Minnesota musician Jeremy Messersmith knows a thing or two about putting on a good show. But his latest show is in a new venue.
He's baking — and getting ready to compete at the Minnesota State Fair.
In a recent KAXE Morning Show conversation with Ham Radio's Amy Thielen, we found out more about his recipe testing. Messersmith has been trying and developing recipes for oatmeal raisin cookies and lemon bars.
"My favorite is actually the white chocolate rosemary and apricot cookie, a fun kind of herbal take on an oatmeal raisin cookie," Messersmith said.
James Beard Award-winning Thielen does not have personal experience in "the rigamarole and the pomp and circumstance of entering something into the Minnesota State Fair."
"I'm really here for just like a taste of glory," Messersmith said, "and I'm after that ribbon, you know. I just want to eventually get it some year, and then I can go on with my life."
After studying the intense paperwork for entering baked goods, he'll be entering the categories of light drop cookie and cake-type or single-layer bars without topping.
Messersmith said he got practice last spring when he baked his lemon bars for a fundraiser for restaurants in Minnesota affected by ICE presence over the winter.
"In prep for that, I probably made about a dozen different batches of lemon bars and just tested recipes, just to find they were all delicious," he said. "But mostly to find out what I liked in the lemon bar and what was my favorite."
Turns out Messersmith likes a real tart lemon bar, with a "maximum amount of curd."
In listening to the testing process, Thielen came to realize how similar competition is to developing recipes for a cookbook.
"It's identical," she said. "It's just like kind of dialing in on one little thing."
"It's just finding: 'What do I like, and what is the thing I like to bring out?'" Messersmith said.
You can follow Messersmith's Minnesota State Fair journey on Instagram. And stay tuned: Ham Radio: Cooking with Amy Thielen will be back on KAXE in October.
Listen to the full conversation above, which includes the sometimes divisive topic of raisins.
