Minneapolis moments

What a deeply satisfying set of hours! My week for friendship is drawing to a close and yet the aftertaste remains, in the best of ways. Like one of those wines which, they say, "lingers for a long time on the palate."

I loved my overnight at the Danish cottage. The breezes traveled through the spaces below, the fan pushed out the warm air and the couch, covered by a very Danish quilt, felt especially luxurious.

We were up early -- both Diane and I have that habit. Breakfast, over conversation (and a glance at the booklet about the construction of the guest cottage).

A look at the garden and a chat with the gardener par excellence, Mette (the homeowner whose son designed the small house). As always, you learn something from talking with a person who grows things. 

I pocket the nuggets of information for later use.

Eventually Diane and I head out -- first for a walk across the Mississippi (you can do that in Minneapolis!).

We admire the cityscape that has been shaped so strongly by its milling past. [Minneapolis was once the "flour milling capital of the world." You can see why: the drop in the Mississippi from the St.Anthony Falls gave the industry the power it needed. Grains from the northern plains and the Dakotas were brought by train and flour sacks were then carried up to Duluth, from there they traveled to the East Coast and beyond. In its heyday, Minneapolis had some 20 mills lining the river, in much the same way that steel mills once lined Pittsburgh's riverfront.]

 They're beautiful views.

We then go to a place recommended by our landlady, Mette. As a food photographer, she is very much involved with the local food scene in the Twin Cities. This spot is called "the Food Building" and it houses a flour mill and bakery (Baker's Field), a creamery (Alemar Cheese Company), a salumeria (Red Table Meat Company), and a cafe that allows you to sample any of the products made or baked here (Kieran's Kitchen).

We start off with a leisurely chat over coffee and fantastic rhubarb-ginger popovers.

But a after a while, I suppose a long while, because we are friends of long duration (time for a timed release!)...

... and so we can carry on for quite a bit, it's the lunch hour and so we move on to foods more appropriate to that meal.

All so delicious that I buy out the bakery just so Ed can sample the stuff that is good and, importantly, very different from our usual fare back home.

Very quickly I am nearing my departure hour. Diane drives me to the airport and I shuttle back to Madison. 

It's a super short flight today (31 minutes!), leading me to dream about the day I would not need to fly (because someday, there will be a speedy train linking these Midwestern cities). As sometimes happens, I get upgraded to the inebriated class. Meaning, I get a seat up front where even during a flight of 31 minutes people are offered a free drink in the air. And they take it! At least most do. At 4 pm, double shots of vodka with a splash of ginger ale are are being delivered by a running flight attendant (Sorry sir, but I have to do this fast, we are about to land!). I have to think that either people are secretly fearful fliers and the slug of booze chills them a bit, or we, as a species just cannot turn down a free anything. If they offered a free gallon of gas for the car, poured into your water bottle, people would take it, sloshing it all the way home. They've spent a small fortune on a flight ticket, and if it comes with a drink, damn it, they'll take it. And who can blame them. Flying these days is so stressful. Anything to make it go faster. Anything. (My own "booze," having the same effect, is reading the latest David Sedaris book.)

I pull into the driveway of the farmette and I see a piece of beat up machinery in the place of my parking spot.

Ed!

It's a long story, gorgeous...

I am home.

old haunts

Everyone has them -- places where we'd spent so much time, so long ago. Places that were once so familiar because rarely a day passed when we wouldn't poke in or at least pass by. Places that somehow got off our radar screen because life took us elsewhere.

Minneapolis is full of these old haunts for many of those close to me. They grew up there, or they raised a family there, or they moved there for a while. And because it was their turf, I'd drive up, or take the bus up, or fly up to visit. My Minneapolis has always been someone else's Minneapolis. I was the interloper following at the heels of those who knew it at some deeper level. I never paid much attention to the city itself because I was always more focused on someone whom I wanted to see badly enough that I would make that trip.

And once again, today I fly up to the Twin Cities. My friend Diane doesn't live there anymore, but she is up for a few days' visit and it is, therefore, a perfect opportunity to see her. In her old haunts.

But first, a morning at the farmette. I'd say it was full of search and discovery. Why search? Because I could not find two of the Bresse hens. I searched everywhere. Two were, as always, poking around just outside the barn. Two were missing. 

I woke Ed. Two got snatched!

Two? No, they're around.

I looked everywhere. They are quite visible and they have never strayed more than a dozen feet from the barn.

They're around.

We've lost two in one morning to predators before.

True. But they're around.

More searching. And of course, he was right. They'd wandered off toward the writer's shed. Carefree and seemingly happy. 

When I say "full of discovery," I am of course thinking of the hens (I surely discovered that their range has grown!), but I also mean new blooms. At the end of June each day begins to bring new day lilies into the picture. Today I discovered these lovely faces:

(At the same time that some of the old irises are still at it. Such deep colors we have right now!)

Breakfast is on the porch and I am so grateful that we do not have to spend it talking about "who could have snatched the chickens" and "how do we keep the rest safe in the face of a stalking predator." Instead, we talk about how beautiful our little corner of the planet is right now. Despite everything.

I weed a little. And I think about the article in today's paper that described how some women have channeled their anger into "rage gardening" this week, pulling up weeds in a fury as they felt their lives to have been upended. I appreciate the sentiment, but I think rage gardening isn't really about the furious pulling at weeds. I've come across the term in these Covid years and I feel it's more appropriate to describe rage gardening as a way to diffuse your inner turmoil and anxiety. By gardening you take yourself out of the immediate reality and put yourself in a very basic composition of soil, plants, maybe water. At least this is the way I experience it. Your fury eases and eventually, if you weed long enough -- dissipates.

And in the afternoon I hop on a flight for the one hour trip to Minneapolis. Were there a speed train, I'd take that but we are not a nation of speed trains.

Diane meets me at the airport and we set out to her favorite little Airbnb. And yes, I can see why it is a favorite! Rented out by a Danish woman, it has that feel of someone's very deliberate, yet very restrained style. (Having a son architect do the design helps...) And the little garden! Beautiful!

Diane and I mostly need to catch up. 

I haven't seen her in person since before Covid. It seems remarkable that we are still in the thick of Covid issues, even though she and I have both managed to escape infection thus far. But we do venture out some, including to dinner at Sooki and Mimi -- a fantastic place named after two grandmothers!

We don't pick it for the name, however. It's all about the food here: a mix of influences: Latin, Asian -- you'll find both in the dishes. (My main: maitake mushroom tacos)

The eatery refers to itself as a neighborhood joint and I suppose it is that. Like Chicago, Minneapolis has these very local places that may well become a haunt for you if you live there, bringing in a next generation of regulars. Plus Diane and me, eating at this new place, but in blocks so familiar to her.

The evening flies by so quickly! We'll have a few more hours tomorrow, before I catch my late afternoon flight back to Madison -- where there are not two but four Bresse hens, five old cheepers, many cats and a not too young Ed looking after them all.

Good night, from way up there in Minnesota, where, too, you will find fireflies dancing at dusk and if you look hard enough, maybe a swallow or two.

Sunday : from their home to my home

The last leisurely hours in Minneapolis. In their apartment...






... then at brunch, because you know now (see previous post) there will always be brunch. This time, we eat at the Eastside which gives me that final taste of city.






And a final long pause which, honestly, is never long enough to cover all that I want to ask, all that she wants to ask.






It is a beautiful day outside. As promised, the sun is strong, the air is warm. Oh, but the sadness of leaving!

Never mind. We have planned encounters ahead. Looking forward is as familiar to me as any other feeling that I bring to the table.


And speaking of realizing a future wish, here's a tiny bit of news: Ed reports that the chickens are out and about and no one is thinking of killing another. Or if they're thinking it, they're not acting upon their deep rooted desires to eliminate anyone who stands in the way of total stardom. In other words, it appears that the pecking order is holding, with only a few missing feathers to show for it.


Back home now. Ed and I go for a late afternoon walk. Not too long, not too far. Just enough to feel the breeze coming in across Lake Waubesa, all the way to the frozen pond where a sandhill crane does a shout out to the coming of spring.

a Saturday in the city

As many of you know, I was a high school and university student in Poland. I moved to the States somewhere between what Americans call sophomore and junior years. The difference between being a student in Warsaw in the early 1970s and in New York were tremendous, but what I recall vividly now are the large and small ways in which the life of the American student seemed to me then to be so very decadent. There was the obvious: the dizzying array of irrelevant (to your future career) courses (suddenly, my transcript was peppered with such course titles as "the photography dark room" and "J.S.Bach" and "The African Queen's impact on the development of film" and "Italian for beginners.") There were, too, the small things: a cafeteria, with trays of donuts and big vats of coffee for those morning classes. Or the smell of pot in the residence halls. Then there was weekend brunch at the casual restaurants of upper Broadway.

Not only did Poles rarely eat out in those years (oh, how things have changed!), but brunch was not even in our vocabulary.  When a guy invited me out for morning brunch (of dim sum, because, you know, it was New York), I wondered -- how do I dress for this? As I followed him into a narrow restaurant with Formica tables and somewhat torn vinyl booths, I was impressed by the slow flow of conversation (Poles never talk that slowly). The casual way in which people ate, with a spread of the Sunday NYTimes on many tables.  Decadent, I tell you.

I still think of brunch as an unusual and, for me, special event. Ed and I never go out for it. Weekend brunch has become that wonderful extra meal to be enjoyed when, for example, I am visiting a daughter living in another city. This is when I look forward to this exotic and wonderful late morning indulgence -- as foreign and deliciously decadent to me now as it was when I first encountered it on the upper west side of New York.

This morning the three of us head out to Hola Arepa.






What are the origins of these dishes? I ask, digging into the yuca hash, with beans, pickled cabbage, and a poached egg.
Venezualan.





Oh, how the food culture has changed in the Midwest! Both my daughters and their husbands pay attention to food in good ways and I wonder out loud if they call themselves foodies. Predictably, they don't much care for the label.
Am I a foodie? I ask, somewhat amused. I thought the answer was a resounding yes. I've moonlighted in restaurant kitchens for God's sake. Why else would I burn my hands in hot ovens after teaching classes during the day if not for the love of good food?
My son-in-law teases me -- you're too much into healthy foods to be a proper foodie.

Damn it, he's right. Over the years, I've backed off, admiring great meals mostly from afar. On menus, I get excited by vegetables (mushrooms will do!). And yet, I study dishes and combinations of ingredients as if my life depended on it. I care deeply about the foods we eat.


Time for a walk. The temperatures are about to make the leap to above freezing and there they shall stay for weeks on end! But in the meantime, it's on the cool side and so we go to the Conservatory to admire plant life that belongs to another climate, or at least another season.






We walk through it twice. The humidity alone is worth the trip: it's like stepping into a spa for your eyes and for your winter weary skin too.











And then I have business to discuss with my sister in Warsaw and so we make our way to a coffee shop where I can Skype with her over a wonderful aromatic cup of coffee. (The young people lose themselves in books.)






As if this whole trip wasn't indulgent enough, we do another thing that I almost never do these days -- we go for ice cream at the Milkjam Creamery. People have very individual relationships to ice cream. For me, it's not just a food -- it's an evocative treat that brings forth memories of other places, other cones and cups eaten over a lifetime. But Milkjam is memorable in its own right. How can you not love a flavor called Indian Elvis (curry, banana and peanut butter)? Or one that mixes the milk of a cow with that of a goat?






The sun comes out now: it's as if our ice cream defiantly pushed thoughts of the cold season away for good. We linger in the neighborhood of the ice cream store, window shopping, pausing to look. Why rush now? Sun's out. Life is warm.






In the evening, we go to a new kid on the Twin Cities -- St. Genevieve. It's styled to be a buvette -- a kind of neighborhood bar with great food where all are welcome -- locals, with or without kids, the occasional visitor. And it is excellent!

(As you can tell, I love photographing people and I especially love photographing people I love. You can decide if these two are posing, or oblivious to my camera work.)






A full day, a beautiful meal, a late night. A good night. Good night!

up up

... and away! A day of travel. A weekend away. Except I'm no urban escapee from the chaos of the city. I'm leaving the quiet of the farmette to once again wallow in the deliciousness of a visit to the city.

I don't take off immediately. At sunrise, just as the first splash of pink leaves its quiet mark on the patches of snow...






... I am up hurrying to open the chicken coop. There's squawking inside and I think I am not incorrect in believing that Butter is picking on little Henny again.

And yet, the chicken way of thinking remains a great mystery to me. Though it's below freezing, the girls come trotting out -- all but Henny. I open the roost -- she is huddled inside, but not for long. Hearing her buddy Java below, she goes down and both hens follow the older girls outside. What happened to warfare?

I have to think -- might we be past the worst of it? Let me stay with that chipper cheeper vision. As rosy as the morning rays of sunlight...






Breakfast at the farmhouse. Warmed by the early sunshine.






Things are looking up, no? When I come back, every hen will have found her place in the wee group of four, right? The snow will be gone, the crocuses will continue their steady push toward the heavens. Dream big.

And as if to give substance to these lovely thoughts, I go outside and see a vignette that warms my heart: the cheepers are not that far apart. Henny feels safe next to Java. Nothing, not even Butter, seems threatening when she marches by the big black hen's side.





Spring, peace, harmony -- here we come!

There is a morning of chores -- of shopping, of car washing -- the usual end of week stuff. But in the afternoon, I do the most luxurious thing: I board a plane for Minneapolis. The big airlines have introduced discount fares (no seat, no this, no that -- stripping it down to the bare essentials of going up, staying up, and landing in the place you want to be) and I grabbed one before it disappeared. That's a 45 minute journey, as opposed to a brutal and cold five and a half hour bus ride.

Up up indeed, over the isthmus that is Madison...






What, you can't spot our Capitol? Look closely.






A slight turn west and north and we disappear into the clouds (the same ones that have just dumped an inch of snow in Minnesota, but I have no complaints: our sister state is due for a warm up starting tonight. Remember: rosy thoughts, Ocean readers, rosy thoughts).


In the early evening, I am in the Twin Cities, riding the lovely light rail to meet my daughter and her husband. A stroll through the maze of skywalks, a quick drink in the office building where my girl works and then the three of us head out to dinner at the Brewer's Table.






It's the restaurant that sits right in the belly of the Surly Beer company. It has a well deserved reputation for delicious food (the chef here shares the honor Madison's young food geniuses received this year -- all nominees for a James Beard award) and we choose to have it paired with superb craft beers.  Yes,  despite my love of good wine, I am perfectly capable of saying kind words about beer. You just have to catch me at the right place and at the right time. This weekend, in Minneapolis, at the Brewers Table with this wonderful twosome for example.

But shhh! They're both fast asleep as I write this. I am proud to say that for once, I outlasted the younger generation. Snore away, my dears. Me, I'm already thinking about tomorrow's adventures.

Minneapolis

UPDATE

How quickly an evening passes when you sit down to that wonderful event called dinner with your daughter and her husband! We're at the  Corner Tableand the food is predictably wonderful. I'm about to plunge my spoon into thick mushroom soup topped with three gougeres. I consider myself to be a super gouger baker (it was my job to whip these up when I put in my Saturdays at the L'Etoile Restaurant ovens. But these meet my strictest requirements -- they are perfect.





As is the evening.


SUNDAY

We all rise early today. The young couple has to run someone over to the airport and I tag along so that we can then proceed to brunch. Not immediately though. It's so early that the brunch place isn't open yet. We use this gift of extra time for a walk along the great Mississippi.






I think about how these are paths that are weekend walk targets for this Minneapolis young couple. I circle a lake, they trail a river...






It is unusually warm. We comment how Fall is cheating us of the crisp autumnal air. But it's not a serious complaint. To be very warm in October in the northern most parts of the Upper Midwest is not a common thing.

Brunch. I remember eating a Sunday morning meal at the Bachelor Farmer some visits back. I loved it then, I love it today, especially (but not only) because it is that last time that we can sit together around a table and I feel as I do in the last minutes of any magnificent trip -- that I must take it all in, all of it, to the last drop, because it is soon to end and though in life, with grown children, you recognize that there will be many endings to fine meals and fine visits, it always feels a tad melancholy, even as I love home and have nothing but good things waiting for me at the end of the long bus ride.



more serious




less serious


We eat and talk about my plans (so many plans! so many!) their plans, their days, my travels. Your children are your best audience and yet I know I mustn't wear out that beautiful attentive listening stance and so I try to recognize the moment when we must leave the table and move on.

But not yet home. My bus doesn't leave until 4 and so we have time. We meander in and out of new stores that have popped up in this up and coming neighborhood of old warehouses and renovated brick buildings.





I buy a coat hanger.

I buy glasses! Remember my dilemma about getting a second pair? Resolved! My girl gives great shopping advice: the frames are cheap and lovely. I'm excited!

And then we return to their downtown apartment with the lovely big window that looks out onto a city park...





And what do I do? Of all things, I have to clear up some issues with airlines for distant trips, but important trips and so I work on that for a few minutes, but not for long, because we have one more walk to take and finally, just a few steps from the bus stop, a taproom to pop into and a goodbye beer to drink together -- hoppy, happy beer, something that is so fitting for this hoppy happy warm day.

Beautiful weekend, you wonderful hosts, you! Thank you. So very much. Sniff.






And now I am on the bus and there are so many students heading back to my home town that there are two buses. I am comfortable, I have my books, magazines, memories.

Minneapolis

UPDATE:

Sometimes, I scroll back to posts written at another time and place, reminding myself of a special moment, a meal, a shared conversation. I know I'll come back to Minneapolis more than once here, on Ocean. It's the city that I feel in part is mine by incorporation: any place where a daughter resides becomes, in a way, my home as well.

I'll want to remind myself of the walk my daughter and I took last night to La Belle Vie -- just a few blocks from where she and her husband live. La Belle Vie is your stately, old restaurant -- you know the type: a flagship eatery, located on the ground floor of a lovely old building, a place you don't really go to very often (at all?) -- too expensive, too fine in all senses of that word, unless, perhaps for a drink at the bar, because there is a fireplace and there is a warmth in those old faded carpets and comfortable chairs.

La Belle Vie is closing in a few weeks, but I had a chance to visit this place this one first and last time with my girl for a predinner drink and a beautiful set of minutes (hours?) by the fireplace.






And then there was a walk to dinner, where her husband and his mom, too, joined us for a great meal (fish, dumplings, macaroons mmm!) at the bustling, modern Burch.






Meals, especially dinners, have always been an important event for my family. In planning each and every dinner -- whether it's to be cooked at home on a routine day or, in the alternative, chosen for that meal out for a special occasion (like the visit of mom!), so much thought and concern goes into the process! Because, of course, it's not just about the food. We have come to understand that dinners together matter. They've always mattered and they'll continue to matter. You save your best for that time around the table -- best story, best manners, your best caring self -- coaxed and cajoled out into the open over a dish of wonderful food.


That was my Friday evening in Minneapolis.


The next day I am up too early. I'm too eager, too engaged in where I am. Sleep is for another time. I want to begin the day.

I promised shorter posts -- here you go:

Fantastic brunch at Tilia, followed by a neighborhood walk through the Linden Hills neighborhood -- a benefit to Snowdrop, as we do Christmas shopping with her in mind! (One visit is to a glorious local children's bookstore, where the browsers were often small, cheeper sized, in fact. Yes, that's a live chicken and no, I do not understand how or if they house-train her.)






You couldn't ask for more beautiful weather or more spectacular autumnal landscapes. We have close encounters with both at the U of Minnesota Arboretum. We take a walk along paths that weave in and out of the forests, through prairie fields and rose beds, past lakes and linden and oak groves and forests that shine their gold.












After -- a drop in to the Apple House -- this, people, this is where the honeycrisp apple was born:












In the afternoon we have several memorable visits with my son-in-law's grandpa, then parents. We drive through neighborhoods of his childhood and watch the sky turn orange, then dark, from the open windows at Five Watts Coffee.






And I'll end there for today. I'll catch up with you tomorrow, but know that I truly believe that there are few days more special than ones where I spend time with my daughters (and their families!). I sit back and think -- the lives they live are genuinely good and filled with the best that life has to offer: support, grand intention and even grander effort, and love.