From Beets to Beard Nominations, How Minnesota’s Farmland Informs This Fine-Dining Chef

Her family’s vegetable set the path for Karyn Tomlinson to become a thoughtful and bold chef.

Chef Karyn Tomlinson visits with a cow at the David and Mariana Nyquist Grass-Fed Dairy in Cokato, Minnesota, on Saturday, April 19, 2025. Carlos Gonzalez/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

By Joy Summers The Minnesota Star Tribune

MINNEAPOLIS—Looking out the car window, the scenery rolls from wetland grasses into soft hills of freshly turned black soil, the cropland framed by trees sporting tiny green buds. The road narrows as the humming of the freeway gives way to the thumping of weathered asphalt.