Mission Lefse

I just spent a few days in Minneapolis, which was an entirely purposeful thing. I could have picked the work trip to San Diego or New Orleans, but Minneapolis holds a special place in my heart so I beat down everyone on my team at work and declared Minnesota mine ALL MINE.

I don't understand why nobody fought me about it. Weird. It's almost like they were happy to go to San Diego or New Orleans instead.

The last time I went to Minneapolis was to help facilitate a huge training event for Target store managers. I used to be fully qualified to lead training on workplace violence response, including active shooters. That was like 10 years ago, so obviously I was ahead of the curve. I was so ahead of it that no amount of money could get me to go back to it. I curved right on out of that picture, and I did it because of that training. We opened the sessions with a compilation video from Target store security camera footage. I didn't set foot in a Target for months afterwards. I didn't need to know that a cashier was once stabbed with a screwdriver or that a customer was shoved in the trunk of a car or any of the other long list of violent things that had happened where cameras could see. At Target. MY BELOVED TARGET. Even if discovering crazy things can happen at the happiest store on Earth did ruin me for a bit, it was comforting to know that Target invested a crapton of money in training their managers. They did it before it was the "trendy" (::sigh:: shootings should never be "trendy") thing to do.

Still, that trip to Minneapolis was a good one, and so were the several I made there before that. It's like going back home to North Dakota, but without all the nothingness and general horror that is the town where I grew up. I prefer metropolitan areas, so Minot's 40,000 people was never enough for me.

I had one mission while in Minneapolis -- find lefse. I need to post a recipe for it at some point because it is one of the greatest foods on earth. I am perfectly capable of making it, but it's even more fun not to. Lefse is basically a soft flour tortilla, except that it's made with mashed potatoes instead of flour. It's ... AMAZING. Perfection. Happiness. All the good things that are childhood holiday foods. I wanted lefse and I didn't want to peel potatoes to get it.

It was a noble mission.

And I succeeded. That was just one problem -- Minneapolis is a freakin cool city. Seriously. It's cool in the way that Prince was cool. He didn't need to tell you how cool he was; he just was. Every move and every note dripped with coolness. Minneapolis does that. Everything about it is cool. And then cold because it's so damn cold in Minnesota.

ANYWAY.

All of the restaurants are SO COOL. Each night I was there led to a culinary adventure with my co-workers. They knew I needed lefse, so one of them even found a place that had it on the menu. I was all sorts of excited and ordered extra pieces.

I should have known it was going to be a disappointment.

The restaurant was a farm-to-table place and had a butchery on site. Everything was super fancy. My main course was $21 cauliflower, for example. It was saffron roasted cauliflower, but still. $21. FOR CAULIFLOWER. It was really good, but, you know. CAULIFLOWER.

It was fancy cauliflower.

And the lefse was fancy lefse. They added all kinds of locally grown herbs and olive oil and THAT IS NOT WHAT LEFSE IS ALL ABOUT. They totally over fancied it and that lefse was the most disappointing lefse of all time. I didn't even know lefse knew how to be disappointing.

It was true sadness.

So now I need to plan a return trip to Minneapolis. I didn't have time to get to a local grocery store so I could buy quality, true-to-form lefse, but I will. Oh, I will.

It is my mission.

Comments

[Caroline]

Lefse is gross, the end. But I’ll scope out a good place for you, for next time you come!