Photo by Nate Ryan
It’s hard to imagine a world without Sue Zelickson. She was a giant in the food and philanthropy scene here in Minneapolis and St. Paul, which is really saying something considering she was only 4’7″ tall. If there was a restaurant opening: she was there. If there was a chance to raise money: she was leading the charge. She was a cheerleader as the founder of The Charlie Awards for chefs. She was an advocate for women getting their flowers in the culinary world as the founder of Women Who Really Cook.
Her family confirmed to Minnesota Monthly that Sue died peacefully at home at the age of 91.
I’ve told her many times over the years that she inspired me. Her ability to highlight the good and use her influence to benefit others helped encourage me at an early stage in my career to jump into philanthropy and volunteer work. He enthusiasm for showing up even into her 90s made it much harder for me to skip something if I knew she’d be there.
Two years ago, Erik Tormoen wrote a wonderful profile of Sue for Minnesota Monthly, fitting as she was a feature in our pages for many years. [Go read some of her decade of writing here, just such a mensch of a woman.] But her career in sharing food stories started in the 1960s: she’s done TV, she’s done radio, she won a James Beard Award for her WCCO Radio cooking show/segments in 2005.
We all celebrated her at a massive party for her 90th birthday, almost two years ago. Foodservice News did a great write-up that really captures the love we all have for Sue.
I’ll miss her laugh, I’ll miss her grabbing my arm and pulling me wherever she wanted me to go, trying to get me to do whatever she wanted me to do. I’ll miss knowing that there’s someone who cares about the food scene, not because of some technique or some design element: she just cared about our community and the people. She’s left us stronger than we were before.
