Ryan Welle checked us in and yours truly served as official greeter. President Lori called the meeting to order and we met the guests at today's meeting. Exchange Student and Chef Extraordinaire, Lulie brought her host mother, Tammy Richards, and her good friend, Caity Zahnow. Dean Monke introduced our student athlete guests from the Consolation Championship Otter Girls Hockey Team, noting they could also be classified as student guests since the team was named Academic Champions in the section with a team average GPA of 3.85. Hockey players attending today and representing the team included three of the six seniors on the team:
Julia Johnson - daughter of Neil & Carolyn Johnson. She plays Soccer and Hockey and in the Band. Next years she plans to attend NDSU for biochemistry.
Amy Johnson - daughter of Mark & Sarah Johnson. She plays Hockey, Soccer & Golf, and is in Band & Choir. She will be attending the Association Free Lutheran Bible School in Plymouth next and then plans to pursue a career in nursing or education from there.
Sophie Rausch - daughter of Greg & Kathleen. Sophie participates in Soccer, Hockey & Track.She will be attending Hamline University next year & playing hockey there with a plan to pursue a medical degree.
Keith Olson led us in singing and mixed in an Ole & Sven joke for good measure. Songs included #2 R-O-T-A-R-Y, #69 Tell Me Why and #3 Smile.
For today's Rotary Minute Bob passed around the Rotary Rounds sign up sheet for the next 8 weeks and asked for volunteers to pitch in.
Lori announced that no one correctly guessted the Baby Photo last week. It was Jamie Larson.
Announcements
The next board meeting will be held at 11am next Wednesday.
We will vote on our 2019-2020 slate of officers and board members next week. The names of those nominated for these positions are listed below.
Next week’s program will be Bryan Schoenberger from the Lakes Region Builders Association.
Among todays Brags & Fines:
Steve Andrews - threw in a scooter buck because he’s heading out of town again to be with his wife...he mentioned nothing about her diet or her weight.
Kathy Austvold - contributed after having been gone the last 3 weeks....she was in India spending time with the children she works with there and then went on to Thailand for a conference.
Dave Johnson - donated $5 for Mark Johnson (father of guest hockey player Amy Johnson) for his amazing hockey announcing and to congratulate the girls hockey team
John MacFarlane - gave to congratulate the lady Otter Hockey players
Dean Monke - bragged that it was great week for the Otters....in addition to the girls hockey performance, there were several swimmers & divers who qualified for state, Dustin Pertalis qualified for the State Wrestling meet, and the bowling team is also going to state in Rochester this week
Keith Olson - gave to congratulate the lady Otters on their academic prowess
Lori Larson - threw in for missing last week and because they are heading for the Dominican Republic on vacation tomorrow
Bob Russell was called on to introduce Lulie to tell us about the delicious meal she had prepared for us today. He asked her friend, Caity, to help introduce Lulie. Caity is originally from Ashby and she works at the Coffee Hut and Babysits. She is a YoungLife Leader and this is how she met Lulie. Caity said Lulie is "super sweet" and encouraged us all to get to know her better.
Lulie's Brazilian Meal
Lulie gave us some background on the traditional Brazilian meal she and the Aasness's prepared for us today. The meal included:
Feijoada - Beans and several kinds of meat including sausage, high round, and bacon
Rice and farofa (corn flour) which she explained takes the liquid out of the beans
Salad - made of tomatoes & olive oil and a little salt
Orange Slices - she said these are intentionally included with the meal because beans have a lot of iron and our bodies don’t absorb the iron without vitamin C
Dessert - Brigadeiros which was a yummy and gooey layering of chocolately sauce and crackers
Lulie said preparing this meal for us was "a lot of work" and wouldn't have been possible without the great help she got from our caterers, the Aasnesses. She said the preparations started tarted on Monday when they went to buy the groceries. Then Tuesday they prepared the meal after school in their kitchen. She explained that problems with the instant pot (which they had planned to use as a pressure cooker to prepare the meat) made it take longer than usual.
She said that in Brazil the biggest meal of the day is lunch, so this was the traditional time of day to eat this type of meal.
Some other things we learned about Lulie from her presentation and the Q&A included:
She likes to cook and does so often, but this is only the second time she has made this meal.
Her favorite american food is chocolate chip cookies.
She is enjoying living with the Richards family and has been with them about a month. They have been to the Mall of America and to a play in the cities. She has two dogs as pets now instead of the cat she had at the Klinnert home.
She said winter in Minnesota was fun at first, but now she is tired of the snow. (Join the club, Lulie). But she is looking forward to snowmobiling with Steve Leitte if it will ever warm up.
She attended the Winter Carnival and participated in a jigsaw puzzle competition with Bob Russell.
She is planning to go out for track this spring.
If you missed this meeting, you missed a fantastic meal and program. It was some of the most flavorful and delicious meat paired with delicious Brazilian sides. Lulie's bright and cheerful spirit only made it taste that much better. As Lulie said "It felt so good to eat with you today, a meal that I made from my country. We gave it our best." And it was the best, Lulie. Thank you!
