Introductions; Ben Smith and Liesa Helfen

Ben and Liesa

Their Siberian Husky pups Dashi and Suki

Your food for the Points Unknown Women’s Winter Metro Adventures will be prepared by Chefs Ben Smith and Liesa Helfen.

Ben most recently works as the Sous Chef at Forepaugh’s Restaurant in St. Paul. He has previously been Sous Chef at Café Barbette as well as working at Spoonriver and Café Brenda. He attended Macalester College where he left the pursuit of a law degree for the lure of the kitchen. He is self taught and puts many of the best schooled Chefs to shame. He excels with fresh, local ingredients and aspires to open his own restaurant to bring his vision of farm to table to fruition. He co owns two huskies with Liesa and prays they will figure out which of them will be the lead dog before they are old enough to pull. (He thinks it’s Suki).

Liesa is an ex-Chef whom left the pastry world for the allure of the farm. She currently works for Ames Farm and enjoys the inspiration from the different single source honeys as well as the interaction with people everyday at the markets and showing people how to pair honeys with different foods. She still does pastry on the side for specific projects. She attending Pastry school and interned at Charlie Trotter’s institutions in Chicago. Returning to the locally farm based restaurants of Minnesota, she was Pastry Sous Chef at Spoonriver, helped out at Barbette and eventually became the Executive Pastry Chef at Open Arms, a non profit organization feeding people with terminal illnesses. She enjoys the outdoors, her garden, and her two new huskies, Dashi and Suki.

We are looking forward to working with both Ben and Liesa and having them as part of our Points Unknown team.