The Minnesota State Fair opens today with more food than you can shove a stick in. Taste editor Lee Svitak Dean will be at the Strib booth at 10 a.m. today to chat.

And, at the Creative Activities and Ag-Hort buildings, the Saint Agnes Kitchen stage will feature food demonstrations daily at 11 a.m., 1, 3 and 5 p.m. in Creative Activities. Host Klecko, master baker at the Saint Agnes Baking Co., said that this year's theme is signature dishes from notable American personalities, presented by some of the area's top cooks and bakers.

Among the presenters is Dean, who will talk about soups at 3 and 5 p.m. on Aug. 27. Kim Ode (aka yours truly) will demo Laura Ingalls Wilder's gingerbread at 3 p.m. and Mark Twain's mince meat cake at 5 p.m. on Aug. 28, then return on Sept. 4 to demo Judy Garland's shepherd's pie supreme at 11 a.m. and Walt Disney's chili & beans at 1 p.m.

Stop by and pick up some tips and a recipe. For all the daily schedules, visit tiny.cc/wq2p3 or go to www.mnstatefair.org.

Bar La Grassa in Minneapolis is among the 10 best new restaurants of 2010 named by Bon Appetit in its September issue. Chef Isaac Becker teams up with his wife, Nancy St. Pierre, who runs the front-of-the-house, to create a "temple to the Italian carb of choice." La Grassa, which means "The Fat" in Italian, gets high marks for its gnocchi with cauliflower and orange, and the crab ravioli. The restaurant, which features a 24-seat pasta bar, is at 800 Washington Av. N. Featured in the magazine is the accompanying recipe for paccheri pasta with braised chicken and saffron cream. Find the recipe on T5.

While we're collecting laurels, the Chef Shack at the Mill City Farmers Market also made Bon Appetit's Top 10 list of places to grab a great lunch at a farmers market, noting its bison burgers and beef tongue tacos. Congrats to both efforts!

This week marks the 200th anniversary of the food can. Really! The can revolution began on Aug. 25, 1810, when Englishman Peter Durand was granted a patent for an idea to preserve food in tinplate vessels. An English immigrant brought the process to the United States in 1812 and received a U.S. patent in 1825. Canned food proved key in preserving pioneers' provisions and in providing rations to Civil War soldiers up through today's MREs. More than 137,200 aluminum and steel cans combined are recycled every minute in the United States. So open a can of something today.

KIM ODE