Strong Local Economy : Buzz

The prestigious James Beard Awards recognize the top chefs and restaurants in the nation, and the competition is usually fierce.
 
This year, the Twin Cities had 13 spots on the semifinalists list, including new restaurant The Bachelor Farmer and renowned chef Tim McKee of La Belle Vie.
 
Restaurant Alma was named as a contender for Outstanding Restaurant, and in terms of outstanding service, Manny's Steakhouse garnered a nod. In the chef category, St. Paul favorites Lenny Russo and Russell Klein got nods, along with Piccolo's Doug Flicker, Tilia's Steven Brown, and others.
 
Winners will be announced at the beginning of May.

Forget sun-drenched beaches and ocean views: for this spring break, college students might want to consider Minneapolis instead.
 
That's the view of one editor at the Kansas State Collegian, the newspaper for Kansas State University. She posits that students there may not be considering a road trip northward, but that they should.
 
Highlighted in the story are the Guthrie Theater, the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden, Hell's Kitchen, and the Mall of America.
 
"Minneapolis is a city with specific attractions for all sorts of people," she writes in the article. "The city takes pride in its ability to entertain a diverse group of out-of-state travelers."

The American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis recently announced its June 30 grand reopening with the addition of the Nelson Cultural Center.

The expansion and other campus enhancements will get a visit from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia in October. During their Minnesota trip, the king and queen will also go to the Swedish-founded Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, which will be celebrating its 150th anniversary.

“The Nelson Cultural Center’s innovative design and handcrafted, Swedish-inspired detailing embrace Nordic values--including respect for nature and quality materials, as well as for the environment, through energy conservation and sustainable building practices,” the statement from the American Swedish Institute reads.  

The Korean Beacon reports that Korean-Americans are thriving in the Twin Cities, in part because of a sizable adoptive population.

It studied the Twin Cities' Korean-American population, influential people in the community, local programs, and "hotspots."

The story states that "The booming population of Koreans in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and in Minnesota in general, is due not only to a vast number of immigrants, but also to adoptees from the Motherland--the latter of which is estimated to comprise 50% of the state’s rich Korean population."

The Knight Blog features a couple of its local grantees who were recently profiled by Minnesota Monthly. 

Dana Nelson of GiveMN and Laura Zabel of Springboard for the Arts are Minnesotans who are “changing the way we think about the world--and its future," according to the magazine story.

Nelson is giving philanthropy a new twist while Zabel is empowering artists, it states.

Local robotics company ReconRobotics has garnered attention in a recent Defense Industry Daily article, which profiled the firm's Recon Scout robot.
 
"It won't shovel your driveway after a Panhandle Hook has come through, but if you're trying to see into the next room, or over a wall, or even under rubble after a natural disaster, ReconRobotics thinks they have just thing for you," the article's writer notes.
 
After covering the robot's key features, the article provides details on recent military contracts won by the company.

RateBeer, a site that compiles reviews of beers, bars, brewpubs, and festivals, has released a list of the "Best Brewers in the World" for 2012, and two local breweries have found a place among the best.
 
Town Hall Brewery (at #42 on the list) and Surly Brewing Company (#11) are recognized alongside some of the world's most notable breweries from the U.S., Belgium, Norway, Italy, and other countries.
 
The list includes 100 breweries, and recognizes Three Floyds Brewing Company in Indiana as the best in the world, followed by two Michigan breweries.

Food and lifestyle site Organic Authority has named Minneapolis one of the top nine cities for residents who embrace organic food.
 
Following cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, the Minneapolis area came in sixth on the list, ahead of San Diego, Denver, and Austin.
 
"[A] little ice and snow hasn't stopped the progression of organic food in Minnesota," the site noted. "Swing on by the booming co-op, The Wedge, or sign up for a CSA from a local organic farm for a year-long bounty of organic goodness."

A recent posting from The Atlantic highlights an interesting crime-fighting strategy at work in Minneapolis.

Classical music is being played at various light rail stations to “dissuade criminal behavior,” it states.

The strategy, which the city began using last summer, is based on the idea that “potential criminals find classical music so detestable that they won’t hang around the station long enough to realize their criminal potential: 'If it encourages some people to wander away because it's not their favorite type of music, I guess that's okay,'" said Acting Transit Police Chief A.J. Olson.”  

Minneapolis took inspiration from Portland. “Oregon lawmakers liked the tactic so much." says the Atlantic, "that they proposed a bill that would require light rail stations in high-crime areas to play classical music as long as they remain open.”

Minneapolis is full of opportunity for job seekers looking to work in social media, according to a study on the Mediabistro/All Twitter web site, City Pages reports.

The city comes in number 13 nationally, “second in the Midwest only to Chicago,” City Pages states.

New York, San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston top the list.

In Minneapolis, the highest-paying job in this niche is social media marketing manager, which has a salary range of $54,000 to $85,000. “Minneapolis may not be the home of new-media giants like Twitter and Google, but we're aren't the social media backwoods, either,” says City Pages.

Midwest health care companies attracted $810 million in new investment, and Minnesota led the way, according to the BioEnterprise Midwest Health Care Venture Investment Report.
 
The report noted that Minnesota attracted $223 million in investments, followed by Ohio with $178 million and Missouri with $169 million. Tracking deals for 11 states and western Pennsylvania, BioEnterprise looked at investments in fields like health care services, biopharmaceuticals, and medical device manufacturing.
 
The state's largest deal last year was Entellus Medical, which raised $35 million to develop technology related to sinusitis.
 

The recent premiere of the Travel Channel’s new show, “Bizarre Foods America,” hosted by local chef Andrew Zimmern, featured a number of outstanding local delicacies.

In his column in Mpls. St. Paul Magazine, Zimmern lists some of the distinctive places to which the new show goes, including area farms, streams, and lakes and a Hmong market.

The Minneapolis restaurant Piccolo offers a “lesson in meat glue 101” from Doug Flicker; a local VFW hall has a hot-dish cook-off, and at Haute Dish in Minneapolis, Zimmern pitches in with offal hot dish. St. Paul's The Blue Door Pub also makes it into the show.

Zimmern adds, “I couldn’t be prouder of the show, our local crew, the fans who came out to watch, and the local stars [who] opened up their farms and restaurants to us. “  

A January posting from Publishers Weekly praises Minneapolis' Coffee House Press for its recent accomplishments amid a change in leadership.

Two of its fall 2011 releases, Leaving the Atocha Station, a first novel by Ben Lerner and Song I Sing, a debut poetry collection from Bao Phi, “have been published to critical acclaim in major media publications," it states.

“Leaving the Atocha Station,” PW writes, “landed with the sort of bang that most book publishers can only dream of,” with a lengthy and positive review in the New Yorker.

It’s also been talked about in the New York Review of Books, National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” show, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Foreign Policy.

Among more than 400 metro areas, the Twin Cities ranks 37th for average annual worker pay. The analysis comes via the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which noted that workers in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area earn an average of  $49,140 annually.
 
The San Jose metro area ranked first for worker pay, at an average of $67,850, followed by the San Francisco-San Mateo area, where salaries average $63,290.
 
The rankings were reported in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, which noted that within Minnesota, Rochester ranked second, followed by Duluth, St. Cloud, and Mankato.

In a regular column in USA Today called, The Pop Traveler, local writer Amanda Fretheim Gates makes a list of top 10 reasons to visit the Twin Cities.

The iconic First Avenue, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Chain of Lakes, skyways, Hennepin Theatre District, local brews, public art, and Jucy Lucy hamburgers are just some of the things that she enjoys about the area.

From her home, “I'm never more than 15 minutes from a play, museum, park, lake, farm-fresh dining, and tax-free shopping,” she says.

In general, “The people are friendly, the cultural offerings stellar, the sports exciting (if not depressing at times) and the outdoors flourishing all year round,” she writes.