PARTNER OF THE MONTH: Ruhland’s Strudel Haus
Tom Ruhland was enticed, like many Midwesterners, with the promise of easy riches if he were to have a coveted food concession stand at the Minnesota State Fair. He began experimenting with puff pastry as a hobby while he worked as a teacher. “This was, quite honestly, kind of a side gig for me,” Tom recalls. “I used to paint houses in the summer time as additional income and I thought ‘I would rather be in the food business’ because I was always kind of a foodie. So I started playing around with puff pastry, which morphed into strudel.” Tom has German ancestry, but his grandma never passed her cooking knowledge down to him. His strudel recipe evolved from trial-and-error and uninhibited creativity. “On some of our t-shirts it says ‘soon to be an old family recipe’,” laughs Tom. Around 7 years after the experimenting began he had a successful Apple Strudel and Tom and his brother were ready to [...]