When I was invited to the Green Giant Valley, I saw what I expected, and that was lots of agriculture! while I had an itinerary and knew that I would be headed to a James Beard award winning restaurant on the trip I don’t think I was fully prepared for just how amazing the food would be here. I was stuffed the entire trip, the midwest (well more midwest than Michigan) really know how to feed a person!

As a person who has considered taking the path of catering, but never really having been to a catered event, the lunch we had on day two of the trip was absolutely amazing. The company is Fabulous Catering and they are right out of Minneapolis. When we pulled up for our lunch we were greeted to an outdoor setup of rustic picnic tables that were covered in gorgeous vintage linens and beautiful flowers. We also were greeted with tea and lemonade served in mason jars!

 And the food.. I’m just going to list what we had: Berry platter, Caprese Salad with heirloom tomatoes and a jalapeno vinaigrette, grilled corn and vegetables, herb grilled chicken with micro-greens, Spaetzle, and PIE, all home made from scratch with fresh ingredients. The food was phenomenal!

And of course I had to go talk to the staff and introduce myself, and of course I had knife envy but they let me touch their Global knife then flashed a smile for me, shout out to the staff because they make it all possible!

And then later that night we were in for something amazing, dinner at Bar La Grassa in Minneapolis! This restaurant is home to the James Beard Award Winner for Best Chef Midwest, Issac Becker! I’ve had the opportunity to meet a couple chefs in this blog  journey but I’ll admit this one had my heart pounding. I asked the waitress as soon as I was seated if it would be possible to meet him and mention my fellow blogger and culinary student Kimberly from Peas on Moss, and she said it would be no problem. If you could have seen Kimberly’s face when we told her we were meeting Chef Becker, you would have thought she was just told she won the lotto. It was so amazing. It was brief as it was dinner RUSH but we explained we were there with Green Giant but that we are culinary students and we blog about meeting chefs in amazing restaurants too.

A quick photo and a handshake and he was back to work, and I was glad I was close to the kitchen because it was an open design and I could see the chef  merely feet from me. Unforgettable!

And the food. OH the food. We had a fixed menu of 5 courses with an amuse bouche to start..

You literally had to roll us onto the bus back to the hotel because we were stuffed to the gills. The food was amazing. Definitely an experience that will stay with me! Thank you so much General Mills and Green Giant, Fabulous Catering, and Bar La Grassa for a culinary journey in the midwest!

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Disclosure: General Mills and Food Giant took care of the bills on this trip, however, opinions are my own.