I'm originally from northwest Iowa. Born in Sac City. Grew up in Spirit Lake, Iowa. Then, after attempting college, and living in the twin cities for a spell, I moved back home. That's when I started playing out. Really only three spots would have me. Sportsmen's, the Spirit Lake VFW, and Okoboji Brewing Company. Only the brewery would have me back. Probably for the best. After a while of working mediocre jobs and playing when I could, I moved down to Cherokee for a woman. My wife. The best decision I ever made. After that, we moved to Des Moines. Being a full-time musician in the center of the state meant that I had a lot of shows to do, and plenty of traveling, but rarely was that taking me up to my old stomping grounds. As an original singer/songwriter I struggled to get shows in northwest Iowa. The land of the cover band. I could barely get booked when I lived there, but I wasn't prepared to write it off entirely. I started doing a short run of shows called NXNWIA (North By Northwest Iowa, of course) and I tapped my friend and colleague Casey Joe Collins to come along for the ride.

It's like all this guy ever talks about...tours and songwriting. What about the damn beans?

I kicked this run of northwest Iowa shows off with a performance at The Temple Theater of the Performing Arts in downtown Des Moines. A decidedly not north or west town in Iowa. But, when routing works out, you jump on it. It was a Tuesday night, and one of my performances, so ticket sales started slow. I had Brian Schwager on my side, playing lead guitar, so I knew it would be fun nontheless. Imagine my surprise when almost 30 more people showed up at the door, more than doubling the presale tickets. That was a great way to start a run of shows. That's the thing with this job. It's all highs and lows. Now, there have been ups and downs on this NXNWIA run. Not just this year, but over the course of three years we've been doing it. One constant, however, is that Casey Joe and I explore as much as we can and search for better food than fast food joints allow. This year, our third on the run, we ended up in Storm Lake, Iowa for a show at The Cobblestone Ballroom. A very cool, historic ballroom that was a pleasure to play. For all four people that were there. Before that, though, we wanted to eat and Casey Joe recommended we try Smokin' Hereford so I could get a bean blog in.

Back on track, thankfully.

I had to check my records to make sure I wasn't hitting a duplicate. I thought I might have posted this one considering the quantity of times I'd eaten at that restaurant. Friends, they have a promotion where, if you can drink five 64 oz "silos" of beer, tney'll give you a shirt. Now, I'm not afraid of a challenge and I'm a proud owner of one of those shirts. That's five times at least. I guess I hadn't gotten serious about the blog last I was there. But, I digress. We're back in town and we're ready to feast.

I think we made it...

Obviously I got a meal. Surprisingly I didn't get a silo. Obviously I ordered the Spicy Smoked Hereford Beans for my side. This was merely a side dish so it was served up in the customary small, white styrofoam cup. I didn't get a spoon. There was a fork wrapped in a napkin on the table. It worked, of course, but I felt a little underequipped for the job. This dish came out of the kitchen steaming hot, straight from the bean pot. Immediately, you could see that there was a strong presence of course ground black pepper in this dish. Something I'm looking for, to be honest. You could also see right away that this was a single bean dish. The might navy bean holding down an entire dish. It's the right move, but I love to see a kidney bean or something in the mix. Variety (of beans) is the spice of life, after all. The other down side to this single bean dish is that they were slightly over cooked. We were in there around 5:00, so you'd not expect anything to have been cooking for too long, but these had suffered such a fate. To save the dish from being too mushy, there was a generous addition of scrap meat(s) in the mix. Pulled pork for sure. Something chopped smaller, perhaps brisket. This addition did help resurrect the texture of the dish. All previously mentioned ingredients were stewed together in a most righteous sauce. It was thick enough to eat with the fork they provided. Before it hit your lips you could smell the black pepper and hints of smoke. The aroma, couple with the heat and the subtle sweetness of the sauce made it a near perfect thing. Balance is key with these different flavor profiles and Smokin' Hereford pulled it off pretty damn well. 
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Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 3
Flavor: 4
Mouthfeel: 3

Total Score: 10

For what it's worth:
Getting nearly 60 people out to a ticketed event on a Tuesday night: 5

We had settled into the new house. We'd even had a large family gathering for Theo's third birthday party in the new house. Breaking it in in style. October brought my first run of shows as a central Minnesota regional songwriter. Booking shows in different states still has that sort of universal feeling. Generally, it's no response at all. If there is one, you usually have to haggle over the hourly rate that you're going to get paid. Often, that slows things down if it doesn't die off completely. Universal. I can work in a budget. Sort of my specialty. I've still got to make a living, ya know. Anyway, I have been lucky to find a couple of venues right here in town that are not only willing to host me, but seem pretty excited to do just that. Not so universal. When one of those rooms is an old train depot converted into a smokehouse and tavern...I get pretty excited about it. My first show in Alexandria as an official citizen of the town. I got loaded in with the help of a couple kind staff members. Load in and sound check went quick. So, to the bar I went. I grabbed a Minnesota craft brew and I ordered a bowl of baked beans. Yes. Just a plain bowl of baked beans. I sat at the bar, by myself, with my Castle Danger Cream Ale and a bowl of baked beans. I'm sure I was getting looks, hell I'd have a joke to make about some guy eating beans by himself at a bar, but I was too focused on the task at hand to notice. It's not my usual pre-show ritual, but...the more I think about it it...it's not far off. 
 
Hold on. Hold on. You're not here for the in's and out's of the local music scene. No. It's beans.

Like I mentioned, I just ordered the beans and a beer. This order was served up in a large, ceramic bowl. The beans, not the beer. That came in a pint glass, pictured below. They were served up quickly and came out of the kitchen piping hot. This particular side dish was a single bear affair. The traditional navy bean. While not entirely mush, these beans did seem to be a touch over cooked for my liking. Mouthfeel suffered a second blow with the lack of any additional vegetables. I like to see some onions or peppers in there at the very least. The softness of the beans was coupled with scrap meat, I'm thinking it was brisket, in the dish. This extra meat helped improve the mouthfeel and make the dish a bit more substantial. The sauce that these beans were served in was next level. The name for this menu item is "Smokehouse Baked Beans" and that's the truth. The sauce was relatively thick. You could probably eat these with a fork, but I was provided a soup spoon to facilitate the scooping. The sauce was a perfect balance of sweet and tangy. Just like a good barbeque sauce would be. In addition to that balance, there was an additional heat in the sauce. Very strong notes of black pepper and cumin, giving this a smoky aroma and flavor. Now, I know that cumin doesn't lend heat to a dish, but it's got a certain spicy food connotation to it and I'm glad to see it in the sauce. I've got a large menu to explore at The Depot, but I don't know that I can stray from these beans as my side dish. Hell, it might make another entree in the near future.

Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 4
Flavor: 5
Mouthfeel: 3

Total Score: 12

For what it's worth:
Playing venues with Castle Danger Cream Ale on tap: 5

It's been about the only thing I've talked about all summer. The move to Minnesota. On Tuesday, September 9th we closed on our house in Des Moines and headed north for our new home state. It's about a six and a half hour drive if you don't stop or run into traffic...driving through the twin cities. Wednesday, September 10th we got to do a walk through of our new house. It was the first time I had gotten to see it in person. It's a good thing.I loved it, as we closed on the house the following day. I woke up that day and headed back down to Iowa for shows. My wife, and a few members of her family, headed to our new house to unload the truck. Being away for work while moving in wasn't all bad! It was the first of three weekends that I'd have to leave home, drive about 7 hours or so, and spend multiple days in a row in low budget hotel rooms to play shows. This first weekend included a double header on that Saturday. First one was at Anita Fall Festival. There were all sorts of booths set up, and food trucks. I searched for a bottle of water and accidentally stumbled upon a margarita smoothie. Good fortune. I also found a BBQ food truck. Now, I only had a couple of minutes until showtime. Not enough time for a full meal. So, awkwardly, I ordered just a single side of baked beans and I shoveled them in as quickly as I could. 

You were afraid I was going to get bogged down in my travel itinerary. We're to the beans now. 

You have to make certain allowances when food is coming out of a truck. Especially if it comes from presentation. These beans were served up in a small, white, styrofoam cup. I had seen better presentation, but I had also seen worse. From brick and mortar restaurants. In the styrofoam cup was an ample serving of baked beans. FIlled to the brim. This offering was, however, only a single bean variety dish and it was slightly over cooked. To my liking, that is. To help increase mouthfeel the addition of other beans, vegetables, or meats are included. This is especially helpful in a single-bean-slightly-over-cooked dish. The kitchen preparing this dish had included scraps of brisket in the dish. While still incredibly tender meat, it did help create some differences in the bites.  There were no vegetables, the best I can tell. Where the texture of the beans lacks, it is bolstered by a very tasty sauce. It was a thick sauce, likely because it had been simmering over heat for some time before being served. How, I'd assume, the beans themselves got as soft as they did. But, the flavor in this sauce was the highlight of the entire dish. It was a well balanced concotion. Equal parts sweet and smoky. It is the textbook flavor profile that you expect to find in baked beans.   

Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 2
Flavor: 4
Mouthfeel: 3

Total Score: 9

For what it's worth,
Finding a small, quite piece of countryside to live with your family: 5

I had been out for a four-shows-in-three-days kind of weekend. Bouncing between northern Iowa and Minnesota. With the impending move, I’m constantly looking for new rooms in our neighbor to the north. I think I found a harbor in northern Minneapolis at a spot called “Rail Werks Brewing Depot”; a killer brewpub that even had baked beans on their menu. That’s not where this review came from. I left myself a reason to go back. I had a great mix of venues, culminating in an hour set at The Central Gardens of North Iowa. It was my third time at this venue for their Picnics and Performances series. Each time I’ve had larger and larger crowds, so I was hopeful that I had a good one on my hands. I had played with Brian Schwager the week before and asked him about joining me in Clear Lake, which he agreed to. As a bonus, he was up in Minneapolis that Saturday night too, playing a show so he’d have his rig. We decided that I’d pick him up and we’d roll to Clear Lake together. Upon getting him at his hotel we decided to grab lunch at Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub. 

Now, that was a pretty smooth bean transition.

This side dish was served up in the standard white, ceramic bowl. It did come with its own soup spoon and that was definitely something that I appreciated. Also came straight from the kitchen and was still hot when it hit the table. For my preference, I’d rather a baked bean dish has a couple different types of beans in it. Helps with the presentation and improves the mouthfeel of each bite. This dish was a single bean, but it was cooked perfectly. The beans were tender without being mushy. It was easy to see that the beans were cooked from their dry state. Nothing in this dish came out of a can. In addition to these perfectly cooked beans, they included chunks of bacon and diced onion in the dish. Each presenting their own flavor additions and both working to improve the mouthfeel of every bite. Now it’s time to talk sauce. This isn’t your traditional, heavy, brown baked bean sauce. There wasn’t a cloyingly-sweet-brown-sugar-bomb waiting in the first bite, there wasn’t even a hint of brown sugar in this sauce. The sauce was thinner than most baked bean sauces. Slightly tangy, as if the base of this was some sort of vinegar. Now, the very mention of vinegar is enough to turn people away. It is, after all, extremely tart. But, this sauce wasn’t that. It was a very well balanced sauce. They’re a brewpub so it could have included a reduced beer (though there was no indication of that on the menu) or a more measured addition of some sweetener to get that balance. The kind of flavor that kept taunting me to go back for more.  Don’t get me wrong; those sweet, rich sauces are what drew me into baked beans in the first place. But, as I continue to scour the country it’s refreshing to be served a different flavor profile every once in a while. 

Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 3
Flavor: 4
Mouthfeel: 5

Total Score: 12

For what it's worth,
An immensely talented lead guitar player to add color to my songs and the long drives: 5

It's been seven days on the road. We've worked our way from Des Moines out through the Denver metro, into Utah, down to New Mexico, and quickly across the panhandle of Texas, and we're still moving. Casey Joe Collins and I aren't sick of each other yet. At least I'm not tired of him. We had seen Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo, spent a night in a vintage camper in the New Mexico desert. In Santa Fe, he and I stood outside of Evangelo's. A live music joint and dive bar down on the plaza. In the shadow of Saint Francis' Cathedral, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. Fighting the cold of the season for a few lackluster hits. A woman approached us and asked for money. The door guy silently shook his head in disapproval. She moved along to some other strangers down the street. We heard her ask someone else for some money and she was confronted with a well defined "Go home Rhonda!"  To which she quickly retorted "You wish I had a home!" Funny in the moment, but not so much in hindsight. We do wish she had a home. It's not all roses when you get out into the world, but I think the exposure to all aspects of life is essential in helping define what you want yours to look like. Part of why I love being able to do this line of work. 

This isn't a philosophy blog. You're hear to read about the important stuff. Beans.
​
We rolled into Stillwater and checked into our hotel room. An America's Best Value Inn on the highway. We've had a run of pretty modest lodgings on this tour, but upon opening the door to this room I was immediately put off. With little resistance, we were given a refund and we moved down the road to a much finer establishment. A Holiday Inn and Suites. We were living large. A newer hotel and it was clean. The lap of luxury. It's a good thing, too, as the next hotel in Arkansas had bed bugs waiting for us. This hotel had a bar and when our show in Stillwater was over, we went back to said bar with our notebooks and worked out a bunch of new material. Pretty good way to wind down a night. 

But, Jordan, didn't you eat that day? Yes we did. There was barbecue...and beans.

I ordered a sampler platter that had ribs, brisket, coleslaw, and their beans. This particular side dish was served up in a generous portion. Slightly warm and in a styrofoam cup. Hungry yet? There wasn't a spoon available, but luckily the consistency of the sauce allowed them to be eaten with a fork. This wasn't a sloppy, soup like dish. The sauce itself was flavorful. It was pretty brown sugar forward, but the sweetness was tempered with a decent backbone of black pepper spice. That balance worked nicely in the dish, but it still lacked any sort of smokey flavor or aroma. Crucial to a baked bean dish at a barbecue restaurant. These can be given the plural name of baked beans, becuase there was several of them, but this particular dish only consisted of a single type of bean. Your typical Navy Bean. Unfortunatley, these beans were a little bit overcooked. The mouthfeel suffered some in that regard. This issue could have been resolved to some degree with the addition of another type of bean or the addition of meat or vegetables. There did appear to be some finely diced white onion in the dish, but it was the sort of onion you might find in a can of Bush's. With the ribs, brisket, and hot links being as great as they were, throwing some of those scraps into the baked bean dish would have greatly improved the overall flavor, appearance, and mouthfeel. 

Below the usual picture is a behind-the-scenes video of the painstaking effort I take to come to these hard earned conclusions. 

Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 2
Flavor: 3
Mouthfeel: 2

Total Score: 7

For what it's worth,
Driving around the country with a good friend: 5

In what seemed like a long time coming, I finally got to be out on an extended road trip doing shows. I'm reluctant to call it a tour because we were never more than a few hours from home. It was certainly hard to be away from my wife and son for several nights in a row, but the great rooms we played and the company we kept help keep spirits high. It was the second go-round of a little program I've taken to calling North By Northwest Iowa (#NXNWIowa). I'm running it with my good friend Casey Joe Collins. Being a native of northwest Iowa I wasn't exposed to a lot of art. KUOO and whatever our high school art teacher Hank Hall could show us.  When I started performing music, I didn't really travel outside of that area much and struggled to find rooms to perform in with my original music. The Iowa Great Lakes was rich, nearly spoiled, with cover bands and solo players reading chords and lyrics off of a music stand. Everything has it's place, but up there, it was all over the place. I was fortunate to find a few rooms that would host me, and it helped developed the building blocks of my career. I wanted to take an opportunity to travel to the better rooms in that part of the state and perform my original music. I'm especially happy to split the time with my good friend Casey Joe Collins. We run these shows like writers rounds, sitting up on stage together and swapping songs back and forth. Through years of being friends and traveling around the country (together and separately) we've built up a solid stage banter performance along with the songs. It's a bit more of a variety show, if you'd allow us to call it an actual show. On the third day of this run we woke up in Cherokee, Iowa and had to be in Ames before noon. We did an hour set in Ames, and then had to turn around and drive back up to Sioux Center, Iowa after that. Roughly 6 hours in the car without leaving the state, but they were two great shows. At the Goldfinch Room Reunion Festival in Ames they had a food truck, and I was able to score some baked beans before we had to hit the road again.

This whole website is me waxing poetic about this line of work. Can't we just talk beans? 

J'Dubs BBQ was the food truck they had on site at this festival in Ames and I knew I couldn't leave town without getting some beans. Their menu was a la carte so you can mix and match whichever items you wanted. Fortuantely for you, they had a "smoked baked beans" menu item and I dove in. It was served up warm in a decent sized, white styrofoam cup. Full to the top. By appearance alone, I knew these were going to be above average baked beans. Like many dishes of this style, this was a single bean dish. The traditional navy bean, if I'm not mistaken. These beans were slightly over cooked and a bit mushy to the tooth. The beans were cooked in a textbook sauce. Not too runny, and not too thick. The sauce it self was a delicious mix of sweet, tangy, and spicy. Truly a mouthwatering sauce. To give you a bit of variety in the dish, the team at J'Dubs BBQ threw in some extras that really helped separate these from a lot of other side dishes. Did it have meat in it? Yes. Was it pork belly? Hell yes. Large, tender chunks of pork belly were mixed in and cooked down with these beans. They also included diced bell pepper. Extra color, additional vegetal flavor, and a third texture in the bite. This was a very good order of baked beans, and if you see this truck at any event in the state, make sure and order these beans. Tell them I sent you. 

Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 5
Flavor: 4
Mouthfeel: 3

Total Score: 12

For what it's worth,
Finding your dream and pursuing it: 5

The end of August was quite a whirlwind trip up to the Northwoods of Minnesota, over to the UP of Michigan, then down to the driftless region in Wisconsin for a show before returning back to Iowa. All of that in 4 days. During that time, I met with my longtime friend and musical collaborator Matt Mulville. We worked on two singles that I will be releasing onto streaming platforms as soon as they are ready. This whole experience was pretty transformative. That's not just all the legal weed talking. Matt brought a feeling and approach to these songs that are unlike anything I've ever heard. Once these new singles are released, and the upcoming double record is completed (much more on that in the near future), I will move forward with chasing this sound on a record we'll call "Scattershot". That's putting the cart well before the horse. I have a tendency to move onto a new project before the current one is finished, or even started really. I hope you'll listen to these new singles once they're available, because they are very cool and unique to what I've been doing for the last decade and a half. There was some evidence of this sound in my 2013 EP "Darling of the Western Sky", and that's because Matt played guitar and bass for that selection of songs as well. This is all cyclical. 

You can hear me wax poetic about music any time. You want the beans.

While I was up on the UP I learned of a barbecue joint called UP-n-Smoke. I was excited to get in there and try their offerings. However, I followed the map to the address of the business and was greeted by an empty lot. I spent the next couple days trying to find a barbecue restaurant that I could review. No luck. The Sunday of this little northern run had me in Elkader, Iowa for their Fine Arts Festival. That was a fine way to end a series of shows. I also stumbled upon a food truck at the festival called Smokin' Monkee and was delighted to see baked beans advertised on their sandwich board in front of the truck. I ordered the beans along with the brisket nachos. As you can see below, the nachos were on par with gas station food, but they did have plenty of delicious, shredded brisket on top. Now, "on par with gas station food" doesn't sound like a promising review for nachos, but I assure you, it's one of my favorite things to eat. Burying the lead here. The beans were served up in the clamshell box you can see below, as a side to the nachos. They were at a modest price, and I believe that is reflective of the quantity and quality of these beans. It was a single bean variety dish, and I'd be stunned if these didn't come from a generic, institutional sized can of beans. They were hot. They were mushy and over cooked. The sauce had a familiar, sweet flavor with slightly tangy note. There was no heat or smoke presence in the dish whatsoever. To break up the consistency of the dish, the folks in this food truck did add in some scrap meats from their smokehouse and that helped keep the dish somewhat interesting. There were no vegetables added to the dish, from what I could tell. This particular side dish was a bit lacking in all areas. An afterthought for a menu that was designed around, and hidden behind, the strength of their smoked brisket. 

Ratings (On a scale of 1-5)
Appearance: 2
Flavor: 2
Mouthfeel: 1

Total Score: 5

For what it's worth,
Making music with your friend: 5