If I ever needed to drown my sorrows in a craft cocktail or two, it would be right about now. Unfortunately, Minnesota bars and cocktail rooms are currently closed due to the pandemic, and my home bartending skills are mediocre at best. But never, ever underestimate the ingenuity of humans where intoxicating substances are concerned.
I don't know what came first: my penchant for baking muffins or Mike's penchant for eating them. After a years-long run of cereal and several months of toasted English muffins, he has settled into a...
Lately, my Instagram feed is populated with photos that I refer to as #quarantinegoals. Instant ramen doctored with about 20 different ingredients, none of which I have in my pantry. Perfectly shaped...
When everything is so tenuous and uncertain, it doesn't make sense to formulate plans that might get cancelled and ruminate about the future. But only living in the moment—a moment that's dark and terrifying, a moment when I'm struggling so much—isn't an appealing thought either. I need to look forward to the future, to the really important things and to the frivolous things and to everything in between.
My life has taken a lot of weird twists and turns (I'm a freelance food and travel journalist with a math degree). One of the most important ones is something that I don't write about all that much here on the blog: running.
I've spent my fair share of nights in hotels, bed and breakfasts, and Airbnbs. Almost all of them have been clean, comfortable places to stay. Some of them have been excellent. And a handful have been so unique, so picturesque, or served such an amazing breakfast (this is a food blog, after all) that they were more than a place to sleep—they've lingered in my mind to become some of my favorite travel memories.
Lately, my baked good of choice is muffins. I like muffins because they're reassuring and reliable. They freeze well. And I pretty much always have the ingredients on hand, so I can make a batch whenever I need the comfort of measuring out ingredients and want to show my love in flour and sugar.
It's officially been two years since I quit my day job to pursue my writing career. Last year, I wrote a post about my reflections one year in, so I wanted to check in with an update on my second year of full-time freelance life.
Last fall, I took a press trip to Tampa, Florida. I got to stay in a cool hotel in a former courthouse, and I saw a dolphin on my morning run. I checked out a food court made from shipping containers, sipped cocktails at a rooftop bar, and took lots of photos. And I ate plenty of delicious food...
In 2011, Mike and I took a fall vacation to New England. Even though this was pre-food blog, the things that stand out most about that trip are food related.
Kansas City-based Paleterias Tropicana is a restaurant that defies a simple description. The company started in 2004 as an ice cream parlor, serving housemade Mexican-style ice cream and paletas (ice pops). But then the menu kept expanding. There's a lineup of smoothies, made from the fresh fruit piled behind the counter...
2018 was the first year I published a list of the best foods I ate. I started the list at the beginning of December, so my memory was a bit hazy on some of the details, and I had to rely on Instagram photos, blog posts, and articles. This year, I kept a running "best foods" post in my drafts all year long. As I added to the post—a dessert here, an appetizer there—I realized that I wasn't only making a list of foods.
Over my past decade of travel, I've stayed at boutique hotels and bed and breakfasts. I've checked into budget motels and hostels. I've rented Airbnb apartments and cabins at national parks. I've stayed on a boat and at the world's only Frank Lloyd Wright hotel. Nothing prepared me for the Chateau Avalon in Kansas City, Kansas.
For years, my approach to travel was very checklist-based: see the thing, eat the food, on to the next town. Mike and I often stayed in a different place each night, ate every meal out, and had a...
Kansas City, Kansas might be most famous for its iconic barbecue, but there's much more to the city's food scene besides smoked meat. Partly, that's due to Kansas City's diversity: there isn't an ethnic majority, and students in the public schools speak 200 different languages. In addition to that rich cultural diversity, Kansas City has a vibrant community of family-owned restaurants and local food producers, some of which have been...
If you know only one thing about Kansas City's food scene, it's probably that they're world-famous for their barbecue. Kansas City-style barbecue originated in the 1920s, when African-American entrepreneur Henry Perry started selling slow-cooked barbecued ribs wrapped in newspaper.
Elk Horn, Iowa is one of the most Danish places in America: 43 percent of the town's 650 residents can claim Danish heritage. There are Danish flags lining the streets, two annual festivals celebrating Danish food and culture, and attractions like the Museum of Danish America. There's also a place to get a taste of Denmark: The Danish Table Hygge Kitchen...
I've eaten plenty of pizza on my travels, from classic coal-fired pizza at Grimaldi's in Brooklyn to the Mountain Pie at Beau Jo's in Colorado. But on my recent trip to Kansas City, Kansas, I got to enjoy pizza in a whole new way: by making it myself at 1889 Pizza Napoletana.
I have a thing for small towns that lean hard into their European heritage, like German-tinged New Ulm, Minnesota, and New Glarus, Wisconsin (a.k.a. America's Little Switzerland). There's something touching and very American about preserving bits and pieces of the Old Country while settling wholeheartedly in the new one.
