Today, LMS contributer Danielle Tsi transports us to the heartland of America to experience hog heaven at Niman Ranch’s farm-to-table weekend. Danielle is a photographer and blogger based in the San Francisco Bay Area who has a penchant for going beyond the plate to tell the stories behind every dish. When she’s not behind the lens, she can be found on her yoga mat perfecting the headstand. *****

Visiting Iowa isn’t exactly the sort of thing you’d do just for the weekend. After all, cornfields and farms aren’t really “weekend getaway” material. But when you’re spending it with Paul Willis and his family, their hospitality and warmth slowly chip away at your pre-conceived notions, until you’re completely bowled over by their Midwestern charm and forced to admit that, yes, you had a damn fine time in Iowa, and would jump on the next chance you get to visit them again.

Last weekend, Niman Ranch invited Lick My Spoon, their customers, partners and a couple of other bloggers out to Des Moines for a porky weekend culminating in their 12th Annual Hog Farmer Appreciation Dinner on Saturday evening.

After an utterly delicious lunch at Centro on the first day, where I met fellow blogging buddies John from Food Wishes and Tina from Carrots ‘N’ Cake, we boarded the bus for Thornton, IA, a town 2.5 hours northwest of the city, where the Willis family and their approximately 300 hogs were waiting to greet us. Driving through endless acres of golden, GMO-corn fields, I found it hard to believe that, just a day earlier, I was racing up the 101 to a jam-packed SFO. Apart from the occasional farmhome, there was not a soul to be seen. Possibly because the only other souls out there at three in the afternoon were clustered in these innocuous-looking structures…