There's no place like home, new family and Grand Forks?

Proscuitto Salad, Pasta Negra and Foie Gras Tortelini, photo by Vita.mn

This week was busy, frantic and amazing. On the home front, AlphaChef spent less time cooking at home, busy with work- which in his industry equates to schmoozing over fancy meals. This schmoozing led to an awesome opportunity which culminated in a celebration dinner at Bar la Grassa. The Pasta Negra made with sea urchin, mussels and tomatoes is our favorite. It's a fresh pasta dish with squid ink spaghetti, tossed in garlic and sea urchin with fresh grape tomatoes and diced, somewhat spicy, green chiles just cooked enough to maintain a fresh crunch. Both the tomatoes and chilies give the dish a fresh taste, the pasta, perfectly al dente while the sauce is decadent. Topped with mussels, it's perfection. We also tried their Foie Gras Tortellini, which was truly fabulous. The server brought this out as our last course, this was a very good call, as it was both rich and sweet and just the right amount to finish the experience. They offer half portions of all their pasta dishes, so we can sample multiple dishes. Check out their menu- it's impossible to pick just two dishes. 

On my work front, we have been preparing for an important utilization review for the past month, which took place on Wednesday. Immediately after being grilled for an hour and a half by reviewers about the quality of my programming, I got a call at 10:30 am from my lovely sister. Through deep breathing brought on by contractions, she told me "I'm having a baby today". Awesome timing, since I would be able to leave to see her after the review. Choking back tears of both relief that I made it through the worst part of the review, excitement and nervousness for my sister and anticipation of meeting my new nephew, I left my office to continue my industry's brand of schmoozing, leading reviewers on a tour of our facility. We passed with flying colors- huge relief- and then I heard my nephew was born without a hitch. After more scrambling to cover Thursday work obligations, my brother and I took off the next day for Grand Forks at 5:30 am.

We stopped in Freeport, MN, which is just outside of Alexandria- the half way point- at Charlie's Cafe for breakfast. It is a fairly typical greasy spoon, until you look up and see their extraordinary good-looking lemon meringue pies. I have never seen such high, perfectly golden peaks of meringue. It was breakfast, so we made a promise to return for the pie on the way home and bought an apple turnover for the road. The turnover was a light, flaky pastry filled with apples and topped with a lovely cream cheese frosting. A bit rich after already eating breakfast, but what is a road trip without indulging in random foodie goodness along the way? 

At this point you may be wondering, why would a sister as lovely as mine be living in Grand Forks, North Dakota? If you're not wondering this, you've never been to Grand Forks. It's the military. My lovely sister's husband is in the Marines. Now, if you have been to Grand Forks, you may ask, what is a Marine family doing on an Air Force base? Good question- one they ask themselves on a daily basis. My brother-in-law, a gifted airplane mechanic also turns out to be a gifted, if not reluctant, recruiter for the Marines. Gifted enough to be granted the privilege of living in Grand Forks, where they needed a recruiter strong enough to lure those chair-force brats from North Dakota and Northern Minnesota into the elite Marine Corps. The upside is that they have been closer to us than they used to be (in North Carolina) so I have had the good fortune to bond with my nephew, and brave almost always treacherous roads to visit her. There is one good thing about Grand Forks, and it is most definitely not the weather. It is the Toasted Frog. By now you had to have known it was a restaurant. This little gem of a restaurant in located on 3rd Ave N in downtown Grand Forks. It's always packed. (Note to restaurant dreamers: Grand Forks NEEDS more good food options, it would be a goldmine). Their mostly Italian menu includes pasta, sandwiches and pizza. But the dish that makes the Toasted Frog a destination spot for me, that makes the five hour drive worth it, are the fried pickles. Erase any memory you have of fried pickles, I have never had them like this. They take whole pickle spears and wrap them in a wonton-like breading lined with havarti cheese. The pickles are fried and then cut on the bias and served with a sour cream, sriracha sauce. The result is a perfectly crisp, salty, chewy outside with a still cold, crisp dill pickle inside. This dish is so good, I'm debating whether I will have to go to Grand Forks every once in a while after my lovely sister moves back to her warm homeland. Okay, maybe not. But almost.  

The highlight of the visit was seeing my lovely sister, her precious new baby and ever growing family. Yes, I drove ten hours in one day to see them for five hours, but it was worth every minute. One of the most rewarding life experiences is forming relationships in which you will literally go through hell and high water to be with the object of your affection for even just a brief time. These are moments that we will always remember. I will be able to recount to both of my nephews the first moments of their lives, because I was there. I wouldn't give that up for anything.

So we trekked home, got caught in horizontally falling, blinding snow, faced bully semi-trucks going 90 miles per hour past us, almost ran out of gas just before getting to Alexandria (that would have been so stupid) and almost deliriously thinking I was in Elk River, when I was actually coming up to Maple Grove. I made it to good ol' Mpls, dropped off my equally deliriously tired brother and fell into bed. Just as I got home I realized we never made it back to Charlie's for the lemon meringue pie. Is it worth it to go back to try it? Maybe next time.