{"id":792,"date":"2023-02-17T09:16:37","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T14:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/?p=792"},"modified":"2023-03-01T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T21:00:00","slug":"mary-cullen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/mary-cullen\/","title":{"rendered":"A Taste of Storm Lake with Mary Cullen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Interview and Profile by Caitlin Zawodny<\/em><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Food shapes a community. It nourishes, it builds connections, and it can bridge generations. Through her \u201cMy Favorite Recipes\u201d column in the Storm Lake Times Pilot<\/em>\u2014over the last thirty-two years\u2014Mary Cullen has showcased how food can unite a community as diverse as Storm Lake. Her recipes are often attached to lighthearted profiles of those in town, documenting recent weddings, family vacations, and welcoming newcomers. \u201cI think the recipes are important,\u201d Cullen said recently, \u201cbut I like to think it\u2019s more a story. Everybody has a story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cullen\u2019s own story began in Pocahontas, thirty-five miles east of Storm Lake. The oldest of five siblings, of Dr. Justin and Isabelle Tolan, she moved away to the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota for a year, later graduating from the University of Northern Iowa. Following graduation, she taught elementary school in Varina and Fonda OLGC, and then moved to Storm Lake in 1978 to become a children\u2019s librarian. \u201cKids and books,\u201d she said. \u201cIs there anything better?\u201d Her role as a librarian at the Storm Lake Public Library eventually led to meeting her future husband, John Cullen.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"Mary<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
When he began the Storm Lake Times <\/em>in 1990, she stepped down to care for their two young children full-time, and eventually setting off on a new adventure: a column devoted to the recipes and stories of town residents. John showed her the ropes, she recalled, and told her, \u201cYou\u2019re going to interview people\u2014your friends and people you know.\u201d Mary laughed at the memory, and asked, \u201cYeah, but after that month, then what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thirty-two years later, \u201cMy Favorite Recipes\u201d still stands strong. Cullen has met so many people around town because of skills at finding a good story. Residents often share names with her, of those who haven\u2019t been interviewed yet, and she keeps a close eye on local happenings to find potential features. In the interviews for her column, Cullen focuses on the interviewee\u2019s own families, interests, hobbies, clubs, and biographies. Those featured in these profiles can range from someone whose family has lived in Storm Lake for generations to someone who moved only recently. Often, the interviews center around a life change for a resident, like a new job, the recent birth of a baby, or big achievements. The recipes are a window into Storm Lake\u2019s residents and its multicultural, ever-changing community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cullen takes great pride in her job and cares deeply about doing it right. \u201cWhen people tell you their story,\u201d she said, \u201cyou want to tell it correctly. It feels like a responsibility because you want to get it right.\u201d Even through the COVID-19 pandemic, Cullen continued \u201cMy Favorite Recipes,\u201d conducting interviews over the phone in a time where human connection and community were acutely needed.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Turtle
Two words: turtle. cake.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Cullen has not always been the interviewer, though. In 1983, Barbara Kearney wrote a column on Cullen\u2019s love of traveling and life, followed by three of her favorite recipes at the time: a decadent turtle cake, a broccoli casserole, and lasagna. Although Cullen\u2019s cooking and favorite recipes frequently change, the turtle cake has remained a favorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the spirit of pure, intensive, academic research\u2014one can never be too rigorous\u2014I decided to bake Mary Cullen\u2019s favorite and famous turtle cake recipe this past summer. Baking it gave me a greater understanding and appreciation for recipes shared in newspapers. Nowadays, whenever I am in the kitchen, I can easily find a recipe on Google. But reading the directions in a newspaper, and seeing a photo of the person who shared the recipe\u2014and learning more about her history\u2014offered a deeper personal connection. I was no longer just baking a cake. Instead, I was getting to know Mary Cullen a little better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recipe itself was fairly straight-forward, and one that Cullen said would satisfy my sweet tooth. Who can go wrong with caramels, pecans, and chocolate chips on a German sweet chocolate cake? The results made it clear why this recipe was so popular. The cake itself was decadent and sweet, with layers of caramel and chocolate. It became a quick hit in my house, and I now have a go-to cake recipe to impress any visitor.

<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Try
Headline from a Mary Cullen article, featuring a Very Berry Peach Pie<\/em>.
She insisted; I complied.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\n
\"Before.\"
Very Berry Peach Pie (before)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"After.\"
Very Berry Peach Pie (after)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you live in Storm Lake, chances are you or someone you know has been interviewed by Cullen for her column. Hasn\u2019t she covered the entire town by now? Not quite, but Cullen does on occasion interview someone twice, especially when they\u2019ve blossomed into a new career or recently developed a new interest or hobby. She says it\u2019s always interesting to see how their lives have changed and to share these changes and growths with readers. \u201cMy Favorite Recipes\u201d allows Storm Lake readers to get to know their own neighbors a little better and to get a sneak peek into their lives through the food they cook and stories they share. Her work is one motivated by love for her community. \u201cI love meeting people,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a fun job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"Storm<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Interview and Profile by Caitlin Zawodny Food shapes a community. It nourishes, it builds connections, and it can bridge generations. Through her \u201cMy Favorite Recipes\u201d column in the Storm Lake Times Pilot\u2014over the last thirty-two years\u2014Mary Cullen has showcased how food can unite a community as diverse as Storm Lake. Her recipes are often attached […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3041,"featured_media":793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cullen-mary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3041"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/small-town-big-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}