I’d rather be writing about the wine shop I discovered in my new neighborhood today, curated carefully by a guy who calls himself the Cork Dork. Or about the perfect grocery shopping route that occurs between my house and the Seward co-op. Or about my new proximity to the May Day Cafe and their trays full of pastries, foccacia, and scones. Or about the delightful exchange that transpired over an empty box of All Clad cookware in the alley behind my house. But that’s not how it is tonight. As my friend Stefanie would say, I’ve had wine, and who wants to concentrate when they’d rather unwind?
Since I last wrote, I moved to Minneapolis, resolved a terribly frustrating housing situation, competed in a cooking contest, and took a trip to the Badlands of South Dakota. I also made an appearance on the Fox 9 morning news (of all things). I was invited to walk through “my” quiche recipe to promote Julie and Julia--you know, the quiche recipe I toiled over for years and faithfully submitted to the cooking contest to finally reap my well-deserved rewards. Truth be told, I never even MADE a quiche before I was asked to do it on the morning news.
Before getting to that, let’s take a photo tour of the last few weeks. I said goodbye to my lovely old flat in St Paul.
The apartment feels such another world now, like a different version of me must have once lived there.
I did that whole Fox 9 news thing. If I could figure out how to stream a video, I would. Please go here _ http://tiny.cc/H4Nti to watch me pretend like I knew what I was doing.
I practiced the two dishes I cooked at the Mall of America’s Julie and Julia contest.
Here’s the view from my cooking station at the mall. Those are my fabulous friends in the front row cheering me on. Everyone thought I was going to win–and so did I. Despite all my wittiness, stylish sauteing, and waxing poetic about local food (I bought all of my secret ingredients at Cossetta’s and Caspian Deli), I ended up in second place. Given that the event was about promotion and not about food, however, I’m not going to think about it too deeply. Besides, I was sent home with a 5-piece set of All Clad cookware and had a wonderful time.
So as I unpack, explore, and generally try to land squarely on my two feet again, I hope to be writing again very soon, but only after I furnish my new kitchen with a stainless steel island and a hanging pot rack. I think those things will make this house a home.
Edible Cities 
Congrats on MOA contest and the Fox news spot. All very fun and exciting. I hope the apartment is coming together and that you are enjoying Minneapolis. Hard to believe that we are into fall. But it is a gorgeous time of year here.
You resolved a frustrating housing situation? Or you unknowingly swapped it for a new one? I hope it’s the former.
I am in the same spot as you are tonight… I should be writing or doing something else productive, but it’s been a long week, I’ve had wine, and I want to unwind!
Also, you know my suggestion for the name for the new place, but you don’t want me to say it in public. 🙂
I’m late to post here, but wanted to say congratulations on your new digs. Though I’m a sucker for St. Paul! We lived on Miss. River Blvd., then bought a house in North Mpls, then returned to St. Paul. Hope your new home is just what you wanted. And hooray for the exposure on Fox 9. My husband was at Fox for 12 years, and I was there for a while, too (that’s where I picked him up, in the kitchen, many years ago.) Now…is it wine-thirty yet? Cheers!
Welcome to Minneapolis! I see that you have already made a mark in the city’s culinary scene. We have some blogs that may be of interest to you as well: http://www.minneapolis.org/page/1/minneapolis-food-wine-blog.jsp and http://www.mspnewsroom.com/page/2/blog.jsp. Looking forward to collaborating!
Michael – It’s finally a house this time. Where do you live? We should get a cup of coffee sometime.
Stef – Think regal. Think stately!
Jen – So glad you stopped by. I could talk about the merits of Mpls v. St Paul for hours. I want to hear more about this finding a husband in the kitchen! It sounds like you have some tricks up your sleeve.
Connie – Thanks for linking me up. I’ll add those to my list. I like what you are doing over there.
Lovely site! The Navigator has been important to me, since I first saw it when it came out while I was in high school back in the late 80s. It mesmerized me then, and now. Twenty years on, I’ve written a novella about the plague, and time slip and magical realism novels about the middle ages, and I think I can trace a lot of that to the awe I felt, experiencing the strangeness of a different world (from both sides of that story). Thank you for making such a unique, visceral, emotional movie.