Hi.

I'm Charity Nebbe, and this is Greetings from Iowa.

A great space can elicit deep thought and peaceful reflection.

It can be a place to connect with friends and communities.

A space can inspire.

Iowa is filled with unique spaces.

Tucked away in all corners of the state.

And in these spaces, great stories can be found on this episode of Greetings from Iowa we'll visit the small village of Bentonsport.

Meet a collector who has created an amazing display of public art and head to Council Bluffs to see how an abandoned warehouse was converted into a state of the art arts and culture center.

Join me as we explore some of the incredible stories of our state.

It's all next on Greetings from Iowa.

Funding for Greetings from Iowa is provided by with our Iowa roots and Midwestern values.

Farmers Mutual.

Heil is committed to offering innovative farm insurance for America's farmers, just as we have for six generations.

Farmers Mutual Hail America's crop insurance company.

The Pella Roll Screen Foundation is a proud supporter of Iowa PBS, Pella Windows and Doors strives to better our communities and build a better tomorrow [music] The villages of Van Buren County lean into Iowa's past while offering the warm hospitality of southeastern Iowa.

Once a thriving port on the Des Moines River, Bentonsport at one point had an estimated population of 1000.

Today, it's much more quiet with its 40 residents.

Despite its size, the town still offers something unique to visitors Greetings.

I'm Herbert Schaefer.

and welcome to Bentonsport, Iowa We like to think of this village with a simple motto nestled in beauty and immersed in nature.

And much of the beauty has to do with the historic architecture here that's left over from the steamboat era, and much of this town really is remnants from the 1840s and 1850s when all kinds of people came here and passed through here on their way west.

First of all, with the native population that goes back to the end of the Ice Age, when the Des Moines River was a wide, wide thoroughfare of travel and provided habitat for game and place for people to live in, it's been that way ever since.

Fur traders came through and bartered with the native population for beaver pelts.

That was our story, in the 1820s, and by the 1840s, when America was expanding west, this became the Silicon Valley of the American West.

Silicon Valley means for Iowa is that this is a place of opportunity and certainly in the 1840s it was.

And this river providing power to run machinery became the opportunity to make economic gain and to build industries and give people a place to call home and a hope and a promise for their future.

If you have a mill, you have to have a place for the farmer to have his horse shoes, that becomes a blacksmith shop.

There's clay along the river bank.

So you have a pottery works.

You have a general store and pretty soon you have a town.

So I guess that's what excites me about Bentonsport, because it's the whole story of America right here.

When people visit Bentensport, I like to think it's because of the natural beauty nestled in beauty, immersed in nature, and geode becomes, I think, a metaphor for what this village is about.

It may not look like much from afar, but you open it up and it is a thing of beauty.

So there are hiking trails.

Lower Des Moines River Water Trail is is here through this area, with both accesses along the river way.

The Historic Hills Scenic Byway passes through the county and through this village, crossing the Des Moines River multiple times and gives people a whole different feel for the pace of life.

Well, what I love about living in Iowa is the transparent, genuine warmth of people and that we value the interactions with one another, and we're always delighted when someone from someplace else comes to visit.

Hi there.

Hi there.

And this is the iron and lace shop.

It's those sorts of things that make me glad to live in Bentonsport.

Glad to live in Iowa.

I think this is one of the best places on the face of the Earth.

♪♪ Max Weaver: I started about five -- the first thing I collected was baseballs.

♪♪ Max: This is called Rancho Deluxe, the Original Bicycle Garden and it has been around since 2003.

♪♪ Max: I just ran out of room with the stuff that I collected over the years and I started to put it out here.

What I did first is if you follow me, I just had an idea that, you know what, I'm going to surprise my wife.

♪♪ Max: I made this little garden for her to drink her wine, for girlfriends and to read and to do yoga.

♪♪ Max: I just kept going.

♪♪ Max: I just started putting stuff out.

Everything here, every piece that you see here has been thrown away.

Nobody wanted it anymore.

Even some of the beautiful rocks, they just -- take 'em.

And I've been a notorious dumpster diver all my life.

I think you'll find anybody that does stuff like this, somebody once called this outsider art.

I don't know what any of that stuff is, I'm not trained in anything.

But I can tell you that people that do this are cut from a different cloth than most, it's a different fabric.

And I'm one of those guys too.

♪♪ Max: This is a stage that I put in.

I've had a lot of different stuff going on here.

♪♪ Max: The place is, it breaks down in the community a third of the people love it, a third of the people don't like it and a third of the people don't even know it's here.

But people from out of town, when they get here, this is on a dead end here, when they get here they're looking for it and it's out there and they come.

And I really get a kick out of some of their reactions and stuff.

They just like stuff like this.

♪♪ Max: This is the west entrance to the Rancho Deluxe.

It's the Hollywood entrance.

It's the most photographed thing down here.

♪♪ Max: I've had some pretty good artists down here and I'd like to get more.

♪♪ Max: What we've got here is an incredible work of magic, art, whatever you want to call it.

It's those 3,000 pound blocks that I told you about with a couple inches of cement thrown on them and when they get ready they're carved, hand carved.

And well, it speaks for itself.

If I had a nickel for every time somebody tried to open the door I'd be, well I could probably take a vacation.

But anyway, Mark Whitten is the person's name.

He lives about four blocks over here.

And that's another thing I want you to know -- you just never know who your neighbors are but there's incredible talent everywhere whether it's a woman or a man who is baking pies or making bread in the neighborhood.

♪♪ Max: They tore Mason City down, I picked it up.

I spent hours and hours picking stuff up.

And it's been a labor of love since 2003.

♪♪ The other thing I hear a lot about this space is, is this really Council Bluffs?

Do we really have an arts and culture center that's on par with any other World-Class Arts and culture center?

And we do.

This sudden surprise like kind of joy that this is amazing.

So often you have it's a separate building, a separate facility, museums over here.

You have your opera house over there.

And here it's all together.

PACE is Pottawattamie Arts, Culture and Entertainment, and we ultimately are a nonprofit that supports other arts and culture nonprofits, as well as we do our own arts and culture programing throughout the community.

It just sits there.

So don't worry about a little wobble.

For someone who doesn't know what who PACE is, I would.

I would look towards any type of art you enjoy.

The easiest one people can look to is food.

Is only a container of you never know what's in it because you want everybody else to know.

But also in performing arts.

We have galleries.

We're the sum of all creative arts and one spot to empower the community to experience all that where normally maybe they wouldn't.

PACE built the Hoff Family Arts and Culture Center, which is a 95,000 square foot center that's dedicated to the arts.

Welcome to McCormick Harvesting Machine Company Building.

We're actually located in what they call the Implement District.

This district historically was known for farm equipment.

So this space?

Originally, it was a big warehouse built in 1894.

A beautiful building architecture wise and basically it was kind of defunct for many years, like 30 years.

PACE you know, got together with a bunch of partners and and rescued it and turned it into the beautiful space it is today.

It is home to five arts and culture nonprofits PACE, Pottawattamie Arts, Culture, Entertainment, American Midwest Ballet, Chanticleer Community Theater, Kaynesville Symphony Orchestra and Kitchen Council.

So together we support each other's missions.

And together we're better able to thrive and survive.

This is the Anne and John P. Nelson Exhibition and Art Gallery floor, so it's 8500 square feet dedicated to art and exhibition of art.

We try to focus on local artists.

We also have our Grant Wood Mural Collection, as well as our newest exhibit Verge, which is opening tonight by Lee Running.

It's an incredible gift to be able to work in a space like this.

So awesome and so slow.

I came in here and the first thing I thought was maybe someday I could, I could have my work in a space like this.

And to be part of something that feels really vital and alive is incredibly exciting.

We wanted creatives actively making things in the space.

I'm editing video, but I'm programing it from a video wall upstairs to show opening tonight.

There's five artists here on the third floor, and I'm one of them.

It's just great having artists around that we can bounce ideas off of, and that even though we're not doing the same medium, it's all the same process.

It's all a creative process.

So Kitchen Council helps food startups start up.

I do a lot of pop ups down here.

Any time there's events that need help with, you know, I try to be front and center for those things.

The first time that I walked into the studios even before they were fully finished, but when you could really walk in and see the space, you just wanted to run and leap and move, it's just breathtaking.

That's been really incredible to bring everything together under one roof, especially in such a gorgeous space.

I mean, I I love bringing people to the building and showing them around.

And I mean, the space sells itself.

There's nothing nowhere like this, like outside of Kansas City.

Maybe even further that we have all of these things suddenly come together in one spot.

And so I think when people realize that it dawns on them, it's like Christmas, they get a present and they're like, This is this is something special and I want to keep coming back and that's what we've heard.

But it's truly just the hub, and it's not just within these four walls.

Our reach should expand way beyond the brick and mortar of this space.

But this allows for some very strong arts and culture nonprofits to have a home because all of us really didn't have a home before this.

We're all stronger because of it.

Tom Slepicka is one of the more recent immigrants to come to Iowa.

Tom was originally from Brno in the Czech Republic, but for the last seven years, he's lived in Cedar Rapids where he not only shares his cultural heritage, but teaches people how to cook through his Web site.

And at the Czechoslovak Museum, And now I'm here with Tom Slepicka.

Tom, thank you so much for talking with me.

Give me the fundamentals.

What makes Czech food unique?

I would say that a Czech food, it's very unique because it's combine.

It's combine all kind of cuisines.

It's very influenced by the French, by the Italian, by Hungarian, by Slovak cuisine.

So it's kind of absorbed all these unique flavors from the Central Europe and translate them into the delicious, very unique meal, which speaks, I would say to everyone All right.

So we are going to make goulash.

But I have to say, I grew up in Iowa.

I've been eating goulash my entire life.

There's a very different kind of Midwestern goulash.

You are going to make Czech goulash.

Tell me about it.

Well, first of all, what I like about the goulash probably the most is that when I did our research, every nationality has their version of the goulash Asia, Africa, Europe, United States, you name it.

There is a bunch of similar meals which needs to be stewed with certain typical ingredients.

And so Czech goulash, it's probably the most influenced by Hungarian goulash, but it has still own unique face.

All right.

It's Czech personality.

It's a Czech personality.

It's kind of like a trip around the Central Europe.

Let's put it all together.

Sounds good.

So it's very simple.

First, we preheat our pot on medium high or high heat, and we put all our onion in.

And I always say that most of the Czech meal includes onion, garlic or bones.

That's one of the typical sayings.

And here we have both.

We have a lot of onion and a few cloves of garlic.

So this is what makes it very special.

And then we add paprika and saute together for about a minute to get nice saute flavor nicely combining slightly cooked, which gives paprika even more flavor.

And after that, we add our meat.

The meat, it's not ground meat.

It's a whole meat.

We are we have here a dice beef, which is a beef suitable for roast.

You can take it anywhere you want and your budget allow you, which is a nice thing.

This is a regular for roasting, but you can use up.

You can use even the Tenderloin, or you can use any kind of fancy cut of the beef, which has a lesser fat content And after that important part, the adding flour of all purpose flour and the beef stir it until it's nicely coat all meat with onion.

What's very important also is to have a good beef broth.

And obviously we have a tomato puree which will kind of give the nice thickening agent to our goulash.

And then we have additional seasoning and spices.

What's very traditional for a Czech goulash.

And I would say a lot of Czech meals.

It's major.

That's kind of one of the herb, which translates to multiple meals and give this traditional Czech flavor.

And then you, of course, have a also little bit of cumin to give us some kind of balance And of course, salt and pepper steer it and then bring it to the light simmer and then be cooked or 60 minutes When you were growing up, was food an important part of your family life?

Always it was.

And my grandma, she was a great baker and she was a very good cook.

Before I even grow up, I already felt that I needed to focus on a career in the food industry, on the restaurant end and be a chef.

So since I was about ten, food was always the number one, always the major excitement of anywhere we went.

My question, what we are going to eat?

What will be served?

So there are a lot of Czechs who historically settled in Iowa, and we have traditions in Iowa that we still celebrate that are Czech traditions.

When you started to see some of those in the United States and in Iowa.

Were you surprised by how they had changed through the generations?

I, I would say maybe a little bit here and there, but I would say it's not important.

I believe that everyone should cook how they feel, what works for them.

I wouldn't say I was pleasantly surprised.

I actually enjoy learning different techniques, different.

Certain updates which people made to the recipes.

And I find it very exciting So with our Midwestern goulash, we stir the noodles right in there with Czech goulash.

You do serve a starch on the side, and you've got some options, but one of them is dumplings.

And that's what you're going to show us how to make, right?

Yes.

And I'm going to do this dumpling, which is typical for Czech and Slovak cuisine, which is not just like a million little dumplings, but it's just one or two loaves.

And you end up slicing and it's very easy to make and a lot of fun.

All right.

So I had the dough, which was about about double over the period of two to 3 hours.

And I ate this a while ago.

Yes.

And I will scoop it out.

And this dough.

Believe it or not, will give us two side dumplings.

If somebody have soup, large pot and certain equipments, they can do one ton but it's easier to work with.

And what I going to do, I will want to roll it to the cylinder shape and the thickness of the dumpling.

It's best anywhere between two to two and a half inches.

The last six, I will lightly flour the upside, no baking sheet or a cutting board can be used, and I will put it right there.

And this guys needs to rest about 15 to 30 minutes before they're cooked into boiling water.

We've got the dough has risen.

We have these nice little loaves and now you just boil them right Right.

You're absolutely correct.

We just have to make sure that our water reached a boiling point.

Stronger.

It's better in general.

And then we can offer a slight to our dumplings in the water we cover it with a light, and we're cooking from both sides until it's done.

That can take anywhere from five to 8 minutes from each side.

And after our dumpling, it's fully cooked.

We remove it.

I like to use a baking sheet, and then we have to very soon create a few holes with a fork and then brush it with oil bubbles to prevent drying If you could share just one thing about the Czech people with everyone.

What do you want people to understand?

I would say that Czech people are very honest and very upfront, and it can be very good because if somebody if you feel somebody likes you, you are probably right.

But also, it can bring some minor confrontations, which you are maybe not ready.

Like I haven't So that's a good thing overall.

So very Czech people are very warm people, very open, maybe too much goulash is done.

How do you know it's done?

Well, first of all, it's good to cook it for about 60 minutes.

Only me to get tender and to be just somewhere between not sick at all and American way sick.

If I should put it this way.

But it is, which is perfect for actually coating the dumpling because you will see in the next step.

So this is all done and we will do it.

A Czech wing.

Interesting things that Czech gentlemen.

It's usually seven to one dozen slices.

And ladies eight.

Five to seven.

So I will do the gender neutral version with five slices.

And you've sliced up that we have this dumpling in a loaf.

We sliced that up before serving.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes.

And then I will put a sauce and I will first put salt on the middle.

In the middle.

And then when I'm done and I try to always make sure I have some meat because we have a lot of salt.

And also also we have a decent amount of meat as well.

And when I get when I get to the point that I'm satisfied with the sauce, I will gently coat about one or maybe a quarter bottom of the dumplings That's kind of the, I would say, almost esthetic requirement if you were to have it like a real check.

And then I will put a little bit of onion raw, honey.

And believe it or not.

That's the authentic way.

That's the way.

And then show me how a real check would eat it.

So it's a little different then how to eat American goulash.

So let's take a dumpling and you slice a piece and you essentially you essentially bite part of the sauce.

And salt should be just enough to nicely coat it.

All right.

That's how the real Czechs do it.

Yes.

I love.

That's how it should be.

That's great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

It's been a pleasure celebrating our state's people, art and culture with you.

I'm Charity Nebbe.

We'll see you next time for another episode.

Of Greetings from Iowa.

[music] Funding for Greetings from Iowa is provided by with our Iowa roots.

And Midwestern values Farmers Mutual.

Heil is committed to offering innovative farm insurance for America's farmers, just as we have for six generations.

Farmers Mutual Hail America's crop insurance company the Pella Roll Screen Foundation is a proud supporter of Iowa PBS.

Pella Windows and Doors strives to better our communities and build a better tomorrow