Category: Blog Post

My husband, older son, and I spent the weekend in Duluth, helping friends get their new Canal Park restaurant ready to open later this month. After a day of schlepping waffle irons, shelving, and cookware from a third-floor storage space to the kitchen, using a hundred-year-old elevator whose gates you had to close with a strap, we headed to dinner — filthy, exhausted, ready to relax.

I won’t say where we went. But it was one of those bustling tourist meccas on the North Shore. I ordered a glass of Zinfandel, my husband did the same, our friend Cynthia ordered a Cabernet Sauvignon, and then my son piped up and said, “That sounds good. I believe I’ll have a glass of Cabernet, as well.”

Now, here’s what you should know about my son. He stands six-foot-three-and-a-half and has a full beard and a weary expression and a way of speaking that makes him sound as if he once wrote speeches for Winston Churchill. He’s also 19. . . .and autistic. So the arbitrary rules of society — like, for instance, you can be shipped off to fight in a senseless war at 18, but you can’t legally buy alcohol until you’re 21 — are lost on him.

I expected our server to ask for his ID, so I moved toward my son in order to explain and save him the embarrassment he might feel. But before I could say a thing, our server said, “Thanks! I’ll go get your drinks and be right back for your order.” And off she went. . . .

Later, after he’d drunk his glass of wine (which we felt conflicted about, but allowed rather than making a scene), we pulled our son aside and told him it is illegal for a restaurant to serve him alcohol. The woman who waited on us could have been fired, and the restaurant could have lost its liquor license. [His response: “Oh, is that so? How odd.”] I did not alert the manager, for fear of getting the poor, frazzled server in trouble.

But I’m warning them now, along with all the other packed, lakeside, summer-season restaurants in town. Have a talk with your staff. Tell them to card even those who appear to be of age. It’s the law — whether or not we agree. And the consequences of ignoring it can be pretty deadly for a hard-working restaurateur.

It was the event of a lifetime for the few locals who got the invitation (Kristin Tillotson, Melodie Bahan, Alison McGhee … ) Now, for the unfashionable Minneapolitans who didn’t attend former Stribber John Habich’s wedding: Here’s a link to the NYTimes’ lowdown on the affair.

A couple note: The slide show is not to be missed.
The couple’s wedding site will eventually have video from the wedding.

(Pic or two tommorow. Stay groovy.)

The letter “M” is indelibly etched into the automotive zeitgeist. I realize you do not need someone like me to hyperlink the word zeitgeist or pummel you with such a pretentious first sentence.

Pretense, on the other hand, may keep you from driving the Mercedes Benz R Class. You would probably rather been seen in the stronger variants of this letter, like the M-Series BMWs or the “M” for Maserati I just wrote about.

Yes, the letter “m” means a great deal applied to a BMW or as the first letter of an fabled Italian marque. The air gets heavier when this letter is applied to another vehicle. You know its name. It lurks like a dark spirit within the zeitgeist of youth.

This M-word is “minivan.” For some, the word is more explosive than an f-bomb. To many the Minivan means the end of youth and beginning of that indentured status known as parenthood.

But it doesn’t have to be.

You, Road Rake or Rakette (you’ll meet a few soon on this blog) don’t have be anyone but yourself. In fact, as you’ll notice once I get the pictures up, the blue R-class Mercedes and the blue Maserati almost look similar from certain angles (with a little squinting). Its a car with numerous sides, not just one (kinda like you.)

What’s more this R-class Mercedes has even more in common with the Maserati than shared angles. Drive either vehicle and people will stare. People stare at the Maserati because it is the most beautiful sedan in Minneapolis. People stare at the Mercedes because it is unique. While it is not a touring wagon or whatever the press release says, it is the movie star of Minivans. (You don’t really need to link to that film bug site for movie stars, just skip it and get to the real deal here.)

I’ll say that again. The Mercedes R-Class is the movie star of minivans in a Jeremy Piven with kids kinda way.

Yet while Mr. Piven is too cool to upstage others, the R-Class Mercedes will do that to pretty much any truck or van based vehicle on the road. To wit:

1) The Mercedes R-class is one of the only vehicles on the market with a seven speed manu-matic transmission (BMW has only six and Lexus has eight but none in a vehicle with this much interior space.) That means you can shift it almost like the Maserati and surprise the family schaunzer.

2) The Mercedes R-class features more interior space than any other vehicle save a small commercial truck–which is what all large and oversized SUVs really are, albeit with a bit more “kit” as the Brits say.

3) The Mercedes R-class is quieter than your Grandmothers living room in Highland Park, making it the world’s only pied-a-terre capable of moving at 150 MPH.

The list goes on but I’ll stop for now. Because you, my friends, have to ask yourself whether you are ready to be pioneers. Oops, make that “early adapters” as I happen to know a female dentist in Edina who is married to a highly successful house builder that drives her 350 R proudly around this pretentious (at times) town.

Then if you decide you are ready to be different stop by and get acquainted with this vehicle at Sears Automotive in Plymouth, if for no other reason than to experience how a lot filled with the most expensive cars in the world is utterly lacking in pretense. In fact, I hear the guy who runs it is a business man with close roots to the farm. Yes, that is farm as in “F”.

Perhaps we should all now channel Ferrucio Lamborghini on what the farm means to the world’s finest marques. The guy made his fortune in tractors long before he penned a single car.

Disclaimer: Just so you know that I am not in the dealers pay, however, I will tell you that I wish the doors shut with a more authoritative “thunk” like the Mercedes of old. Sadly no minivan on the market offers that kind of sound including the Honda and Toyota which I have also driven. I also wish the V6 drove more like the 400 HP Maserati but then I am probably not being entirely fair. I also realize that Mercdes makes an 502 HP AMG variant of this vehicle for people like me (and I want one badly.)

I usually avoid pre-opening parties and opening night events, but last night I stumbled into one by accident. Riding down Bryant Ave.in south Minneapolis, I saw that the Opening Soon facade had been torn away from the former Caribou Coffee storefront at 815 W. 50th, so I parked my bike and entered. The host informed me that the Blackbird Cafe wasn’t really open yet – the crowd that filled the dining room and bar was invited guests for a trial run tasting dinner. The cafe would officially open to the public tomorrow – i.e., today, Saturday.
But then he thought for a moment and said that I would be welcome to stay, and order anything from the menu at half-price, provided I was willing to be a guinea pig – I could sit at the bar and give the bartenders a chance to practice food service.
Oink.
The menu offers a bit of everything: cold tidbits of spring rolls, shrimp cocktail, or duck rillettes with blue cheese and fig chutney,
hot starters ranging from curried lamb meatballs to green beans in black bean sauce, plus soups and salads. The entree list ($10.95-$19.95) ranges from polenta topped with ratatouille and griddled trout with preserved lemon, to paprika roast chicken with sherry gravy, and London broil with bearnaise sauce and fries.
The sandwich menu is equally eclectic – everything from egg salad, and a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich to a Southwestern black bean burger.
So far, I am quite impressed – the lamb meatballs in curry sauce were big and juicy and full of lamb flavor, and the crisp, thin crust pizza topped with pecans, cherries, sweet onion and three cheeses, was a combination that sounded odd but worked very well. Only the knife-and fork Caesar – (half a head of romaine with dressing on top) was a disappointment – the dressing gets distributed more evenly when you make a Caesar the old-fashioned way. And besides, they forgot the anchovies I requested.
Everybody was in high spirits, with lots of friends of owners Chris Stevens and Gail Mollner (corrected) wishing them well. I think it’s going to be a fun place. They’ll open for breakfast and lunch within the next week or two.
I forgot to steal a wine list, so I can’t give you the details, but the selection of wines by the bottle or glass is interesting and affordable. Only one beer is available on tap – Bell’s Oberon, but the short list of bottles includes some interesting oddities, like Hitachino Nest Ale from Japan.
815 W. 50th St., Minneapolis,.