Boy Holding Rutabaga Stock PhotoChild,Childhood,Vegetable Garden,6-7 Years,Bangs,Blond Hair,Bozeman,Casual Clothing,Caucasian Ethnicity,Children Only,Color Image,Day,Front View,Growth,Harvesting,Healthy Eating,Healthy Lifestyle,Holding,Horizontal,Looking At Camera,Males,Montana,One Boy Only,One Person,Organic,People,Photography,Portrait,Pride,Rutabaga,Studio Shot,T-Shirt,USA,Waist UpPhotographer Collection: Moment © 2009 Ian van CollerA large Organically grown Rutabaga fresh from the garden, being held by a young boy. ITHACA, N.Y. -- About five years ago, a man found the perfect rutabaga for the International Rutabaga Curling World Championship at the Ithaca Farmers Market.It "tumbled" instead of rolling. Steve Paisley, a first time rutabaga curler, won a silver medal that year. Determined to find his way to historic curling success at the annual event, Paisley froze the rutabaga. Two years later, he won the gold. The next year, a new rule was put into place dictating that all contestants use fresh rutabagas for the competition. 

Paisley said he felt like organizers were gunning for him and his 'baga. So he brought his frozen rutabaga to the competition in defiance. "Were were eyeing each other," he said about the referee with whom he exchanged traditional "smack talk" with. He didn't know what would happen when he threw his 'baga. But he does know one thing: "I didn't expect to get body slammed." His 'baga was thrown off the dock by the farmer's market and Paisley didn't place in the competition with a shoddy replacement. As he sulked by the dock later, he saw something floating. "It looked like a dead fish," he said. But no, it was his now semi-frozen rutabaga. He fished it out and faithfully put it back into his freezer. Alas, all good things must come to an end. He moved to Syracuse for graduate school the following year and the 'baga couldn't make the trip. Paisley doesn't know if he'll be able to make the trip down for the curl this year, but he will go down in Ithaca history as The Man with the Huge Oblong Rutabaga.

The 18th annual competition starts Sunday at noon at the Ithaca Farmers Market and anyone who wants to participate must arrive no later than 10:30 a.m. Paisley wrote a blog entry on his website, Every Day is Poetry , about winning the gold. It's been republished below with permission. The photos are by  Jerry Feist. To read Paisley's other stories about his Rutabaga adventures in Ithaca, check out the following links: 2012 Winter Games: Rutabaga Curling After my notable second-place finish at the 2009 Rutabaga Curling International World Championships (one rutablogger referred to me as “…the man with the huge oblong rutabaga…”),  I approached the 2010 Games with the sense that I held my destiny in my own hands.  Or, more accurately, that I would soon be holding it in my my right hand. I still had the outsized, misshapen, paradigm-shifting rutabaga I had used in 2009, carefully preserved in yards of Saran Wrap and a ziplock bag, in my freezer. Thanks to everyone who makes The International Rutabaga Curl a huge success each year, and truly the premiere sporting event of its kind.  

And a very special thanks to Jerry Feist for his wonderful photography.   We believe that free access to in-depth, locally-focused journalism makes our community stronger and better informed.Carpet Cleaner Rental Marquette Mi Click the button below to make a one-time donation or join our generous Ithaca Voice Donor Members who sustain us with monthly recurring gifts.Homes For Sale Guanica Puerto RicoWhen in the Upper Peninsula, or U.P., do as da Yoopers do. Miele Vacuum Cleaner Circuit BoardAnd da Yoopers do pasties.So when I traveled to Marquette, Mich., recently for a winter getaway, I too did pasties, eating my way through the northern hinterlands and evaluating what could possibly be the world's heartiest — and least photogenic — food.

Before going, I spoke with Fred Huffman, owner and operator of Marquette Country Tours, who regularly educates visitors about the history of the Upper Peninsula. Huffman explained that the pasty, pronounced "pass-tee," arrived in the U.P. in the 1800s by way of miners who came from Cornwall, England, to work in Michigan's iron and copper mines. "They brought with them their saffron cakes or buns, their afternoon tea-time tradition and, of course, their pasty-making tradition," Huffman said.The dish, which is like a pastry purse packed with meat, potato, onion and rutabaga, was portable and filling, perfect for a miner to take into the earth. "It was a complete meal, and it didn't require any utensils or plates," Huffman said.Today the pasty remains popular in restaurants and bakeries in the U.P. Nonprofits lean on their popularity and sell them at fundraisers. The ingredients have expanded beyond meat, and you can find gluten-free pasties, vegetarian pasties, breakfast pasties, pizza pasties, ham and cheese pasties, chicken pot pie pasties, fruit pasties, mini-pasties and more.

Each pasty can weigh upward of a pound and sells for $3 to $5. That, of course, doesn't include the cost of any cholesterol medication you might need. "People often ask is a pasty nutritious, is it good for you?" "I always say, 'Well, it tastes good. And if you're diet-conscious, just cut it in half.'"I keep that advice in mind as I head north, driving from Chicago through Wisconsin and into the U.P, watching the focus of roadside signs morph from cheese to pasties.The first stop on my pasty prowl is Colonel K's Pasties in Menominee, Mich. It's my first pasty — ever — and I'm not sure of what to expect. I stick with a traditional beef with rutabaga pasty, and when it's handed to me in a foam shell, surrounded by ketchup packets, I take it all in. The dough is golden, with a crimped edge. I take a bite. The innards are packed tight and thick, the meat mountain pocked with potato, onion and rutabaga. I chew, waiting for the flavor to kick in. Somehow, the rutabaga seems to overwhelm the protein.

The ketchup packets begin to make sense but not enough to help me finish the hefty steamer.I travel on, taking a winding, snowy county road to Iron Mountain, where I'll be staying the night. With a long mining history, the town is appropriately pasty rich. I pull up to Antonio's Pizza, Pasta & Pasties, secretly hoping they'll have a pizza pasty. Instead, I find only the traditional offering. A bit gun-shy and still mentally full from the last encounter, I bite into the pasty. Though the appearance of the meat — pink and brown, with chunks of white potato — is grisly, the flavor, rich with beef and onions, is warm, homey and, somehow, nourishing. It all comes together, like meatloaf wrapped in pizza dough, and I immediately understand the love of pasties. No ketchup necessary here.The next morning, I drive about an hour and a half to Marquette, stopping at Da Yoopers Tourist Trap in Ishpeming along the way. I figure if any store in the world carries pasty paraphernalia, it's this one.

If you're looking for pasty magnets, pasty plates, pasty earrings, pasty T-shirts and pasty bumper stickers, this place is a Cornish dream come true.As I pull into Marquette, I'm a little nervous about eating another pasty. Three in two days seems like a lot to ask of my system, but I head to Jean Kay's Pasties & Subs anyway. There, I'm ecstatic to see a veggie offering, with cauliflower, broccoli, potato and rutabaga — along with cream cheese and cheddar, lest you think it's too healthy. Now, a true Yooper may try to tell you, as a friend of a friend told me, "If there is anything green inside, it ceases to be a pasty." Regardless, it's absolutely delicious and merciful on my stomach.Now that I'm in Marquette, I take a couple of days off from pasties and try to burn the recent accumulation of lard by snowshoeing and riding a fat bike with huge, bouncy tires along the snowy shores of Lake Superior. It's a nice reprieve, and when it's time to return home, I'm ready to conquer the Cornish crawl.