The Great Pasty Hunt!

Kendall has long wanted to find the best pasty in the universe, so why not incorporate this quest into the 70/70 quest?! For our 62nd entry on our 70/70 quest, we very purposefully queried, researched, and zig-zagged our way through the Upper Peninsula to find The. Best. Pasty!

 

Our results (in the order in which we sampled pasties during our search): 

 

Rigoni's Bakery, Ironwood

Kendall's rating: second best traditional pasty.

Paula's rating: best vegetarian pasty

 

 

Randall Bakery, Wakefield

Kendall's rating: Best breakfast pasty

Paula's rating: vegetarian pasty had cheese (minus points), good crust

 

 

 Bread of Life, Bessemer - forgettable

 

Lawry's, Ishpeming

Kendall's rating: pretty good when cooked slowly (from being frozen)

Paula's rating: no veggie available when we stopped by

 

Irontown Pasties, Negaunee

Kendall's rating: huge, ground beef

Paula's rating: meh

* note on this rating: at this point of the hunt, we were not hugely hungry...

Lehto's, St. Ignace

Kendall's rating: #1 traditional

Paula's rating: #2 vegetarian (but #1 most interesting tasty vegetarian; definitely best to eat fresh!)

These are the pasties we traditionally take home to eat for dinner our first night in Petoskey. In both directions to/fro Boulder/Petoskey, we always stop at Lehto's for pasties!

 

A behind-the-scenes look at the Great Pasty Hunt!

The hunt would not have been possible without a freezer at hand (hooray for Hedwig!) - especially for vegetarian pasties which are often only available in frozen form at pasty shops.

The haul that made it home to Petoskey:

 Lots of good eating here! <burp!>

 

A bit of Iron Ore History

For #61 on our 70/70 quest, we visited Fayette Historic State Park, a historic town site which was home to nearly 500 residents during its reign as one of the Upper Peninisula's most productive iron smelting operations. Between 1867 and 1891, Fayette's blast furnaces produced a total of 229,288 tons of iron using local hardwood forests for fuel and quarrying limestone from the bluffs to purify the iron ore. Today, twenty historic buildings still stand within the Fayette town site including the blast furnace complex, kilns, the company store, the Fayette town hall, a hotel and homes of those who used to live there. The State Park extends beyond the town site to include trails wandering through what had been residential areas, along bluffs overlooking Snail Shell Harbor and Lake Michigan, and through woods filled with wildlife. This made for an excellent morning of wandering and wondering.

Entering the town site

Looking at the blast furnace complex from across Snail Shell harbor
(visitors can - and we did - go right up to and inside the complex...but I like this view)

Kendall, Taz, & kiln

Walking into town toward the hotel

 

And, of course, we had to wander along the trails

#60 In Our 70/70 Quest. It all started with a hat!

 

We are big fans of Stormy Kromer gear – it started with a hat, a Christmas present to me from Kendall, then masks for all the family, and reading about their story, and the fact that it is a thriving business in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and proud of it!  We’ve had a long-held desire to visit their Ironwood headquarters and thus it hopped aboard the 70/70 list. This trip finally gave us the opportunity to stop at their headquarters, soak up the Stormy Kromer history and offerings – and walk away with two more hats.

 

 

 

 

Further branching out from hats

The 1922 design specs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kendall seemed to think I needed to stand here