5 More Klecko Secrets

Danny Klecko is the CEO of the Saint Agnes Baking Company in Saint Paul and the author of the MHS Press book, K-9 Nation Biscuit Book. He is currently hosting twelve days of food demos at the Minnesota State Fair, in the Creative Activities building. If you would like to hear more stories from him, check out his popular blog site The Last American Baker.

1. What is a typical weekend for you?
When you service hotels, restaurants, and casinos there is no such thing as a typical weekend. Saturdays are interesting because I can find myself running products to my farmer’s market booth or bringing baked goods to one of our accounts that may have forgotten to order. To me it has never seemed like work. I love the energy that surrounds the Twin Cities food scene.
If I am lucky enough to get the weekend off, you’ll find me on a baseball diamond teaching kids how to hit baseballs. Saint Paul has produced legends like Mauer, Molitor, Morris, and Winfield, but I had a group of kids this summer that might give these legends a run for their money.
2. What are some of your favorite local Friday night activities?
On Friday evenings I like to attend all types of events. I don’t care if it’s an intimate show at Patrick’s Cabaret or something bigger, like a Timberwolves game. Oftentimes I find myself not even watching the entertainment because I become more intrigued by how these venues light their spaces or how they control their traffic flow.
3. What/where do you eat on weekends? What’s a typical Sunday breakfast for you?
When you service 300 commercial accounts, you have to be careful when you give a personal endorsement. To put one restaurant on a pedestal means you might upset the other 299 concepts. With that being said, I’m going to go out on a limb and be honest with you. When my family goes out together, we always do breakfast. If you live in or around the Highland Park area, is there any other choice than the Copper Dome? I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 20 years and I swear to Caesar their staff hasn’t turned over a single employee in decades.
However, if I am by myself, I go to the Day by Day Cafe. Overall I would say they offer the most complete breakfast for sophisticated guys like me.
4. What’s your weekend reading like?
During the weekends, if I want to indulge myself, I’ll usually mix myself a Rusty Nail and read poetry. During the winter months I will either review the classics like Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound, or Saint Paul’s own Poet Laureate Carol Conolly. When my son comes home from college in the summer we read nothing but poems from Russia and Poland.
5. What is your top Minnesota getaway?
The thing I enjoy most about Minnesota is there are more getaway options than I have time for. But, if I want to go someplace special, someplace that offers intrigue or romance, I’m heading north to Duluth. My wife is more adventurous and likes to go to spots that we are unfamiliar with. In fact just a couple of weeks ago she made me go to Luverne. If you check out my Facebook page, you’ll see her standing next to a scale-sized plastic buffalo.