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If you're in the mood to loosen belts as well as wallets, the holidays are the time to do it.
At madrigal dinners, channel portly Henry VIII in a Tudor castle settling. During Dickens dinners, wallow in 19th century England — the England of "A Christmas Carol,'' not "Oliver Twist.''
Which is to say, there's no gruel course. When I ate my way through the Victorian Progressive Dinner in the mansions of Dubuque, I dined on chicken salad in puff pastry, bisque, London broil and English trifle.
On road trips, some people look for the best pie or burger. But I look for the perfect twist cone.
Braking for soft-serve ice cream is how I stick up for the mom-and-pop drive-ins that used to be in every little town until the arrival of a certain franchise.
The ice cream almost always is better, and the atmosphere is more fun. Or maybe it's that so many of us have fond memories of our hometown Tasty Freeze or Dairy Delite, where we'd go on a warm summer night and slowly eat our cones as softball teams and old folks and families fresh from the beach filed up to the little window to get their cones, too.
As soon as rhubarb leaves unfurl and morels pop out of the ground, towns across the region begin their salutes to the local specialty.
It starts with Norwegian lefse on Syttende Mai and continues to Finnish pasties, German pretzels, Czech kolacky, Danish
pancakes and American pie. There will be music and parades and all kinds of goofy contests — rhubarb-stalk throwing in
Lanesboro, the rutabaga shot put in Calumet — but mostly, there will be a lot to eat.
If you’ve ever said, “I could eat a hundred of those!’’ you'll get your chance this summer. Here are some of the premier places to pig out in 2008.
It sounds just wrong, but chocolate connoisseurs know that less is more.
Like everything else in this country, chocolate truffles have been super-sized, and many consumers think that eating a $4 glob of butterfat is a gourmet experience.
But you don't need to eat a truffle the size of a baby's fist to be satisfied. In fact, you'll be more satisfied eating one small, high-quality piece. Europeans know this, and chocolatiers in this country are catching on, too.
Cooking classes have become entertainment, one more thing to do on a weekend getaway. In eastern Wisconsin, the big Osthoff Resort has added a classical cooking school. There's a new school in Door County, and many shops, restaurants and B&Bs in tourist areas are adding classes to draw customers. After all, everyone loves good food.
Demonstration classes, where students watch chefs prepare a meal, are most common.
"We instill the confidence that they can go home and do it themselves,'' says Minnesota chef Stephen Larson, who operated Gourmets Garden cooking school until 2008. "Demonstration is a lot more user-friendly, especially for the guys. We're seeing more retired guys, and in general, the wife has to drag the guy to class. So we say, 'No, you don't have to do anything.' ''
In the land of Velveeta, Wonder bread and Miller Lite, a chunk of southern Wisconsin is an Old World holdout.
Home of North America’s last Limburger factory, Green County is the big cheese in a state of cheese makers. It’s still famous for the pungent Limburger and Swiss on which it made its reputation. It’s weathered the advent of processed cheese food and gummy white bread. It’s survived the tide of bland beer and low-fat diets.
In Green County, people always have gone for the gusto.
By rights, the northern Minnesota hamlet of Dorset shouldn’t even exist.
It’s on the road to nowhere, a mile and a half off the highway that links Park Rapids to Walker. It’s not on a lake. It has virtually no houses.
It does, however, have a knack for hyperbole. In the 1920s, it tried "land of clover, the big white potato and the dairy cow.’’ It tried boasting of "the shortest state highway in Minnesota running through its downtown’’ and, until 1986, was "the smallest town in the United States with a bank.’’
On a beautiful summer day, there are few places that aren't good for a picnic.
A patch of grass, a plump sandwich, the warmth of sun on skin — this is what we look forward to all winter.
But some picnic spots are so great a picnicker might want to while away a whole afternoon there. Here are some of the best, along with good places to pick up a box lunch on the way. If you want the lunch ready when you get there, call a day in advance or early in the morning.
Walnut carpenter's lace. Fireplaces made of Italian mosaic tile. Yards of leaded glass and richly printed, century-old wallpaper.
Oooooohh.
That's what the two dozen people on a house tour and progressive dinner in Dubuque, Iowa, kept saying as the tour progressed from one Victorian mansion to another.
On the road, tourists are a lot like lumberjacks, puppies and teen-age boys: If you put out food, they’ll come running.
They’ve been coming to the southern Minnesota town of Mantorville since 1854, even though it was bypassed by railroads and highways and should have shriveled up and died. It didn’t largely because of the Hubbell House, a former stagecoach stop that still is serving walleye and chops to busloads of tourists.
In 1976, hungry people found their way past the saloons, strip clubs, warehouses and junkyard on Duluth’s Canal Park to eat at an offbeat new restaurant called Grandma’s. A year later, the restaurant sponsored a new marathon, and the hungry people literally ran to Canal Park, followed by thousands of tourists.
These days, it’s not so hard to find a restaurant that shows a little imagination. But not so long ago, those of us who travel a lot considered it a banner day when we could find something beyond fish fries on Friday and prime rib on Saturdays.
I remember how grateful I was on a cold December day in 1994, when my Florida sister and I walked into the Old Village Hall in Lanesboro, tired from a day of touring B&Bs, and were served plates of fettuccine — al dente! — with perfectly cooked vegetables and plenty of garlic.
A year later, after a day skiing in nearby Minocqua, Wis., I sank into a chair at Jacobi’s of Hazelhurst and dug into garlic-stuffed tenderloin with Dijon-cognac sauce, watching the fire and eavesdropping on a conversation about — what else? — the Packers. That summer, I sat on the shady brick patio of Bemidji’s Tutto Bene, eating chicken mostaccioli, drinking wine and listening to opera, and I thought I was in heaven.
In a state where people flaunt foam cheese wedges on their heads, you don't expect the cuisine to be timid.
The cheese, brats and beer for which Wisconsin is known are as robust as the Cheeseheads themselves, who invented the hamburger and the sundae but are best known for Old World flavors.
One of the best places to find them is in the southwest corner, where the state began. Mineral Point was a boom town when Milwaukee was just a few shacks; the first brewery was built there, and the new state acquired its nickname from the first lead miners, who dug shallow dwellings dubbed badger holes.
Chicago has come a long way since it was hog butcher to the world.
There was nothing very appetizing about early Chicago. The factories and slaughterhouses that made it grow also made it stink. Rotting carcasses made the Chicago River bubble; a glass of water came with a side of cholera.
But the city grew up. The immigrants who packed its meat, dug its waterways and built its railroads moved on and were replaced by new immigrants, who settled in places that became known as Little Italy, Andersonville, Polish Village, Ukrainian Village, Chinatown, Greek Town and Pilsen.
Twenty years ago, dining on the North Shore was pleasant, if a little utilitarian. A meal often came with a view, but most of the menus had the same fish, steak, chops and burgers you could get anywhere.
Things have changed. One Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I ate at three of my favorite places and two newer ones, one of
which definitely was worth a detour. A three-star culinary weekend on the North Shore — who knew?
On old Highway 61 between Duluth and Two Harbors, the cheery New Scenic Cafe is a fixture of fine dining. I had my usual, the pistachio-crusted goat-cheese salad, with a starter of sashimi tuna tacos, but I was a little envious of my husband's salmon, which came with wild rice so savory I made the server ask the chef how he prepared it — and I don't really like wild rice. We finished with a slice of one of the restaurant's renowned pies, raspberry-rhubarb, warm and topped with vanilla ice cream.