Author: Katie Quirk

I’ve been thinking about spaghetti sauce a lot lately. I grew up in a very busy household with parents who didn’t have a lot of time to cook, so the sauce on our noodles was always of the canned variety. Not knowing the different between canned and fresh, we kids slurped it right up—the soggy vegetables, the sugared tomato sauce. It wasn’t until I went to college and started cooking for myself that I discovered how good fresh, homemade spaghetti sauce can be. I avoided the misexperience of canned sauce again until a few weeks ago, when my roommate offered to share some of his lunch with me. I had to push it away after one bite, so unwilling was I to waste taste buds and calories on such slop. It made me wonder: Why have Americans allowed themselves to become so busy that they traded in Mom’s delicious, homemade sauce for something that is judged solely on how thick it is on TV? Isn’t that aiming a little bit low? I mean, I understand economies of scale, agribusiness, convenience, and all that. But really, there is no substitute for homemade quality, and no excuse for its demise.

Our economy thrives on the masses: mass markets of mass-produced goods changing hands in mass purchases. This is necessary, of course, and not altogether evil. It’s hard to make it as an artisan these days, and those who are making it are working their tails off just to belong to an entry-level tax bracket. Have we gotten so sensitive to price, and so insensitive to quality, that true artisans are an endangered species? Maybe. But I always look for the exceptions that prove the rule.

Next: A real tailor…

Never take a self-defense class with your sisters. Especially if the class is called Training for Life, in which you learn techniques that, unlike traditional martial arts, are designed not to inflict permanent or even semi-permanent harm upon an attacker, but instead rely on a series of intensely painful, twisted pinches. Three sisters, six hands, and the permission to clamp those claws onto each other equals years of sibling rivalry resolved through innumerable bruises.

We discovered this agony too late. My sisters Erin, 19, and Kelly, 22, had agreed to attend the class with me. I had already met with Pat Feahr, who, along with her sister Chris, is a newly licensed instructor in TFL; the Feahr sisters are the only such instructors in Minnesota. She explained the premise of this type of self-defense: a regimen of simple jabs, pinches, and kicks that, when aimed at some of the body’s most sensitive nerves, can disrupt an attacker’s central nervous system long enough for a victim to get away. The moves were created by Tom Patire, a lifelong professional bodyguard to the rich and famous. TFL is supposed to be easy to use and easy to remember, even when you’re under duress. Ironically, it’s also supposed to be easy on your attacker. This might seem a bit counterintuitive, but Professor Pat pointed out that most of us just aren’t violent people by nature. Therefore, the program surmises, we don’t really want to hurt people. TFL allows you to harm a person just enough to help yourself, but not so much that you’d have trouble sleeping at night. I’m not sure mainstream Minnesotans, now potentially wielding firearms on their persons, would agree that this is a concern. But the minimum-harm ethic is good for another reason: It will help you win that case when your attacker takes you to court for battery. Ridiculous, I know, but still potentially useful in our litigious, avaricious, and heat-packing society.

From the sound of it, the class was effective. It seemed like something my two younger sisters, both in college and therefore subject to the dangers of university campuses, should attend. We filed into the Feahr’s martial arts school, Mask Karate, and sat on folding chairs while Pat and Chris demonstrated some of the moves. Then practice began.

We started with “the horse bite,” an incredibly painful pinch and twist that you can use on an attacker’s underarm or inner thigh. If you use the technique on an aggressor who has hold of your arm, the intense pain is supposed to result in him or her instinctively releasing you. Pat described it as a tweak a grandmother might give, but I’m sure my grandmother couldn’t be that harsh. My sisters and I, though, grasped the concept quite easily, and we immediately dug our fingers into each others’ skin, with the varying outcome of yelps, squeals, “uncles,” and even a fall to the ground. We carried on through “the v-trigger” (a sharp jab to a nerve on your hand that immediately forces a person to release his grip); “the shin insertion” (a swift, straight-legged kick to a person’s shin that causes him to double over in pain); and “the dual facial points” (jabs into an attacker’s cheeks so deep and painful that you can “hold” the person and actually force him to the ground). The idea during this rehearsal was just to get a feel for where the nerves were, but what’s the point of learning a self-defense program if you haven’t learned to use it properly? Being the eldest sister, I confess I was the biggest bully of all. So much so that two hours and about eight new techniques later, my sisters cowered at my approach and forgave me only when I bought them each a Diet Cherry Coke. But for the record, I’ve got more than my share of bruises, too.—Katie Quirk

Tea is a crop we could grow in Minnesota, but the end product would be so foul that no one with working taste buds would go near it. The mountainous soils of Nepal, though, produce some damn fine chai, as they call it. Swadesh Shrestha and his brother Saujanya serve it at their Uptown Minneapolis shop, Himalayan Chai. The black, green, and ayurvedic teas are robust and flavorful. They are typically steeped loose, in the cup, and they are actually quite toothsome. You find yourself enjoying the sensation of leaves in your mouth—like steamed greens. The practiced customer will discreetly give the gums a whirl of the tongue before grinning in pleasure.

But there’s more in that cup than just edible dregs. Drinking at Himalayan Chai is an inherently political act. Here’s why: The tea shop is owned by Nepal Natural Tea Industry, a company that was started twenty-five years ago by the Shresthas’ father, Saumendra. Already a tea grower and exporter, and very well-to-do by Nepalese standards (he owned both the first truck and the first printing press in their hometown of Phidim), Saumendra decided he wanted to do something for the people of his native country. He enlisted a handful of families to launch a tea garden cooperative. Each family contributed some land and set to work cultivating the crop that grows so well at the village’s seven-thousand-foot elevation. Today, there are nearly two hundred families in the cooperative. Phidim now has a school and a bridge. Life is good.

The Shresthas tell me that everything that can be done by the cooperative is kept within the country. Instead of importing tea boxes from China or India, the Shresthas employ a Nepalese family to handcraft their unadorned but elegant boxes from recycled sawdust. The teas are grown organically. Cooperative members handpick the tea three times a year, and hand-deliver it to the processor in the valley. Large quantities of tea are exported to Germany, and smaller shipments go to Australia, Japan, and the United States. In Minneapolis, the Shrestha brothers are enthusiastically hoping to turn people on to chai. Swadesh went so far as to give away all tea drinks, no charge, during the first two weeks the shop was open.

Inside the tiny, marigold-colored shop at 713 W. Franklin Ave., there is the familiar hum and twang of Eastern music. The slight, 32-year-old Swadesh is eager to please and such a detail-oriented capitalist that it’s tempting to think this kindhearted cooperative is all a front. Maybe the brothers plan to take the money and run. Nope. Almost every business transaction conducted in the shop benefits the people of the tea cooperative. The profits from the brightly colored wool sweaters for sale go to a group of women living in stone huts on a Himalayan mountainside. Profits from tea sales go directly to the producers. Even the tips the Shresthas gather are sent home. The $100 collected each month is enough to send two more Nepalese children to school. This collision of good works with Western consumerism has been such a success that the Shrestha brothers are now opening a second shop, at 25th and Hennepin. —Katie Quirk

It was like a scene from a mobster film set in the Prohibition era. An overcast day on tired Minnehaha Avenue in South Minneapolis. I pulled up to the nondescript, red brick building that bears a sign reading “Tapestry Folkdance Center.” From the outside, it was quiet, barely a soul in sight. I figured the rendezvous was canceled for lack of interest. But on the other side of the glass door, swinging big-band tunes offered a friendly welcome, and a brief trip down a carpeted office corridor revealed a new old world whose residents are lindy hoppers. The whole thing was so seemingly undercover and speakeasyish, you’d think the president had outlawed dancing. (He hasn’t, has he?)

Disappointingly, there were no flapper gowns or cloche hats, this being a modern and altogether relaxed midday gathering, but there was lots of energy. These are the people who continued with swing dancing even after the initial (and subsequent retro) crazes had passed, and on this Saturday afternoon, the trend-bucking swingers were fantastic. And they should’ve been, given that it was the “Cats Corner Competition,” the annual contest to determine regional qualifiers who would go on to compete at the American Lindy Hop Championships in Connecticut in October. Despite that opportunity, and the cash prizes that come with it, the air lacked that certain tense hostility one expects at competitions. Instead, during the half-hour of open dancing prior to the beginning of the contest, the smooth wood floor was alive with smiling, laughing dancers, some there to perform, some there to watch, support, and take to the floor during breaks. Old and young, they were twisting, swinging, and spinning, most of them with a different partner every song.

The first competition was the fast dance, a two-minute improvised dance to music of the band’s choice. Seven couples each took a turn, adding their own individual flair to the performance. With the lindy, it’s all about feeling the music; although the moves themselves aren’t that hard to master (one female competitor had been swing dancing for only six months), you’re simply 23 skidoo if you don’t have rhythm. This wasn’t a routine the dancers performed; instead, they were actually dancing to the music, to each other, for themselves. And, the scene being rather small, most of the competitors knew each other and cheered the others on. Bizarre, wholesome, surreptitious fun.

Cindy Gardner sat down beside me after a dance during the second open-dance hour. She and her husband, Terry, teach lessons through their company, TC Swing, and were the organizers of the day’s events. Cindy has been teaching swing since 1979 and is revered in the community. She gazed around at the whirling, cheerful dancers, beads of sweat glistening along the bridge of her nose. “All this without drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes,” she noted. “Although Terry will have a cigar when we get home tonight.” True enough, but it was only 2:30 in the afternoon. There were still two competitive events to go, then prizes and a break before the evening’s dance, an event that happens on the first Saturday of each month and draws around 400 people of all lindy abilities. I didn’t mention to Cindy that I had heard several of the competitors outside discussing the most opportune time to hit the liquor store.—Katie Quirk

On a recent Wednesday evening, hundreds of overdressed teenage girls gathered outside Southdale’s MegaStar movie theater. Squeezed into their tightest jeans and tiniest tees, they hummed with excitement as they waited for Josh Hartnett, the movie star and Minnesota native, to arrive. Hartnett was making a rare appearance to raise money for a local charity called Cornerhouse, an agency that assists sexually-abused children. Crazed, er, loyal fans and self-respecting do-gooders alike had paid $35 for a sold-out sneak-premiere of his latest movie, Hollywood Homicide. It was 7 p.m. Some of the girls had been waiting for more than six hours.

We don’t get many premieres around these parts, so here’s the rundown: Hartnett was going to stroll through a traditional “red carpet” reception to say hey to the public and the press, introduce the film, and then sit down to watch it with his family. He doesn’t like Hollywood premieres, Hartnett told The Rake later, but this was different. This was for a good cause.

He was to arrive at 8. The swarm of girls continued to grow. A dozen girls killed time and burned off some pent-up steam by taping an exploitative promo for Channel 5, in which they claimed that, while they liked Josh, they loved Channel 5. Let us tell you: They were lying. When Hartnett, dressed down in a long-sleeved black shirt and casually scruffy jeans, climbed out of a black SUV and onto the red carpet (really), he was welcomed by pure, unadulterated, insane, mad lust. Cameras started snapping, flashes started blinding, and the crush of the crowd tightened. The sheer hormonal energy of the crowd, expended primarily through ear-splitting screeches and screams, was powerful enough to curb this state’s dependence on oil. Instead, we could be living on the love of teenage girls. We haven’t seen such convincing local evidence of this untapped resource since the Beatles played Met Stadium back in 1965.

The shy Hartnett took the adoring mob’s attention in calm if uncomfortable stride; the 25-year-old’s normally Chunnel-deep eyes did appear slightly more deer-in-headlights than previously suggested by the star’s magazine cover shots. (That was him on the cover of last month’s Teen People, you know.) Arms crossed over his broad chest, Harnett headed to the right side of the carpet, where reporters were roped off and kicking like bulls. He answered a few questions and then crossed to the left side, where he scribbled away his signature’s eBay value and presumably lost some of his hearing. Zigzagging his way down the line, he reached the theater door in 10 minutes. With a tight-lipped smile and a stiff-armed wave, he disappeared into the depths of the theater.

Brief as it was, the excitement of Hartnett’s appearance far surpassed that of the crowning of the state’s fattest sow at the State Fair, although it might be rivaled by the opening of the fourth lane on 494. (Commuters are really going to have to get their numbers up, though.) These girls, some bearing “I love Josh” across cheeks, chins, chests, and possibly elsewhere, were so high-energy that this Rake correspondent didn’t tell them the guy owns a home on Lake of the Isles and can be found drinking at The King and I nearly every weekend. —Katie Quirk

The next time you wake up at three in the morning, sweating and shaking and befuddled by what the appearance of Barbara Flanagan’s bustier in your dream could possibly symbolize, don’t just make yourself a glass of warm milk, roll over, and try to forget about it. Oh no—that’s what someone in Andrew Carnegie’s day would have done. We’ve come a long way in information gathering and reference services since the 1890s. Gone are the days of dusty card catalogs, dismal Dewey decimals, and pinch-lipped librarians who go home when the clock strikes five. (In fact, gone may be the days of an actual public library, to judge by recent developments in Minneapolis.) Enter “24/7,” a round-the-clock live chat room full of, well, unrestrained librarians. If you live in Hennepin County and possess a Hennepin County Library card, you are but three mouse-clicks away from a librarian’s magic touch.

24/7 is one of the most up-to-the-minute services a library can provide, explains Maureen Bell, references services manager for Hennepin County Library. People are out there researching and surfing the web at all hours of the day, and the library wants to be there with you, no matter what you’re looking for.

Over at the Minneapolis Public Library (uh, wherever that is right now), Nancy Corcoran helps run the MPL’s InfoLine, a telephone reference service available during library hours. She says it is not a 24-hour service per se, but you can leave a message on the machine anytime, and library staff get cracking on your behalf the next business day. If you can wait till morning, we still nominate InfoLine as the city’s most valuable resource.

What many Minnesotans in their stoicism fail to understand is that reference librarians relish a challenge. They love your questions, need your questions, depend for their jobs on your questions. And though (despite the rumor) there really is such a thing as a stupid question, it is often even stupider not to ask it.

The other day, I watched the standard crew of six answer the InfoLine phones, which never stopped ringing for very long. The librarians efficiently answered questions, quickly relaying the correct spelling of “seizure,” retrieving the number for the Ramsey County Medical Examiner, and researching the availability of a particular CD. They remained professional and thorough at all times. But they admitted that they do catalog some of the weird and wacky questions that come their way.

One staff member remembered the day a woman called from South Carolina. She was helping her daughter with a school report on Minnesota, and wanted to know simply “what ya’ll wear, up there.” Another woman, who said she was looking at a map of the United States, called to ask if Mexico was a state. The staff takes these calls seriously, and they work diligently to provide answers. But frankly not all of the 500-600 calls a day are answerable. It would take a virtually omniscient librarian, for example, to answer the woman who called with a technical question about her crockpot: Was the meat she had started simmering four days ago in fact horse meat? A reference librarian does not like to admit defeat, but hates even more to be wrong.—Katie Quirk

Diplomacy, to judge by recent efforts of our not-so-diplomatic commander in chief, is not an easy job. It requires holding your tongue and curbing your temper. First and foremost, however, it requires landing the job, which has always been tough and is just getting tougher. Despite current troubles, or perhaps because of them, interest in the U.S. Foreign Service is at its highest level ever. Last year a record 32,239 of your fellow Americans applied with the State Department or took its Foreign Service exam. Of all these would-be peacemakers, only 470 were offered jobs. Then again, it’s no stroll down the Champs-Elyseés. Every three to four years, foreign service employees must pull up stakes and move to a location of their government’s choosing, almost anywhere on the planet. Sure, it sounds great, but imagine this: One day you find yourself discussing the world economy, piña colada in hand, surrounded by beautiful people on the luscious beaches of Rio de Janeiro, and then poof! You’re languishing over Byerly’s lefse and agonizing about how to get Minneapolis housewives excited about Norwegian opera.

Of course, Norwegian Consul General Thor Johansen is diplomatic about his Minneapolis assignment. In fact, he insists he has found Minneapolis to be nicer than Rio, his previous post, in the year and a half he has served here.

Norway is one of two countries to maintain a consulate general, a mini-embassy of sorts, in Minneapolis. And while Johansen is not sure just how many Norwegian nationals reside in the eight states his consulate serves, the Norwegian government is not quite ready to close up shop, as was rumored two years ago. After all, here is the largest concentration in the world of people with Norwegian roots, Johansen points out.

There are limits to diplomacy, even as the Norwegians practice it. When we tried to weasel an invitation to Johansen’s tax-exempt, government-issue home, which is located on the western frontiers of Lake Minnetonka, and held in the name of the King of Norway, the consul general demurred.

Meanwhile, over at the Canadian Consulate, Consul General Christopher Thomson lends a shiny diplomatic glow to brochures on the “Smart Border Action Plan,” the United States-Canadian initiative on security along one of the largest borders in the world. Thomson’s previous assignments include the United Arab Emirates, the U.N. in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, and Beirut. Regardless of this impressive and exciting resume, he also has kind and diplomatic things to say about his assignment in Minneapolis. When he’s not tightening up on terrorists, Thomson promotes Canadian business in an eight-state region. The consul general from the True North insists that Americans are not hated nearly as much as we might fear. It’s not clear how much consolation he is offering.

Like Johansen, Thomson retires at the end of a busy day to his tax-exempt, government-issue home, a comfortable colonial on Cedar Lake in Minneapolis. His too is owned in the name of foreign royalty. Queen Elizabeth’s name appears on the title of one of the few homes with waterfront on a Minneapolis lake, a holdover from feudal times, no doubt. Consul General Thomson wishes to assure excitable readers that the Queen owns the home—and, for that matter, Canada—only in name. She is not likely to visit Minneapolis any time soon. Although Thomson would not invite us in, he assured us that there is a portrait of the Queen on prominent display for his private guests. “As an official Canadian residence,” Thomson said dryly, “it’s normal to do that sort of thing.”—Katie Quirk

Mark Backman is an infuriatingly calm 25-year-old whose life has direction, financial stability, and purpose. Yet he has no home, nor does he have any idea where he’s going to be next February. His line of work can be dangerous and frequently takes him to distant states and lands. He embarks on fascinating adventures and then maddeningly downplays them, even dismissing construction work in Antarctica as merely a job. When his interviewer detects enthusiasm toward any particular topic, a follow-up question quickly kills any potential lead. You can take the northern Minnesota boy out of northern Minnesota, but you’ll never get him to stop punctuating every sentence with “I guess” or the even vaguer “I s’pose.”

Backman, as he’ll tell you, is just a blue-collar guy. He dropped out of the University of Minnesota after a year, when the fix-it genes inherited on the paternal side insisted he was better suited to heavy work than head work. He enrolled in the College of Oceaneering in California and graduated at the top of his class with a degree in commercial diving, completed his apprenticeship in New Orleans, and dove everywhere else. He was almost killed when a mudslide buried him during a routine dredging of a riverboat casino in Missouri. He was nearly sucked down a drain in New Mexico, when the plug came out of a 3.5 million gallon underground reservoir he was helping repair. When his life flashes before his eyes, Backman does all he can to survive and then, misfortune averted, simply returns to work.

Mishaps aside, Backman likes underwater welding. Yet he despises politics of any kind, and underwater welders, who have a closely-knit association of just 5,000 members nationwide, can be as catty as an old ladies’ social club. So he retired. He moved into construction, and what better place to avoid the rat race and the bickering old crew than Antarctica?

What is it like building a science station on the polar cap during the southern hemisphere’s brutal winter? When the average daily temp is around 40 below, but can dip as low as 140 degrees below zero? Not so bad, Backman insists. A few extra layers is all anyone needs, and if the chill gets to be too much, the thought of the $2 drinks at the camp’s one-and-only local will keep a person moving. Until, that is, you find yourself falling into the ultimately unavoidable lethargy that encroaches when a person never sees the sun. When that happens, Backman says, all plans are abandoned. The predicted 15 pounds creep on. You dream of leaving and never returning. The mind erases the memories of the despised rat race and its incessant politics.

Until you return to them. Which is why Backman is seriously considering heading south to Antarctica for a second year. After that, it might be hard for him to ever go north again. “Veteran South Pole construction workers say you do the first year for the experience and the second year for the money,” he says, his green eyes showing a hint of the slow smile spreading across his face. “After that it’s because you don’t fit in anywhere else.” —Katie Quirk

Benjamin has been looking for Erin for about four months. He met her at a party in August, and she hit his car two weeks later. But it wasn’t like that. There were no damages. Rather, Ben had a crush on Erin.

The number he put into his cell phone never saved. He searched the phone’s memory again and again. Then he made some calls. But for all anyone knew, Erin was a figment of Ben’s imagination. There was no last name, no friend-of-a-friend connection. Nothing.

He took out an “I saw you” ad in a local paper and it ran the next week. “You hit my car in NE Mpls. You looked beautiful. Please call to discuss the ‘damages.’ My name is Benjamin.” It ran the week after that. And again the week after that. And again.

It’s January and Ben’s had no response. When the ad first ran, he checked his messages daily. He says he’s down to once a week now, and even then it’s a halfhearted effort. The hope is gone. “I don’t think anyone reads those things,” he says dismissively.

Ben is adamant about one thing: He’s not desperate. But, to be honest, it’s hard to meet attractive, interesting women when you’re a 28-year-old medical student. And even when you do meet one, well, there just aren’t any guarantees of lifelong (or even week-long) compatibility. Ben doesn’t know if it would be different with Erin. But in their fleeting, beer-infused moment in time, he perceived a spark in her brown-eyed self that Ben rarely sees in Minnesota ladies. There are just so few good ones available, he laments. And even if they are available, how do you meet them? Now she probably just remembers him as the guy who never called.

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. His friend ran into her last week, but he forgot to mention Ben, his interest, or his search. And then she was gone. Again.

According to the 2000 census, there are 82 million people living alone in the United States. Forty-eight million of those people have never been married; another 20 million are divorced, and some 13.6 million are widowed. The census has no way of measuring whether these people are happy about their swinging singlehood, but human nature being what it is, it’s probably safe to assume that most would prefer to be coupled. Or at least try. After all, thousands of people vow every day that theirs is a union that will be different. They thumb their noses at the divorce rate and tie the knot. But we all know the statistics. The Census Bureau notes that, on average, people between the ages of 15 and 85 spend more years unmarried than married. Divorce plays a big part in that stat. But you also have to consider the additional ten percent of people who will never marry at all.

Ask anyone in their late 20s or early 30s why they’re single, and they will probably tell you there’s simply no one attractive or interesting or datable left. With the exception of the single person you happen to be talking to, of course, all single people on the scene are weird, ugly, unemployed, or sleazy. But get them talking a bit more, and the truth comes out. Regardless of whatever else they might be, attractive young eligibles are all one other thing: completely, utterly unapproachable. Why? There are lots of reasons, mostly having to do with the limitations of the would-be approacher, not the approachee: because you haven’t actually approached anyone since college; because there’s no one to approach when you work in information technology/nursing/business; because there’s no one to approach when you spend your nights watching prime time. Because you can’t approach anyone when you’re shy, insecure, or out of practice; you can’t approach anyone when you have an overwhelming fear of rejection; you can’t approach anyone when you’re wallowing in singledom; you can’t approach anyone when you’re emitting from every pore the saccharine scent of your loneliness.

Which is why, on a cold December night, a hundred of those despicable singles gather on the mezzanine of William’s Pub in Uptown. These singles are mostly white, and mostly white-collar. They each shell out $40 to spend three hours of their busy schedules as Fast Daters. If you’re shy, busy, or genetically predisposed to the bizarre, Fast Dater is the up-and-coming way to meet your honey.

It sounded like something only a Wisconsin native could crave: a butterburger. As a strict vegetarian from Minneapolis going to college in Madison, I couldn’t imagine anything more disgusting. Yet Culver’s, the fast-food restaurant offering it, were everywhere. For years, I wondered what could possibly be good about a sandwich whose name was so suggestive of an inevitable angioplasty.

I was driving home from the lake recently, and there it was, right along I-94 just outside Albertville: a Culver’s. They’ve expanded their silly operation into Minnesota, I thought; no outer-ring suburb is safe. Traffic slowed and my thoughts came to a similar standstill. I found myself obsessing about butterburgers. A primitive curiosity stirred in my animal-brain: Could it, as the name implies, be a burger coated and fried in butter? Are we living in 1953? There was only one way to find out.

I enlisted a friend to act as a witness—and to drive, in case this experiment somehow went horribly wrong—and we headed for the nearest Culver’s. Twenty minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of a franchise in suburban Plymouth. There were butterflies in my stomach as we approached the door. Here, a G.I. tract that had not seen a hamburger in 12 years was about to do battle with a butterburger. I felt nauseated and tried to turn back, but no way. My carnivorous friend hadn’t driven this far for nothing. This was the moment in our friendship, begun in the early days of my allegiance to a vegetative idealism, that she had been waiting for. We pushed onward.

Inside, the bright lights drew our eyes to the menu, where the plain, unornamented butterburger ranked lowest on a list of doubles, triples, combos, and various other carnival variations. I stepped up and ordered a single deluxe meal. I received an empty soda cup and claim plate number 8.

Now for the moment of truth, which came with the modest price tag of $4.46: What is a butterburger? A hamburger patty cooked in butter? The teenage cashier looked at me sheepishly and explained. “They just butter the bun,” he said. “They’ll bring it out to you when it’s ready.”

I approached the soda machine in a state of mild shock. I pressed “here for ice,” and carefully blended Diet Pepsi with Wild Cherry Pepsi. I unwrapped a straw and paused a moment, deep in thought. Could I truly sacrifice both my stomach and my vegetarian ethics for a mere mortal of a burger—even if it came on a buttered bun? A burger precisely like any other that is mass-produced and mass-consumed all over the world every day? I pumped a splurt of ketchup into a paper cup and considered. We took a seat at one of the plastic booths lining the windows in the dining area. An employee, her blond ponytail spouting triumphantly above her blue visor, set down our trays.

The envelope of fries looked so light and carefree next to the object-in-question. The burger—my burger—was folded recklessly in a body bag of white paper. I flipped it over, stripped it of its wrapper, and peered suspiciously under the crown of the bun. It was indeed buttered. Animal-on-animal action. So I did what any other self-respecting Minnesotan should do: I bit into the butterburger.

And then something unexpected happened. The long-forgotten taste of ground beef invited a flood of hamburger-related memories: childhood birthday parties long flushed out in a sea of salad, family barbeques erased by the voodoo of tofu. It was as American as the Thanksgiving holiday when, almost a decade ago, I had eaten meat for the last time. But it was much better than the dry, overcooked turkey that had so thoroughly turned me off to meat. And I say the wondrous white bun will never be obsoleted by its multi-grained cousin. Not as long as it’s buttered, anyway.