Pat on the Prairie

Pat’s Blog for North Dakota

This is my second trip to the great state of North Dakota. What an agricultural state it is. It’s especially evident this time of year when the sunflowers are in bloom and the fields stretch as far as the eye can see. A person can’t help but feel good when you see a sunflower. They’ll be ready for harvest in a few weeks and off to a plant to be turned into oil.

Sunflowers are sharing the landscape with wheat. It’s the height of harvest for those “amber waves of grain”. I was impressed by the fact that virtually everything else stops for the farmer and his family during this busy time of year. Harvesting continues way into the night. One motel where we stayed the manager had to leave that evening so she could help her husband in the fields.

Seeing that dedication will help me appreciate my bread and pasta even more!

Something Fishy Going On...

Keep your eye out for an upcoming segment in season 3. America’s Heartland recently visited the state of Mississippi as part of our effort to cover all 50 states. And a trip to Mississippi wouldn’t be complete without visiting one of the dozens of catfish farms. Yes, they “farm” catfish. Fly over the Indianola area and you get a sense of just how important catfish farming is to the region. Giant ponds filled with thousands of catfish stretch for miles. Where I grew up, in Iowa, folks used to catch catfish in the Mississippi River. It was served fried, whole. But in catfish country, it’s all filleted! It’s fried, of course, and on almost every restaurant menu in the area. But we did find one restaurant where they don’t fry the fish, and are proud of it. At the Crown Restaurant in Indianola, Evelyn Roden shares her “Catfish Allison” recipe. The fillet doesn’t go anywhere near grease. Instead it gets poached and then baked with a creamy sauce. Evelyn says catfish is the perfect fish for this kind of preparation. It just soaks up all the buttery flavor. And boy does she use a lot of butter! So if you happen to be driving through catfish country, stop at The Crown and tell Evelyn that Jason from America’s Heartland sent you!

Of Presidents and Season Premieres

News & Notes Season 3, Edition 4

It’s been an exciting and extremely busy couple of weeks. Our reporters and producers are back from assignments all across the Heartland, including Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi and New Jersey. As I write this, host Paul Ryan’s just back from North Dakota, and reporter Pat McConahay’s is in West Virginia. That means, by the end of next week we will have been to 49 states! Only our smallest state, Rhode Island, remains on our to-do list, and we’re researching stories right now for a September shoot.

Meantime, we’re putting the finishing touches this week on our eighth episode, and it’s a special one. Paul hosts the program from Monticello, the longtime home of our third president, Thomas Jefferson. There, we learn that Jefferson was much more than a statesman, scholar, president, and founding father: he was an avid farmer and gardener.

For more than a decade, he happily toiled in his thousand foot long “kitchen garden,” experimenting with over three hundred varieties of vegetables and more than 170 different kinds of fruit! It promises to be an episode rich in history and stunning images. As I’ve mentioned before, season 3 episodes will be available to PBS stations across the U.S. starting the week of September 3. Some stations will begin airing these new episodes right away; others may still be wrapping up their broadcasts of the season 2 programs. Our website is a good way to check your own station’s broadcast schedule. And, season 3 of America’s Heartland will also begin airing on the RFD-TV cable and satellite network about the same time. Some other stories to watch for this new season: Jason Shoultz discovers how lovable but determined beagles are providing the first line of defense to keep potentially destructive ag pests from entering the U.S.; Pat finds out how important bees are to many of our crops, and what beekeepers and scientists are doing to combat the decline of healthy hives; and Gabriela Zaragoza introduces us to the oldest agricultural experiment in America (hint: it’s part of an agricultural research project at the University of Illinois). Please keep sending us your story ideas, suggestions, and recipes! Please send recipes to Jennifer Iida at jiida@kvie.org for consideration. For questions and comments, go directly to the “Feedback” section.Thanks for all your support, and for watching America’s Heartland!

Seth Alspaugh