top ten Tuesday: ten foods.

You know how they say that you either live to eat or eat to live?

I live to eat.

I will never forget to eat lunch and am baffled by those who do. Not eating breakfast will likely ruin my day. If I order something at a restaurant that isn’t very good, my disappointment is palpable. There are so many delicious foods out there: I hate to waste a mealtime on a sub-par dish.

When James and I go on vacation, we not only plan the sights we will see: we also plan which restaurants to visit. We live in Luverne – something of a food desert – so we want our vacations to be full of delicious food that we can’t get at home. My family recently went to Kansas City, and my list of places to eat was actually longer than my list of things to see and do. Priorities.

Thanks to this food mission, I’ve tried a lot of amazing fare. However, many of my absolute favorite foods can be found in those towns and cities in which I have spent the most time. These are the top ten foods I dream about.

BROOKINGS

burgers at Nick’s

If I could eat only one thing until I died, I would choose Nick’s hamburgers. As I have already dedicated an entire blog to Nick’s (and many mentions in between), I won’t elaborate too much. I will say that I grew up eating Nick’s hamburgers with my grandparents and parents, and I have passed on that love to James. Nick’s serves little slider-sized hamburgers, and they’ve been doing it since 1929. The buns are fresh, and the burgers are tank-fried in front of you. Nick’s was even a part of James’s and my wedding: not once, but twice! We had Nick’s for our rehearsal dinner, and we had the Nick’s wagon come out to my parents’ house for the day-after get-together. Nick’s is not just a burger joint: it’s a tradition.

cheese curds at the Summer Arts Festival

Like Nick’s, I’ve already written an entire blog about the Brookings Summer Arts Festival. And like Nick’s, it’s so glorious that it bears repeating. The Summer Arts Festival is THE event of the summer: each year, it’s held in Pioneer Park in Brookings. And each year, it gets bigger and more delightful. I have a handful of Summer Arts Festival food must-haves: frozen hot chocolate, mini donuts, and (most importantly) cheese curds. The cheese curds at the Summer Arts Festival are so fresh that the cheese squeaks when you bite them. They’re greasy and wonderful and I am counting down the days until I can have them. (Four days, if you’re curious.)

chocolate ice cream at the SDSU Dairy Bar

Or wherever the SDSU ice cream truck happens to be.

This list is a little Brookings-heavy, but I can’t help that Brookings is home to three of my very favorite foods. I consider myself a chocolate ice cream connoisseur: I’ve tasted chocolate ice creams far and wide, and I have yet to come across a better chocolate ice cream than SDSU’s. It’s made in house and doled out in generous scoops, and I wish I could eat it every day. Alas, the SDSU Dairy Bar is only open during the week until 5, so it’s rather difficult for me to make it there. Hence the reason I purchase it by the half-gallon.

MORRIS

toast at Don’s

Toast on my 19th birthday: 2006.

I spent my college years in Morris, and one of the very first things I learned is that I had to get the toast at Don’s. Being the rule-follower that I am, I dutifully went to Don’s – a tiny café in tiny downtown Morris – and ordered their toast. What arrived was a plate of the most delicious toast I had ever eaten – or WILL ever eat, for that matter. Their homemade bread is sliced thick and slathered with butter, and it tastes best with strawberry jam. I can’t even count the number of times I went to Don’s for toast. As was my solemn duty as a UMMer, I made sure to bring any visiting friends or family to Don’s for toast. Whenever I make it back to Morris – which isn’t as often as I would like – Don’s is #1 on the to-do list.

GLENWOOD

focaccia and balsamic vinegar at Café Bella

Glenwood is a lovely town on Lake Minnewaska, about thirty miles from Morris. Glenwood was home to the fanciest restaurant I had ever visited: an Italian place called Café Bella. I’m not sure what brought me there in the first place, but a few friends and I made a pilgrimage there for a Christmas dinner during our freshman year, and I’ve been on at least three first dates there. (But one of those dates was James, so it all worked out!)  (But it is really a first date if you go there after being friends for two years and having just decided to date? I digress.) I do not remember what kind of entrée I had, but I do remember the cheesecake being absolutely delectable. But my very favorite thing at Café Bella was the bread. Weird, I know, but this bread was like no other appetizer bread I’ve ever experienced. It was warm focaccia, and it was served with this tangy balsamic vinegar/oil mixture that was so delicious that I had to stop myself from licking it right off the plate. No other bread-dipping mixture has ever lived up to Café Bellas. I’m sad to say that I think the restaurant is closed now – otherwise, you know I’d be there with a plateful of focaccia.

NEW ORLEANS

beignets at Café du Monde

Oh, New Orleans. I miss it so much that it hurts. I spent a week there in college, four months doing an internship after college, and another week there for our honeymoon – and it feels like home. During that four months I was there for an internship, I was too poor to really experience the food: when I could buy both hotdogs AND eggs, I felt rich. Luckily, beignets aren’t that expensive. I had first had them during the college trip, and I totally fell in love. Beignets are French doughnuts that are fried and served drenched in powdered sugar. You could buy three of them for about four dollars, and even I – the unpaid intern working two part-time jobs – could scrape up enough money for those. My parents each came to visit while I was living in New Orleans, and I took each of them to get beignets. Mom – who is not a dessert person – thought they were pretty good, but Dad – who IS a dessert person – loved them. When James and I were in New Orleans for our honeymoon, we got beignets every single day. Alas, there are no beignets up here in the Great White North. You have to go to Kansas City to get an approximate – and those beignets were tasty, but nothing beats the original.

blackened catfish at Remoulade

Seafood in New Orleans is just heavenly. Fresh from the Gulf and prepared like only Southerners can. I’ve had some amazing seafood in New Orleans – BBQ shrimp at VooDoo BBQ, char-grilled oysters with Mom and the Poboy Festival, shrimp remoulade with fried green tomatoes… but nothing even comes close to the blackened catfish. Upon arriving in New Orleans for our honeymoon, James and I wandered through the French Quarter and stumbled across this little restaurant. On a whim, I ordered the blackened catfish – having never had catfish before. It was delivered to me on a tin plate, and it was the most extraordinary fish I have ever eaten. James (who had gotten stuffed crab) was envious of my delectable dish, and we even went back a second time at the end of the honeymoon so we could both get more catfish.

MINNEAPOLIS

violet gelato at Paciugo

There are so many foods I love in Minneapolis; it was awfully tough to narrow it down. My other two major contenders were Raising Cane’s chicken strips and the apple and brie pancakes at the Colossal Café. The gelato won out because a.) it didn’t seem right to place food from a national chain on my list of local delights, and b.) James can replicate the apple and brie pancakes, so I can eat those any time I want. Gelato it is. I had never really had gelato until moving to Minneapolis, and I find it quite delightful. This particular shop is located in the Mall of America, and their flavors swap out from time to time. I’ve tried all sorts of crazy gelato there, many of them flower-based: rose gelato, lavender and blueberry gelato… but none has been better than violet gelato. (Side note: Sioux Falls recently got a gelato stand it its mall, and their strawberry gelato is to die for.)

WORTHINGTON

rolled quesadillas at La Azteca

I don't have a picture of the quesadilla, so here's a margarita at La Azteca.

I’ve had Mexican food many times in many different places – including Mexico. But the best Mexican food I’ve ever had was in – believe it or not – Worthington, Minnesota. Yes: Minnesota. James moved to southwestern Minnesota for a teaching job while I was still living in Minneapolis, and he discovered La Azteca and told me all about its wonders. I moved to Sioux Falls in 2011 – leaving Minneapolis was hard, but Sioux Falls was so much closer to James and my family, so here we are. James’s birthday was about a week after I had started my new Sioux Falls job, so we went to La Azteca – and I was floored. I ordered the rolled quesadilla, which is just a regular quesadilla rolled up and cut in slices. I’ve been getting going to La Azteca for almost four years now, and I’ve never ordered anything else. I may be in a rut, but it’s a tasty rut. 

LUVERNE

lemon glazed salmon at the Sterling Café

I also don't have a picture of the salmon... so here's a picture of me at
the Sterling Cafe with a Guinness.

James and I moved to Luverne mere days after we got married in summer 2013. We chose Luverne because it was the closest we could find to half-way between our jobs: James works twenty miles one direction, and I work thirty-five miles in the other. Living in Luverne is a necessary evil. There are a few good things: affordable housing, a drive-in movie theatre… but overall, Luverne is too small-town for me. One of the biggest problems we faced when we moved to Luverne was the lack of dining options. There was one good restaurant, a few fast food places, a couple of pizzerias, plus a diner with weird hours and a DeToy’s-esque establishment that could out-DeToy DeToy’s. Translation: it was terrible. (If you went to Morris, you will understand my reference.) James and I longed for something more – and in late 2014, we finally got it. The Sterling Café opened downtown, about a year behind schedule. Their food is upscale and exciting, and my absolute favorite entrée is the lemon glazed salmon with citrus rice. The flavors are bright and un-Minnesotan, and I just love it. I was going completely stir crazy in Luverne, and the Sterling Café was my salvation.

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I wasn’t hungry when I wrote this, but now I feel as though I may starve to death. So many good foods in so many places. I’ve eaten many other delicious foods from places near and far, but these foods are from the places I’ve lived and loved. (Or just lived. Maybe “loved” will come someday, Luverne.)

You may have noticed that there are no beverages on my list. My friends, those deserve a blog post to themselves. Stay tuned!