2013 Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championship winners! With ingredient lists... Yum!

We had a wonderful day in Iowa County Wisconsin for the 2013 Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championships.

Great turnout.  About 2,000 people.  I had a lovely chat with a group from London England.  They had read about the event in the Chicago Tribune while visiting there and drove up for the day.  How cool.  

Who says economic development can't be focused on food and fun!  I'm very proud that our Iowa County (WI) Area Economic Development Corp. hosted this amazing event.  

This was another great opportunity to prove how valuable food and agriculture can be to economic development.

Many thanks to my friend and former Board Chair of the Iowa County EDC, Dr. Lorin Toepper who created and organized this great event.  We are also grateful for the support from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and many other sponsors.
 
Here is a list of winners in each category, including ingredients:

Professional Best of Show (top photo)
Mason Grode, Neenah, WI
Category:  Classic Plus Extras
Ingredients:
Saxon's Greenfield
Red Barn 1-year Cheddar
Pleasant Ridge Reserve
Expresso Bellavitano
Micro Kale
Cured Olives 
Gooseberry Jelly
Hickory Nuts
on Hop sourdough 
 
Amateur Best of Show
Bryn Bowden, Platteville, WI
Category:  Classic Dessert Grilled Cheese
Ingredients:
Maple Syrup 
Classic Italian Bread
Apple Jack Cheese
Chocolate Cheese

Professional Classic
Katherine Rehfeldt-Tonn
Gouda Girls, Milwaukee, WI
Ingredients:
Chipolte Ole-Beechwood
Moody Blue-Smoked Blue - Roth
Buffalo Jack-Star Dairy-Zito
Tuscan Bread
Butter

Amateur Classic
Mark Landgraf, Madison, WI
Ingredients:
Tomato Basil Cheese
Sour Dough Bread
Butter
Basil

Professional Classic Plus One
Evan Talbert
Best Western Inn Towner, Madison, WI
Ingredients:
Country Bread
Babcock Dairy Brick
Bacon
Jalapeno Jam

Amateur Classic Plus One
Lance Orr, Milwaukee, WI
Ingredients:
Cheddar Bacon
North Star Weyauwega Bacon - Haen Meat Market

Professional Classic Plus Extras
Mason Grode, Neenah, WI
Ingredients:  (above)

Amateur Classic Plus Extras
Katherine Cahill, Dodgeville, WI
Ingredients:
Maple Goat Cheese
Prosciutto
Organic egg Yolks
Seeded Bread "Breakfast"
Parmesan Lace Garnish

Professional Classic Dessert
Caitlin Way

Amateur Classic Dessert
Bryn Bowden , Platteville, WI
Ingredients:  (above)

Young Chef
Evie Lynch, Madison, WI
Ingredients:
Brioche
Nutella
Marscapone
Butter
Salt
Raspberry Sauce 

Congratulations to all the winners! Thanks to all competitors, volunteers and Lorin Toepper who made this all happen.  Many thanks to everyone who visited our Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championship in beautiful Iowa County, Wisconsin.

Food and fun.  My kind of economic development!

Official web site of the Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championship

Iowa County Area Economic Development

Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championship this Sat. 4/27/2013 - Iowa County, WI

Looking for a great time this weekend?

Our second annual Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championship is being held Saturday April 27 in Mineral Point Wisconsin.

Last year over 1,200 people from at least 7 states attended.  This year will be even bigger and better than that!

It's going to be a great day in Wisconsin on Saturday.  Take the beautiful drive to Iowa County and enjoy the excitement of this unique and fun event.  Entry is free and fun is guaranteed.

This year not one, but two, grilled cheese themed food trucks will be on hand to supply all your grilled cheese desires.

Hours are 10 AM to 3 PM.  Join us!

What could be better than grilled cheese, and a great Spring day in beautiful Iowa County Wisconsin?


Learn all the fun details about the Second annual Wisconsin Grilled Cheese Championship!

Iowa County Area Economic Development.    Links to lodging and travel information

Next presentation - Healthy Local Food Systems: Driving Business & Community Economic Development

I'm honored to be leading a panel discussion later this month that will focus on creating business and community economic development by building healthy local food systems.

I'll be be joined by my friend Peter Robertson, CEO of RP's Pasta, Carrie Edgar, Dane County UW Extension Department Head and Mark Woulf, Food Policy Coordinator for the City of Madison (WI).

This event will be April 30, 2013 at the Deming Way campus of Edgewood College in Madison, WI.

To me, the way to create economic and community development through food systems is to continuously build and strengthen robust business environments for entrepreneurs.  We need to create better platforms that allow more small food businesses to launch, grow, succeed and even fail.  There is great opportunity in this space.  However, we need better focus on the business side of small food businesses.

Thanks to Edgewood College School of Business and the Smith and Gesteland Executive Speaker Series for the invitation. 


Download Edgewoood College presentation information

Eight years of entrepreneurship writing. Happy anniversary Sustainable Work!

I love writing about innovation and entrepreneurship almost as much as I love doing it.  Today is Sustainable Work's 8th anniversary.

I've done startups in manufacturing/engineering, commercial graphics, software, education, economic development, and food.  I've mentored and supported startups across the U.S. and I lend to startups worldwide.

I wrote the masthead for this blog the night I wrote the first post, in a hotel room in Dubuque, 8 years ago.  It followed a long day of installing one of our recycling systems at their John Deere plant.

I haven't changed a word of the masthead - or the work of this writing - since.

Entrepreneurship and innovation.  You can do it. Welcome.

Happy 8th anniversary Sustainable Work!


2012 - 7th anniversary.   40 Years of Life Lessons in Entrepreneurship

2005 - First post.   What I'm Trying to do

Photo taken through the plant kaleidoscope at our wonderful Olbrich Gardens

Great entrepreneurship meeting in Waukesha County, Wisconsin

One of the best micro entrepreneurship programs in the U.S. is based in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

I'm honored to be on the Advisory Board for the Small Business Center at Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC).

Russ Roberts runs an amazing Small Business Center there.

If you want to start or grow a business and you can get yourself to beautiful Waukesha County Wisconsin, this is a hot ticket.

I got to catch up with many friends today  including fellow entrepreneur Paul Decker, County Board Chair at Waukesha County.

Waukesha County and WCTC represent a remarkable opportunity to start and grow small businesses.

Thanks Russ Roberts and the Small Business Center at WCTC for all you do.  Forward!


WCTC Small Business Center

Photo is from US Patent and Trademark office showing off a geodesic dome, the work of my innovation muse Dr. Buckminster Fuller.

Clean Food - a trend that's changing the world

I am a member of the Willy Street Co-op in Madison, WI.  Our family values and enjoys the benefits of membership in this great organization.

A recent piece in the Willy Street Reader, Five Trends Coming to a Co-op Near You, jumped out at me.  It was written by Marti Ryan, Board President.

In her piece, Ms. Ryan highlights the concept of 'clean food' as an emerging social trend.

I find it pretty cool that in a recent article Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen customer Kevin Lucey talks about customers describing his Happy Valley Farm Tomato Juice as having a 'clean taste'.   

I used a quote from Ms. Ryan's piece at our farm business seminar this week at the Food Enterprise Center in Viroqua.

"More recently, I’ve come to understand clean food as natural, organic, local, sustainable, fresh, safe, ethical, and healthy. And more Americans are interested in clean food: parents, folks who’ve developed food allergies, even kids."

I love this concept and this language.  While not all clean foods may meet all these goals, working toward them is a trend that is here to stay.

The Innovation Kitchen business model works to develop these specific goals.  Thanks to Ms. Ryan for her valuable insights.

Five Trends Coming to a Co-op Near You.  Willy Street Co-op.  I support and admire this great organization.

Innovation Kitchen creating great foods and great business opportunities

Our Innovation Kitchen model creates great business opportunities for food entrepreneurs and farms.

I love that the first recipe suggestion in this article is a delicious bloody Mary mix made with local tomato juice!

"Happy Valley Farm’s tomato juice is prepared at the Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen in Mineral Point using just the farm’s organic tomatoes, lemon juice and salt."

The Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen continues to pioneer great new models for small-batch, professional food processing that supports food entrepreneurs and farms.

Got a great idea for a small food business?  Join us!


Article - In season:  Tomato juice.    Madison.com, 77 Square.   Article by Samara Kalk Derby

Short (1:26) video interview with Kevin Lucey of Happy Valley Farms discussing the role of the Innovation Kitchen

Milwaukee first U.S. city to adopt global model for boosting startups

I love Milwaukee.

It's a city of great opportunities.

A new entrepreneurship initiative is being launched in Milwaukee that I look forward to following and supporting.

"Milwaukee will be the first city in the U.S. to develop an entrepreneurship program using a Boston professor’s model that has helped boost entrepreneurial “ecosystems” in cities in Colombia, Brazil, Denmark and other countries."

"Isenberg said the tipping point for success, roughly, is achieving one successful entrepreneurial venture per 100,000 residents each year in a particular community.

'It doesn’t happen overnight,' Isenberg said."

Milwaukee first U.S. city to adopt global model for boosting startups.   The Business Journal serving greater Milwaukee.  Written by Jeff Engel.

Photo is the Lake Michigan facing architecture of the wonderful Milwaukee Art Museum 

Thanks to Michael Ward of US Bank for this link.

Great Gray Owls and entrepreneurship. Show up. Shut up. Work for luck.

I was a dinosaur and fossil kid (still am).   I lamented the demise of dinosaurs.  I dreamed about meeting one.

Sometime during my childhood, scientists realized that birds were dinosaurs.

Birds survived the destruction of their dinosaur kin 60+ million years ago.  And they're all around us.

Wow.

When I need to think straight, I go hang out with dinosaurs.  They're all cool.

Great Gray Owls are the largest owl in the world (by length) and have the longest wingspan of any owl in the world.  They are also very hard to see. 
 
Luck is a beautiful thing.  This year, I've been able to see not only my first Great Gray Owl, but a second one six days later.

The first sighting was in a beautiful rural setting in central Wisconsin.  The second sighting was in my own city (Middleton, WI) this week.  Amazing.

Entrepreneurship can be an ever-increasing wall of noise.  Your job is to sort it out in real time.

For me, the only way to do that is to find some quiet love in your life.

Quiet places in your  life are critical.  You need to show up, shut up, and work for luck.  It will make your life better and your entrepreneurship more sustainable.

Wikipedia - Great Gray Owls



Photos taken with standard handheld digital camera.

My Kiva update - 40 loans to entrepreneurs in 33 countries

I just made my 40th loan through Kiva.  I've now made small loans to entrepreneurs in 33 countries.

The loan I made today supports the work of a food entrepreneur in Liberia. 

I love Kiva.  They are a great lending organization.

Kiva just crossed an amazing milestone- over one million loans worldwide.  Congratulations Kiva!

Here is what they say about their work:

"We are a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world."

Here is my current portfolio of 33 countries where I've chosen to support entrepreneurs through my small loans:

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Benin

Bolivia

Cambodia

Chile

Columbia

Costa Rica

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador

Georgia

Ghana

Honduras

Iraq

Jordan

Kenya

Kyrgyzstan

Lebanon

Liberia

Mali

Mexico

Mongolia

Nicaragua

Pakistan

Palestine

Paraguay

Peru

Philippines

Rwanda

Togo

Uganda

Viet Nam

The lifeblood of entrepreneurship and economic development is access to capital and the creation of viable business environments.  If you want to make a globally relevant impact with small amounts of money, I recommend Kiva.

Kiva

Kiva Blog:  One Million Borrowers!  March 18, 2013.  Congratulations Kiva!  Congratulations Kiva borrowers!

If you let me invite you to Kiva they will give us both $25 for free to lend to entrepreneurs of our choice.