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Pingree Farmer Says, "Have a Bite"
The former city girl, who now farms with her husband and teaches art part-time in Pingree, has found a way to combine rural life with entrepreneurship. She created her Bigg Dogg Cuisine to supplement the family's farming income and to fulfill her desires to cook and garden. Linda's food, however, reflects her urban upbringing and her seven years in Japan more than it follows rural tradition. "We sell jalapeno jelly, and we came up with a horseradish jelly," Linda says. "I make barbecue sauce, hot sauce, seasoned salts, salsas, all kinds of pickles. A lot of the recipes are pretty strange. We have a lime- and amaretto-flavored barbecue sauce. We like to eat unusual things." "People say, 'Yuck,' but 60 to 70 percent of the people who taste it, buy it," she adds. Linda makes her big batches of salsa, jelly, sauce and vinegar with just one stove and two five-gallon pots. Still, her products reach people all over North Dakota, from craft shows to gift shops. "We try to make something that you can't buy in the supermarket," she says. "We wholesale a bit. But I'm a lot more comfortable at the craft shows. I like the contact with the people." Linda says that although her Bigg Dogg income doesn't cover all of her family's expenses, it "buys groceries and pays the electricity." But she warns that farmers should consider starting a business only if it involves something they love. "You can't just do it for the money," she says. "People can do so many things [to supplement their income], but I can't think of anything else I'd rather do."
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Linda Ova dares people
to try her salsa. "It has a bite," she says.