocke)

I've been visiting Minnesota's State Parks since before I was born.  In total I've visited about 60 of the 67 State Parks.  Minnesota can trace its parks' history back to before the state itself was born in 1858.  The first State Park's beginnings stretch back to Schoolcraft's expeditions into the territory's interior, where on a summer day in 1832, he first glimpsed the unpretentious headwaters of the mighty Mississippi, naming the place Itasca from Latin veritas caput, or "true head."

The National Park system began in 1872 with the founding of Yellowstone, but the country took some time to define what this sort of park was or how it was to be managed.  State parks also had a fuzzy beginning.  Niagara Falls, founded in 1885, is popularly remembered as the first state park.  However, Georgia had a state-level park as early as 1825, and California was managing a system of parks at the state level from 1864.  

Minnehaha Falls,
From an 1878 resort guide

Minnesota attempted to join these state park pioneers in 1885, when it passed legislature to create a state-run park around Minnehaha Falls.  Legal battles delayed the land acquisition, and by the time the arguments were settled (in the state's favor) in 1889, Minnesota didn't have the money to buy the land.  The city of Minneapolis stepped in, bought the land, and took control of the park.

Not to be discouraged, Minnesota tried again just three years later.  The late 1800s marked the peak of logging in northern Minnesota, and many stands of native red pines were at risk.  Jacob Brower, a former legislator/railroader/newspaper man who was now an explorer mapping the headwaters first marked out by Schoolcraft, recognized the beauty of the area and the threat that could destroy it.  Brower took his proposal to the legislature, fighting for Itasca's protection.  In 1891, Itasca became Minnesota's first State Park.  

Brower later became Itasca's first Superintendent, then the first Parks Commissioner, working on developing Itasca until his death in 1905.  Itasca was first managed as a State Forest, while subsequent parks (Itasca was followed by Interstate State Park in 1895 and Minneopa State Park in 1905) were administered by the State Auditor.  In 1925 the Department of Conservation (later the DNR) was created to care for the system that had grown to ten parks. 

Itasca State Park set the tone for Minnesota's later State Parks.  In 1905, Douglas Lodge was built in the Rustic Style that marks this and later periods in state park architecture.  The lodge is not only the oldest building in the park system, but it is the first development of a recreation structure in a State Park.  Its construction set the stage for the recreational role of State Parks today.  Itasca and subsequent parks were hugely important during the Great Depression, as they were the sites of many CCC and WPA projects.  The Depression marked one of three park-founding peaks: ten State Parks were founded in 1937 (though many of these were first developed in the early 1930s), five in 1957 (with a rising population and popularity of the automobile), and eleven in 1963 (with greater park popularity and environmental concern).  The most recent State Park, Lake Vermilion, was established in 2010.  

Reflection Lake, St. Croix State Park.  Photo by William Wesen

Fun facts:

Minnesota State parks are relatively evenly spread across the State, so that any Minnesota resident may be within 50 miles of a park.  

Largest State Park:  St. Croix (34,037 acres)

Smallest State Park: Franz Jevne (118 acres)

Most visited State Park:  Fort Snelling (959.859 in 2012)

System includes 62 National Register Historic Districts and 4 National Historic Landmarks.

Itasca contains stands of red pine that are over 200 years old, and has 157 lakes within its almost 32,000 acres.

The Parks and Trails Council of Minnesota is responsible for acquiring over 10,000 acres of land for State Parks, including some critical areas the state did not have ready funds for.  

The State Parks System also includes State Recreation Areas, State Waysides, and State Trails.

Introduction

My favorite childhood memories are camping out in the woods in Northern Minnesota.  There's still nothing better to me than relaxing out under the trees, and if it's been too long, I start getting that wish-I-were-camping feeling.  The smell of the rain on the breeze, the dry cushion of pine needles on the ground, the sunlight filtered green through maple leaves.  What could be better?

I'm not in Minnesota right now--school and internships and things have taken me rather far from home, I'm afraid.  So this blog is dedicated to the outdoors of Minnesota, especially the State Parks.  I'm a bio major, so it might lean a little in the science direction, but it's basically going to be my thoughts of Minnesota while I'm far from home.

Named in honor of Pinus resinosa, the Red Pine, Minnesota's State tree.