let's roll on logs! oh yeah. keep it going, keep it going. keep going. time it. ah! ah! [interposing voices] those 10-year-olds out here, they're making this thing look easy. i'm over here with training wheels on here, embarrassing myself. whoa! it burns. it burns in the hamstrings. theme song: i-- i-- i'm gonna give up and be my, be be my--

johnny bananas: the midwestern state of minnesota is america incarnate. it is a glorious day out here in minneapolis. known for a warm kindness that supersedes all else, including sub-arctic temperatures during winter months, this place thaws like no other. what i've noticed about minnesota, minneapolis and st. paul, is the sense of community here. sliced by the mighty mississippi, the capital city of st. paul and the neighboring metropolis of minneapolis come together as one to form the twin cities. and there's no better place to celebrate that sibling rivalry than at the minnesota state fair. wow. it's a lot of people. the great minnesota get together is a 12 day event annually attracting over 2 million people to ground spanning more than 320 acres. and this, the country's largest state fair, can be a beast to conquer, which is why celebrated chef, tv personality, and author of "az in the lost city ophir," andrew zimmern, is leading the way. he doesn't even need a map, this guy. i know where every single thing is.

how long has this fair been around? in the late 1840s, when minnesota was just a territory, it was really for the establishment of the agricultural community. you've got union booths, political party booths, independent organization booths. these were places to come discuss the issues of the day. it's not just a carnival. it's actually got purpose. when you talk about the heartland, i found as a cynical, jaded new yorker, the kindest people, the loveliest community, the most supportive people are living here. and that's why i've stayed. [interposing voices] hot, hot, this is hot! oh, you're losing, johnny. you're losing. oh! yes. it was hot. welcome to minnesota. johnny bananas: do you have any food favorite place around here? andrew zimmern: one of the best sandwiches at any state fair in the country is the gizmo. johnny bananas: what is a gizmo? a gizmo is italian sausage mixed with ground beef.

so is this meat locally sourced? is this from minnesota? - it is. my special sauce and seasonings. andrew zimmern: rather than doing sauce and meat, it's separate, so that it doesn't drown out and drop out of the bottom of the bun. get your gizmos here. smothered with melted mozzarella cheese, toasted on a delicious italian roll. marone! the mozzarella cheese covers and goes under the broiler, so that it actually seals the sandwich. this is so good. and i took one bite of this thing and freaked. ole! you make a nice gizmo. yeah? johnny bananas: once you got a taste of the unique savory selections, you're going to want to get into some sweet cinnamon rolls to balance it all out. andrew zimmern: we actually came at the exact right time. you know when you look at a fire burning and it's like you just can't take your eyes off it? it's mesmerizing. it is mesmerizing, watching her do this. the thing about this fair is it literally affects all of your senses. oh my god, it's not good-- it's great. andrew zimmern: we're now going from the north end of the fair down to the south.

it's a great view. johnny bananas: this fair is massive. andrew zimmern: yep. johnny bananas: and what's cool about seeing it from this perspective is you really do get a glimpse of just the size and scope-- andrew zimmern: of everything. it's the only and oldest permanent fairgrounds in the country of its size, and it's such a big part of american history. there are food booths here you are in fourth and fifth family generational operation. i mean, that's just crazy. now, this is the fun part. yellow line. before you get in trouble, yellow line. obey the rules. it's minnesota. i'm terrible at obeying rules. when you traverse the terrain, there's good news. you've earned yourself a cookie. better news still, you can literally buy them by the bucket. sweet martha. - yes. johnny bananas: this is where all the magic takes place. martha olson: this is exactly where all the magic takes place. your cookies have that perfect combination of the crunchy outside, but also the gooey inside. martha olson: yes, that's right. i'm not going to spill one chocolate chip, i promise. there we go. we make them from scratch, just like our moms used to do, and serve them hot out of the oven.

like we always say, oven hot, baked on the spot. ladies and gentlemen, step back for the hot rack. what i find more amazing, not how many people are what's more america than chocolate chip cookies and milk? nothing. finally, at this fair, the only thing sweeter than freshly baked cookies comes in a husk. andrew zimmern: it's all roasted over open fire. the only question that you have is well done or not well done. and? andrew zimmern: i go well done. johnny bananas: ok. two well roasted with butter. it is hot. whoo! that is good corn, man. it's so sweet. andrew zimmern: it's the best corn on planet earth. johnny bananas: and once you're fully fed and can't eat another bite, it's time to ride the big slide. ready? here we go. whoo! whoo! how's that good stuff?

andrew zimmern: that was a great finish.

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♪ agmrenovations.com ♪ johnny bananas: minneapolis is the land of 10,000 lakes. lake nokomis is just one of them. this here is what summer in the midwest looks like. i could not pick a more glorious day to spend a summer afternoon. and with the warming weather, these watering holes are the perfect place to escape the summer heat of the city streets. this is minneapolis at its finest. but once you've lost the desire to simply lay out and are jonesing for some friendly competition, look no further than the ever expanding recreational activity of log rolling. excuse me, guys, world class log roller on his way through. so johnny, this is the minneapolis log rolling club. - what are we doing today? johnny bananas: and while the club was co-founded by current president abby delaney in 2015, the sport itself has some serious midwestern history behind it. abby delaney: log rolling is a traditional north american

sport. it started in the late 1800s, with the great river long drives when men were chopping trees down all winter long. and then in the springtime, when the rivers were flowing fast and high, they would send the logs downriver, out of the forest to the saw mills. but what happens when you step on a log in the water? johnny bananas: it rolls. abby delaney: it starts to roll. so they had to learn how to roll on top of the log. johnny bananas: how did you get into this? abby delaney: my mom is log rolling champion. am i supposed to try to keep him on? she tricked me. i started log rolling as soon as i could walk and swim, competed in the sport. and we wanted to give more people access to it, so we started a club. johnny devenanzio: because it's not exactly convenient for competitors to carry a 600-pound wooden log-- oh, he's, like, got it all by himself. i got this. we developed the key log, portable synthetic log that can go anywhere in the world. can you show me which way to the lake? and it weighs 65 pounds, but then you fill it up with water. and there's an internal foam baffle system. so we designed it to spin and roll exactly like a western red cedar wood log.

our mission at key log rolling is to make log rolling an olympic sport. that's why we started it. an olympic sport? an olympic sport. right? it's a good goal and something that everyone can rally around. have you ever seen a man in his mid-30s hit the elite level in a day? you might be the first. that's going to be your challenge today. let's roll logs! and the first lesson of the day comes from suzi priest, also known as the "red roller." i've heard about you. - yeah. you're like a legend. so i figured no better person than you to give me some pointers and to be my coach today. whoa! from what i've heard, i'm going to need to move like a ballerina. is that true? - yeah. put your arm back. ah! if i fall off, can i hold onto the log, spin around, and then hop back up on top? no. what do you got, like some magnets in your shoes? how are you doing that so easily? how about have a little bit of-- ah! what's crazy about this is everything you do is counterintuitive. think of more about taking small little steps and letting the log roll underneath you. and then you get that, like, comfortability on the log.

johnny devenanzio: you're trying to think of 30 different things to do in one moment, or else you're going to fall off. ha! - can i try? you brought this guy in as a professional [inaudible].. johnny, meet my brother, world champion log roller will hoeschler. johnny devenanzio: real funny, guys. everyone's out enjoying this glorious day on the lake. the water temperature is amazing. it's not too cold, it's not too warm. it's refreshing. now if i could just stay on the log, i would call it a perfect day. fight! come on! you want it! let's go! so you've been training all day. and these are your world champion competitors that you're going to be competing against. what, these are the world champions? these are the world champions. johnny devenanzio: and if the hair didn't tip you off, they're the red roller's brothers jasper and ellis priest. how long you guys been log rolling for? seven or eight years. eight years? two hours. yeah, those two to five second falls were really impressive. two to five? yeah, you didn't look too good in practice. oh, what? we should probably get started because i'm assuming it's going past your guys' bedtime pretty soon, ok?

let the games begin, buddy. ok, you can't touch your opponent. can't cross the center line. ready, steady, time in. your epidermis is showing, ellis. [cheering] ah! woo! rewind the tape. i want to see instant replay of that. man: come on, johnny! don't be such a-- ok, let's see if you can tie it back up. steady, ellis! steady! ok, ellis is up 2-0. [cheering] time in. i got him wet. that's a win in my book. good job. johnny devenanzio: and just when you think you're getting proficient on your feet, you find out there's more than one way to roll a log. you and ellis were in a running match, so you were facing the same direction. you're going to be facing opposite direction, so it's called a bucking match. so you're both fighting for control of the log. 1, 2, 3, up. ready, steady, time in.

quick feet! quick feet! quick feet! this time i'm taking no prisoners. time in. ah! seven years old. you can beat him. 13. steady, time in. look at his feet. ah! three falls straight. anyone that knows me knows that i don't like to lose. this is one of those sports where size and strength doesn't necessarily matter. i think what takes a little bit of the sting out of the losses is, you know, this backdrop. i mean, this is incredible.

what is the one product that comes from animals that doesn't need to be refrigerated and never-- and will never go bad? - oh, honey. - honey. it's the only one. but most people don't know that. yeah, it's true. johnny devenanzio: minneapolis is a forward-thinking, green, and environmentally

conscious city, where parks and open spaces pepper the urban sprawl. it's also a metropolis buzzing with the entrepreneurial spirit. and beekeeper kristy lynn allen has discovered the sweet spot between these two progressive initiatives with her company the bee's knees. when you say something is the bee's knees, why is that? honeybees develop pollen sacs behind their knees, hence the bee's knees. it's where they carry pollen. bees are really important pollinators for our food and our landscapes. have you ever been in a bee hive before? i have not. oh, look at them all. whoa! this is getting heavy. whoa, hold on. they're full of honey. the bee that we keep here is european in origin, mostly the italian honey bee or the carniolan, which is-- - the bougie bees. - uh-huh. uh-huh. that's the honeycomb we're looking at, right? right. what are they all doing right now? they're bringing in honey, and then they're curing it, and then they're covering it with wax. let's switch spots because i'm going to open it up. oh yeah, look at that. wow. i'm holding a sheet with 1,000 bees on it right now,

and they're all just going about their business as if nothing's happening. - right. ok, so now we're going to start harvesting the honey. what is honey? where does honey come from? the bees have a straw-like tongue, and they suck the nectar out of the flower, and they deposit it in the cell. and then the bees that ar they extract moisture. then it dries the nectar out, and it turnsttle cells covere. so then essentially what bees are doing is collecting food and stockpiling it for the winter. then as beekeepers, you guys are then going in and being like, yeah, we'll take some of that. - yeah, kind of. but we're respectful when we do it. johnny devenanzio: why bees? a long time ago, i started working with my uncle, who's a commercial beekeeper. and the minute he opened a hive, i just fell in love with them. the smell, the sounds, all these females working together to produce this incredible product. johnny devenanzio: these are female? kristy lynn allen: all the worker bees are female. so there's the queen bee and then there's all of her underlings essentially.

yeah. in fact, everyone thinks the queen is in charge. it's not true. it's all her daughters that make the decisions and do all the work. here, let me show you a trick. ok. oh, wow! and then put this in, and then you avoided squishing any bees. i mean, this is absolutely chock full of honey. there we go. that's honey harvest. we thank you for all the bounties that you have given us, ladies. get back to work. once the honey-rich combs have been collected, it's off to the honey house for some sweet extraction. look at that. it's a beauty. natural. it smells incredible, like the smell of the honey coming off. and the best way to eat honey. just like that? yeah. and chew it up like gum. oh my god. that is so incredibly sweet. and keeping with the sustainable agenda, the gooey golden honey is retrieved using good old-fashioned human horsepower. so how do i know when i'm done? we just tell people to do about a minute. smells so good. 3, 2, 1. [whistle]

what a day. cool. all right, i got to hit the road, folks. johnny devenanzio: with the edible delight all packaged up, it goes back out into the very communities that produced it, making local cafes and restaurants taste that much sweeter. i would like espresso and a little bit of honey drizzled in there. would you say that keeping bees, is this a passion, a hobby? i would say a passion and a profession. when i started delivering honey on bike dressed like a bee, i noticed a lot of people just were really curious and wanted to know what was going on with bees. we started to educate people by just showing them that honey bees aren't a dangerous creature. they're really important to us. one of the reasons i really love bees is that they work as a social organism, as a unit. and so one little individual bee is not super strong, but her and all of her sisters, 50,000 to 70,000 of them together, can do incredible things, and so if we model that as human beings,

that adds up to something very large and can actually impact. shakespeare. he was a big reader.

[music playing] if you're going to learn about the legalities of a certain city, nothing makes more sense than to sit down with the local magistrate. and in minneapolis, that means meeting with the mayor jacob frey. booze also helps. drinking is deep rooted in minneapolis, is it not? very much so.

although it's in the center of the country, we have been consistently either a first or second stop of new americans. when you think of, like, multicultural or a melting pot, you don't necessarily think of minneapolis. you don't necessarily think of the twin cities. yeah, you don't. but it's here. you originally had a very large polish and irish and german influence. and then what happened is you had all of the norwegians suddenly came and moved to minnesota. you had a whole lot of drinking from the germans and the poles and the irish, and then not a lot of drinking from the norwegians. johnny devenanzio: and so then in 1920 came the legislation. what's the volstead act? the volstead act, which actually comes from a congressman here in minnesota, andrew volstead, was sort of the prelude to prohibition.lcoh, and it actually made it even more profitable. oh, for sure. johnny devenanzio: and in minneapolis's twin city of st. paul, you'll come across the wabasha street caves, hand-dug caverns where profits and alcohol were fully flowing during the dry era and even after. prohibition went away in 1933, and the owners decided, hey,

people can drink legally now. let's open a restaurant. so this place received st. paul's first post-prohibition liquor license. can we start this part of the tour now? [music playing] so why did this cave in particular become such a popular hangout for gangsters? so the gangsters were the ones in town who had money. they could afford to go out. so they hid it here, or they just partied here? they partied here. they drank here. was it illegal, though? oh, it was totally illegal. everyone's heard of chicago and al capone. chicago, new york. yeah, those are like-- when you think of gangsters, you don't think of st. paul, minnesota. - no, you don't. st. paul became a safe haven for the bad guys. as long as you obey the rules, nobody bothers you. what famous gangsters may have hung out in this cave here? cynthia schreiner smith: well, baby face nelson. i know what it feels like to be public enemy number one. i can relate, baby face. edna murray, the "kissing bandit," was here. the bullets are actually still in there? cynthia schreiner smith: we think pretty boy floyd. there's the most notorious one of them all, john dillinger. so you're telling me i could be standing in the same spot

that some of the most notorious gangsters in american history stood. well not exactly on this floor, because in the '70s, this floor was put in by the disco. ok, so this might be the same floor that john travolta did windmills on is what you're saying. [music playing] in a city where essentially prohibition was born, how does a city like that go to a city like this that is so welcoming and so progressive? we had all these kind of bizarre laws. you couldn't buy liquor on sundays. restaurants in the city had to sell at least 60% food and 40% booze. i'm very proud to have gotten rid of all of that. basically, you can drink anywhere or anything. that was not just your secret to being elected, but i think that should be your platform to be re-elected. - yeah, i agree. - i'd vote for you. well people around here seem to like it, right? - my man. - that's right. my man. and while it was the scandinavians living in minnesota who originally pushed for prohibition, today, two of them, jon kreidler and dan oskey, are celebrating the signature scandinavian spirit of akvavit at their very own tattersall distillery.

oh, boy. now this must be where all the magic takes place. what is akvavit? we like to describe akvavit as like a scandinavian gin. if you think of what vodka is to russia and poland, akvavit is to the scandinavian countries. first up is the grain. the grain. that's a lot of corn. it is. what is different about akvavit? what is unique about it? it's just complex. it's beautiful. we have the botanicals. caraway and fennel are the two really big ones. johnny devenanzio: caraway and fennel. and that's where you're ripping all the flavors off of the botanicals creating that akvavit. hoo! that's good. that's also about 150 proof. yeah, it is. in minneapolis here, we've got the largest scandinavian population in the entire country, like by a long shot. one of the scandinavian countries has this concept called "hygge." it's this idea of kind of coming together and just enjoying family and friends. and, like, that's what we do, like, every single day of the year. so you guys opened this up as a bar as well, right? jon kreidler: the cocktail room is open five days a week. and we like people to see how we're making it and to get a glimpse into the back. so making booze isn't necessarily like making a sausage.

this is something that you actually want to show people. exactly. [music playing] johnny devenanzio: so this year, 2019, as we're celebrating the failed centennial of sobriety in these united states, one thing is for sure-- there is a steady flow of hard alcohol and spirit here in minnesota's twin cities. it really is like the people that make the community. and from the mayor to, like, the local entrepreneur businessmen, i think that's what makes this city amazing and that's what makes this city this city. and we're very proud of it, too. yeah. ole! the fruits of your labor. fruits of your labor, there you go. skal! johnny devenanzio: skal! it's time for our memorial day sale on the sleep number 360 smart bed.

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life-changing surprises. this is so good! transformations and reveals. [screaming] no! wow! when families and communities come together, anything is possible. this is "george to the rescue." hi, i'm jen. hi, i'm jaime. and we're at gilda's club westchester. gilda's club westchester is a free cancer support organization providing services to anyone impacted by cancer in any way. living with cancer can be an incredibly isolating experience. and here at gilda's club, that's part of the foundation of what we do is bring people together to be in a room