Wow, this is happening! I can’t believe that this is where I find myself - writing about food in the upper Midwest! Here I am and I’m honestly so happy to be here. I am grateful that you have found yourself reading this first newsletter, and have trusted me with a few minutes on your Sunday evenings for - I guess the foreseeable future.
So how did we get here? Let me take you back! When I was a kiddo, I was an outdoor kid, finding solace and peace in nature, escaping in novels about other kids’ adventures while burrowed in a “fort” I made out of branches or perched in the branches of the big tree in our front yard. I was also crafty, always working on something, and in a bunch of activities that meant I was eating dinner in the car or in a random school hallway or teacher’s lounge between swim practice and community theater rehearsals. I didn’t especially like to cook, and eating was a way to get nourishment so I wasn’t hungry while trying to swim 3,000 yards or get a lighting cue or monologue just right.
As I grew into a teenager growing up in the 2000s, food and body size were intense topics that of course impacted me a ton. I held the value that food had essential nutrients to support my body in its athletic pursuits and movements required from an actor. But I didn’t enjoy eating per se, and I definitely didn’t enjoy cooking. When I wasn’t eating for a clear purpose (i.e. spaghetti dinners before a big swim meet), food was the avenue to hang out with friends since I didn’t really have people over to my house. My best friends in high school and I loved Applebees where we’d suck down unlimited lemonades over appetizers and boneless chicken wings - a tale as old as time for a suburban teen.
In college, I learned about food systems for the first time, and grappled with systemic issues related to growing and eating food that impacted me greatly. I’m so grateful to friends and professors who gave me so much information and asked questions to push my thinking and understanding. I didn’t have a kitchen of my own until my senior year, where I learned to cook some recipes with my roommates and friends. When I moved to New York City, I was teaching for the first time, going to grad school, dating, trying to hang out with friends as much as possible, all while exploring the wide world of food and nightlife NYC had to offer. We had a kitchen in my apartment I shared with two women I met on Craigslist, and I definitely used it, but my life was too chaotic to really dive into cooking. Plus, all the takeout options were so amazing and new for a Midwesterner, it wasn’t worth the labor of cooking to me at that time. I loved calling a restaurant to place an order for takeout - I felt like such an adult. I still love calling to place a takeout order because of how often I did it in New York. I am a millennial who’s not afraid of making a phone call - incredible, right?
Once I moved back to Minneapolis, I was able to sigh deeply, unbutton my pants (metaphorically), and ease into the second chapter of my adult life. New York City was so fast and required so much of me, I was relieved to be in a place that felt more familiar, although I had never lived in Minneapolis before. I was able to be with old friends, make new ones, teach in a classroom without the added pressure and workload of grad school at the end of a workday, and explore my new home. In that first year back in the Deep North, I cooked with my roommates most nights, ate at beloved staple restaurants, and took a pie class from a pastry chef. I felt so much more balanced, and free to enjoy the slower life I desired.
With the quiet stability in a familiar cold and hard place, I was able to tenderly and quickly fall in love with my husband who found me at just the right time during a polar vortex in January. Mike and I cooked together, realizing in real time how the preparation, eating, and cleaning up of dinner was an intimate experience, chock full of deeply held values, personal insecurities, and joy in the “mMMmMmMM!” of it all. It was such a fun and meaningful time. We still cook together with one of us being “head chef” and leading the recipe nearly every night.
Since 2014, I’ve also fallen in love with cooking. I learned that food doesn’t have to be bland to be nourishing, that there are different kinds of salt, and the science behind the Maillard reaction. I learned how to make food bursting with flavor and personality from Chrissy, how to throw together a cohesive dish that is balanced from Samin, how to make wholesome food grown locally from Brenda, and how to vary a basic recipe from Julia. I connected with my late grandmother in new ways as I poured over her recipe cards in her cursive handwriting, re-reading recipes I grew up with so I could make them just like she did to honor the woman who cared for me so deeply. Not only was cooking and food an expansion of self, but also a returning to self in a way I can’t quite describe.
There was a time when I was *really* into Instagram, like - took a course on how to brand yourself on Instagram. 🫣 I know, I know. BUT in my defense, I met a lot of my internet friends that I am still buds with to this day from that course, and it was a helpful way to dial in on what my values were based on the things I wanted to share on social media. It was then that I wanted to make my own hashtag (it was highly encouraged as part of the class to do this) to really set myself apart from other social media folks and #deepnortheats was born. If there’s a deep south, there has to be a deep north, and I don’t know a deeper north than a place that gets 50 inches of snow per year with an average high temperature of 24℉ (but has several days a year where the HIGH is below 0). #DeepNorthEats was able to encompass all the cooking I was doing, but also all the amazing restaurants we have here in the Twin Cities that so often get overlooked.
Coming from NYC, where there’s always something new and impressive happening in the restaurant scene, I found that that was also true here but no one pays attention to us Midwesterners. But we are worth paying attention to! We have a deep and rich food culture of skilled home cooks and professional chefs alike. There is a refinement in flavor and skilled technique to be learned from the tough people living in the prairies and woods, and on the banks of the lakes in the Deep North. This newsletter is a place to celebrate the food of this region, the meals that sustain me, and as a way for me to share my thoughts re: food, and I am so excited to share it with you!
Things I Like
A weekly roundup of stuff I like:
Succession, Shrinking, and Love Island UK are on my screens right now
Abby Benson on TikTok - wholesome and affirming content
Alison Roman’s Dilly Bean Stew
A casual yet refined sweater
Unscented lotion for my new tattoo (that I will use after because it’s kinda nice to not have a strong smelling lotion sometimes)
Sitting on the kitchen floor while my husband cooks - highly recommend
This mug
Thank you for being here. See you next Sunday night! May your week be gentle and may you eat well.