Forkin' Around

Since my sister-in-law had the day off from work, she and Wife hung out the “No Boys Allowed” sign, and I was left to explore on my own. I don’t know exactly what they had planned, but since I grew up with lots of sisters, I’m pretty sure it involved talking smack about other girls ("Can you believe Meagan’s shorts? Oh, my gawd!"), doing each other’s hair, and pouring over issues of Tiger Beat (in his defense, Parker Stevenson is a babe). 

Grand Forks, ND and East Grand Forks, MN. East meets West.

Anyway, I took the opportunity to point the minivan toward Winnipeg and drive north until my lack of a passport became problematic. Since we have been to Winnipeg before (how could we not, it’s the birthplace of poutine for God’s sake), I ultimately ended up only about an hour north of Fargo in Grand Forks/East Grand Forks. 

The horizon continues. The free space on my iPhone did not.

As you head north out of Fargo, the landscape becomes a little more extreme. It seems flatter, if that’s possible. The few trees that dot the landscape are permanently torqued toward the east in response to mother nature’s relentless blowjob from the other direction. And although it was a beautiful summer day, there was still a foreboding sense of how unforgiving this area must be come winter time. 

Mr. Bergman, North Dakota is on line one.

I mentioned flat. It’s more than that. For some reason, I was particularly stricken by how sharply defined and abundant the surrounding horizon was. It was a constant, linear reminder of how far in the middle of nothingness I was, and that has a way of making you feel small and a bit melancholy. Who knew a single line could change your mood like that (well, cocaine users do, but that’s just what I've heard).

Oh, honey, don't touch the big metallic dog poop.

I once read that the indigenous peoples of Alaska and northern Canada (if you’re a Trump supporter, I believe the word you’re looking for here is Eskimo) are significantly more adept at solving Rubik’s Cubes than other groups. The theory goes that thanks to the nearly identical color of the snow, ice, and sky in the Arctic, they lack a discernible horizon most months out of the year. This leaves them dimensional-ly untethered and forces them to hyper-develop spatial relationship, problem solving skills. If that’s the case, then one could reverse-reason that native North Dakotans, with their ever-present, laser-etched division between heaven and earth, struggle to even free their Rubik’s Cubes from the boxes they are shipped in. 

I bet they’re savages at Sorry! though.

Rather sobering riverside monument of actual levels of various devastating floods of the past. Note the normal river level in the background.

For a better sense of scale of just how deep some of the floods were (and how painfully bright the sun was that day).

Chia Head.
Giant James Cameron Avatar edition.

On the way home I was feeling a little tense from the drive, so I brought myself to Climax.

Apparently there's a women's section, but as usual, I struggled to find it.

Worth a Thousand Words

Purging my pictures from the iCloud. 

There's no rhyme or reason here, just content.

Yeah, I know how it's really pronounced, but if your inner dialog is narrated by a prepubescent 9-year-old like mine is, you giggle every time you see the signs. 

And it only gets better...

I like big buttes, and I can not lie.

I'm pretty sure the dress code that night was "Mandatory Evacuation of the Trailer Park Casual."

When I walk into a bar and a video of Brian Ferry is playing, yeah, I'm basically staying a while.

Same great bar. Close-up shot of my wiener.

I guess they put these signs with pictures of fire hydrants on them next to fire hydrants in case you can't see the fire hydrants next to the signs with pictures of fire hydrants on them.

And look who wakes up the minute you mention fire hydrants...

 

 2 dogs, 7 legs. Yet, somehow it works in Idaho.

North Dakota Ham Bone.

Found him at the museum. I named him "Art."

Found this puppy roaming the streets of Fargo. If he's yours, you'll have to wrestle him away from the girl with the bluebird tattoo.

So don't waste your dog.

Pablo Picowso

Not surprisingly, this was hanging in a shitty cowboy bar in Broadus, MT that had the absolute worst service.

In Fargo, they take their birdhouses very seriously.

I was impressed with the intricacy of many of the small town welcome signs we passed.

(Incidentally, George Michael would have been 55 next week.)

Tom looks sad. 

(Perhaps he's remembering George Michael.)

  I have no idea what's going on here. Feel free to add your own caption in the comments below.

Oh, and keep it clean. That's my wife and my sister-in-law, you animals!

Eatin’ in Wahpeton

This morning we drove about an hour south of Fargo to the small, farming town of Wahpeton, North Dakota. Since I know that many of my readers are (nearly) as culturally sophisticated as we are, it’s probably unnecessary to mention that our quest was to see “Wahpper,” the world’s largest catfish sculpture. And even though the Wikipedia article I read (well, mostly read) about Wahpper was a veritable masterpiece in non-sourced, collaborative reference, it still left us wholly unprepared for the up-close majesty of a 5,000 lb. fiberglass carp perched atop a man made hill in a partially occupied RV park.

Goose bumps. 

We stand together, hand in fin.

Although one possible reaction could have been to drop to our knees and weep in the shadow of its greatness, in all honesty, my left knee has been bothering me a bit lately, so we agreed to drive to a local saloon and gently drop into a booth instead. 

Bloody Mary Bar?
Yes, please!

Mostly, when picking a new restaurant or bar, I rely on a combination of experience, instinct, and tons of research, and like when paper-training ferrets or creating an iTunes playlist, you hope the extra effort is rewarded. However, on some very rare occasions (as when you’re emotionally spent from basking in the presence of giant, novelty aquatica), we just stumble into an establishment blindly and hope to get lucky. 

This time, we got damn lucky. 


Although this blog contains a cumulative foodie page that I’ve been updating since we left (and most of you have been ignoring), today’s post is also going in that same direction and is devoted to the most unexpected dining surprise I’ve experienced in a long time: 

The Boiler Room in downtown Wahpeton. 



I can not tell you that The Boiler Room had the best food, drinks, or service I’ve ever known. These are claims I never make lightly, and it simply did not, and in a town of less than 8,000 (and that’s including the giant fish), experience dictates that culinary expectations are relative, but whether you are in a market of 8,000 or 800,000, you can always tell (and appreciate) when a restaurant is operated by someone who gives a damn. The Boiler Room is such a place. Anyone can open a restaurant. It’s a select few, in my experience, who can attend to the hundreds of details, large and small, that make for a consistent, positive dining experience. 

In my opinion, before food is even mentioned, first you need service. I don’t care if your authentic pizza oven was imported brick by brick from Neptune or you only use locally-sourced, free-range mozzarella sticks. If you employ inattentive, untrained, and un-invested help, don’t even bother trying to sell manna from heaven. Open a DMV instead.  Our server, Kimmy (or possibly Kimmie, with an ‘ie,’ but, God, I’m really hoping it’s just plain Kimmy), was friendly, accurate, informative and seemingly invested in the success of the establishment. And although that speaks volumes about Kimmy, it also speaks to the training she received and the reasons she received it. 

The food, by any standard, was very good. More importantly, however, was that you could tell it was personal to someone. Homemade items, unique combinations, avoided cliches, and upscale plating all pointed to a chef with a personal interest and not just a line cook with personal debt. 

Sorry, Charlie.

For me, in terms of importance, decor generally ranks lower than other aspects of the dining experience, but I understand the value of presentation and appreciate when it is done right. The Boiler Room was retrofitted by professional designers, and, like Jim Gaffigan, is clean, quirky, and appropriate for its time and place on this planet. 

So regardless of which things you might find more relevant when identifying a great joint, remember that the devil is always in the details, and finding one that knows how to exorcise all those little bastards is rare. It lets you know that they take their endeavor seriously, and even that resonates with a smart ass like me. 

Count on it.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, there’s no catfish on the menu. 

Doesn't Everyone Enjoy Moorhead?

No sense on wasting money on a
stand-alone welcome sign. Just
glue it to the back of that stop sign.

After my last post, an admiring and heartfelt paean to Fargo, I decided to head across the river and give you my thoughts on Moorhead, Minnesota. Don't worry. This won't take long. Moorhead sucks dick.

The minute you cross any of the many bridges to Moorhead from Fargo, things change. Colors get dimmer. Moods darken. Hope, along with anything resembling a fine dining choice, dies. If you Google "interesting things to do in Moorhead," images of the bridges leading back to Fargo appear.

Moorhead's flourishing commerce district

I spent about a week in Moorhead one morning, walking and driving past its resale shops and Taco John outlets. Like many, I root for underdogs, and I was honestly trying to find something likable about Fargo's dirty, retarded, river-sharing little brother. It was not to be. Not since Kansas have I wished so desperately for instant teleportation technology.

If a train derails in Moorhead, would anyone notice.

The downtown is an ill-defined collection of old, new, and what-the-fuck, bisected annoyingly by the same busy railroad that neighboring Fargo seems to incorporate so much more quaintly. Even the city hall, typically a well-maintained point of civic pride in any other community, is a poorly groomed, architectural melanoma, wrapped in a dying, 1970's era retail mall with a perpetually "going out of business" department store as its anchor tenant. Metaphors notwithstanding, I suppose this might be convenient if you want to save some time and get a copy of your birth certificate, discount dish towels, and a warm pretzel from the single-vendor, food court all at once.

Wife, imitating the do not walk sign, in front of the Moorehead City Hall (slash) retail graveyard

You can suck my Mick!

I made one last-ditch effort to find happiness in Moorhead by way of my stomach. After scouring Google Maps for any place that didn't have a drive-thru window or drinks with lids, I finally came upon Mick's Office, which allegedly makes a decent hamburger and, most importantly, sells alcohol. I went in around noon, and there were only two other patrons in the place, sharing a table in the corner. Three employees were visible in the open kitchen behind the bar. Although I was concerned with the absence of a lunchtime crowd, I didn't really have a Plan B, and I rationalized that the generous, staff-to-patron ratio would bode well for customer service. What a dumb ass I can be. After ten minutes drumming my fingers on the empty bar top and being ignored, I turned around and left without so much as a glance from the occupationally masturbating staff.

I quickly found the nearest bridge back to Fargo. I suggest you do the same.

How Low Can You Fargo?

You are one magnificent bison-of-a-bitch!

I’m a walker. It’s just how I’m constructed. I can walk for days. My calves are like bowling balls. If I have visited your town for any length of time, there’s a good chance I’ve thoroughly walked its streets. Personally, I think it is the only way to truly know a city, and I would highly recommend it. (Also, like me, if you are north of 6’ and weigh about as much as a Japanese motorcycle, don't pass up the opportunity to meander through the seedier parts of town. Your size will protect you, and it’s where a city’s true personality expresses itself.)

Gratuitous streetscape shot.

Now that we've planted ourselves in Fargo for a few weeks and Wife is spending some quality time with her sister, I spent the morning logging about 5 miles on a crisscross track through Fargo and its surrounding neighborhoods. I have always liked Fargo. For my money, it’s about the best representation of straight-up heartland you can get. 

No, they don't show Fargo, the movie, on a continuous loop.

I have no idea why ESPN is represented downtown, and I'm too lazy to make a joke about it..

The HoDo makes wonderful Martinis and
Old Fashioneds. If you order a long island
ice tea here, they will probably beat you.
If they don't, I will.

The downtown is an impossibly clean collection of new and old buildings sprawled along one side of the Red River (Moorhead, Minnesota skanks up the right bank). There’s a vibrant bar scene downtown with the requisite number of craft breweries and BBQ joints you would expect from a college-adjacent town still waiting for the next dining trend to emerge. There’s also a refreshing amount of retail that is apparently immune to the typical, traffic-sucking effects of the big box retailers located in the windy flood plains just west of the city proper. 

Where's the Beav?

The area just north of downtown, or NoFa, as I’m sure some clever, hipster-influenced, civic organization will someday dub it, consists of 20-plus blocks of tree-lined streets with original craftsman residences dating back to the 20's combined with just about every other architectural style practiced since. It’s a long stretch of occupied neighborhoods where an updated, and possibly tattooed, Wally and The Beaver wouldn’t be completely out of place engaging in sanitized hi-jinks. 

Even Fargo alleys are clean.

These are not ready-to-be-gentrified neighborhoods waiting for the financial stimulus of prodigal seniors with bloated IRAs. No, these neighborhoods never really needed saving. They’ve simply been chugging along, showing various states of wear and wealth, with their embedded grade schools, Lutheran churches, Masonic lodges, and nearly an infinite number of casseroles surely passed across their shared alleys and fences to neighbors in times of mourning and/or celebration since about the time FDR was president. It’s a slightly distressed, Norman Rockwell painting writ large and updated with Toyota Priuses and GMC SUVs painted over top the original Studebakers and Nash Ramblers. 

North Dakota State University also lies north of Downtown and spills into the area west of NoFa. It’s a typical college campus with manicured grounds, surprisingly well-maintained frat houses, and skinny co-eds out jogging in little more than their underwear. Subsequently, it’s not a bad place to grab a beer at an outside patio bar. 

I do enjoy his salad dressing, but does it really make him saint-worthy?

If there’s a weak spot in this Grain Belt Utopia (besides the winters), it’s West Fargo, and not for the reasons you might guess. West Fargo sprawls south of I-94, southwest of the city, and sprawl is absolutely the appropriate term to use here. A recent side effect of Fargo’s low unemployment, West Fargo is an infinite suburbia rising where continuous quarter-sections of old farmland once produced beets and grain rather than upscale condos, better-funded schools, and mini-mansion, housing developments. And although the new homes (with their clean, Scandinavian influenced aesthetic) are sure pretty to look at, I suspect their existence spells the demise of the Rockwell-esque neighborhoods within the city limits that are agreeably short on square footage but enviably long on character. Being from the Detroit area, I've witnessed what happens to a city that lets its neighborhoods relocate to the suburbs.

Sorry, Beaver.