Where There’s Smoke

Starting around age 10, her chore list expanded when she took on cooking dinner for the family. Initially, she made a lot of hamburger-macaroni dishes and spaghetti. One weekend, her father showed her how to make his meatloaf, a mix of beef, eggs, saltine crackers, ketchup, brown sugar and some seasoning. It wasn’t so much a recipe as a methodology. That lesson pushed her to start seeking out new dishes to try, helping to expand her recipe repertoire.

Though her father did most of the cooking, her mother had her own specialties. Her Swedish meatballs are a family favorite. When MiKayla asked for the recipe as an adult, her mother demurred. “She always says she’ll share it when I’m older, and I’m always saying, ‘Mom, I am older,’” says MiKayla. To be fair, her mother has given her recipes for several desserts, including peanut butter pie, cheesecake and apple pie.

This was the irony of MiKayla’s family. Her father didn’t have recipes but was willing to share his knowledge (he passed away in 2021). Meanwhile, her mother does have recipes, but is often unwilling to share them.

While attending Southland High School, MiKayla took her culinary know-how to another level. She worked as a cook at Bubbles Café, a homey diner in Adams that specializes in hearty comfort food, like burgers, fried fish, chicken sandwiches and generous wedges of pie. “I loved the work and building relationships with the regulars,” says MiKayla. “If you liked someone, you’d give them extra french fries. I always loved seeing the smiles on people’s faces when they were done eating.”

There were two other important influences in her life at that time: the open-fire cooking she did on camping trips with her grandfather and her church, and the years she spent participating and competing with 4-H and the National FFA Organization. The former helped cement her love of making food, especially when it got kissed by smoke, while the latter deepened her interest in agriculture.

After graduating high school in 2016, she chose South Dakota State University in Brookings, largely because of its high-quality agriculture program. And there was another benefit. “I really wanted to get away from home and experience being four-and-a-half hours away,” she says.

Initially, MiKayla’s sights were set on becoming an ag teacher, but she soon decided she didn’t have the patience to teach children. Casting about for an alternate career path, she enrolled in several meat-science courses. “I really liked the science behind the processes that result in delicious dishes,” she says. “That was an eye-opening experience for me.”

The class that clicked the most was devoted to teaching the science, methodology and benefits of added-value products. For their final project, MiKayla and her classmates created their own product. She chose to make chislic, a beloved bar food in South Dakota. Usually cubes of mutton, lamb, beef or venison are deep-fried rare to medium-rare, then sprinkled with garlic salt or other seasoned salt, and served with saltines on the side, though sometimes fries are subbed in. Working with cubed steak, she dusted the well-browned beef with loaded baked-potato seasoning — a fun play on meat and potatoes.

After earning her degree in animal science, she began her career at Hormel Foods where the 26-year-old now oversees the production of dried sausages, the world-famous SPAM^® brand and marinated meats. Outside normal responsibilities, she has helped the Inclusion & Diversity Committee organize potlucks so colleagues can share food reflecting their heritage. For her contribution, MiKayla once made a hot dish with potato nuggets or tots, an epic casserole tipping the scale at 10 pounds that was made with layers of ground hamburger, cream of chicken soup, cream of mushroom soup, peas, sweet corn, green beans, cheese and a finishing layer of attractively arranged tots.