3 Great Twin Cities Restaurants

by Elizabeth Seward on

I spent some time in Minneapolis and St. Paul back in December 2011. It was deafeningly cold. The tentacles of the frosty wind were long and thin, the kind that can fit into any permitting small space, including ear canals. More than anything, I remember my eardrums feeling as though they were bleeding from the shock. I was staying with some relatives in an apartment building that didn’t have its own yard, so I had to put my boots and thick coat on several times a day to walk my dog. It hurt; I could feel it in my bones. During times like these, our bodies crave warmth and sustenance. So I spent time eating. Three of the restaurants I visited in the Twin Cities are worth sharing.

%Gallery-161130%The Happy Gnome

Located in Cathedral Hill, this New American Gastropub seems to do everything right. I’m fond of Belgian beers and their beer list sent me sailing through alcohol-heavy, tasty options. The veggie sandwich I ordered was incredible and not at all the obligatory “Please The Vegetarians Before They Cause A Stink” type of sandwich. The decor was beautiful and the service was good. The only complaint I had – that it was really cold – doesn’t even resonate with me as entirely valid since it was December and Minnesota.

Broder’s Pasta Bar

After reading rave reviews online, I indulged my husband’s Italian birthday dinner wishes and took him to Broder’s. A short wait later, we were seated at the bar, the one that’s referenced in the name of the restaurant. Our waitress was extremely friendly despite crowd (the place was packed on a Wednesday night). Upside down colanders hung as lampshades overhead. Our varied breadbasket was refilled several times. Our wine was savory and our food followed suit.

112 Eatery

Exposed brick. Wood floors. Dim lighting. A playlist that sounded like it had been exported from my personal iTunes. I stopped into 112 for dessert only, but I wish I’d tried the entrees, too. But as for their use of sugar, they did it well. We got the Tres Leches Cake and the Triple Chocolate Cake with graham cracker ice cream. It was so good that we went back the next day before we left town to get a gift card for the relatives who were hosting us so that they could dine in full and allow us to, in effect, try our hand at tasting the menu vicariously.

Daunting as the Twin Cities may be during the starkest winter months, there’s solace to be found in the heated indoor restaurants and bars sprinkled throughout the city.

Sky Rock: Morgantown, West Virginia

by Elizabeth Seward on

Sky Rock. It sounds like what it is: a Native American name given to a large, protruding rock that is stacked high into the sky. I had heard about Sky Rock in passing when I went to visit my family in West Virginia. I had passed the road that led up to the rock several times and yet never lifted my turn signal to make that left. But my last trip to West Virginia was different. My father had just been hospitalized again and the outlook seemed bleaker than ever before. My husband and two dogs joined me in my van and we drove 30 hours from Austin, Texas, to Morgantown, West Virginia. My father has been struggling with his health for years now, but my trips home prior to this one broached the subject more gently. I would ask to cook dinner for the family, but never really insist. By the same token, I would ask my father to join me for walks or hikes, but always leave the request open-ended and optional. This trip was different.

%Gallery-161128%I first saw my father and mother in the hospital room, with the hospital’s lead cardiologist hovering over my father’s bed, explaining his prognosis with as much sensitivity as he could. I was exhausted from the drive and hardly able to combat the dizziness that accompanies this specific sort of stress. When the doctor left the room, I spoke firmly and with authority to my own parents.

“I’m in charge while I’m here. I’ll be cooking every meal. No questions asked. I didn’t drive 30 hours for questions.”

Once he was discharged from the hospital, I went to the grocery store and stocked up on the kind of food we simply never had around growing up: fresh produce. I prepared every meal with pleasure, relishing in the lack of resistance I faced in doing so. On my second day there, just one day after my father had been released from the hospital, I decided to finally visit Sky Rock for sunset.

“You guys should come,” I announced, unsure on whether or not my father was actually in any condition to walk along anything other than a straight and smooth path.

My parents surprised me when they agreed. We led our two dogs and their two pugs, into the car and went on our way. We parked the car at the bottom of the Sky Rock hill, known also as Dorsey’s Knob. A beautiful wall outfitted with mosaic art was the first thing we saw to our left. To our right rolled a steep drop leading to a pond surrounded by lush Appalachian greenery. We began the journey up the hill. My mother was nervous at first and instructed us to continue up the hill without them; she said my father’s heart couldn’t take the stress. He, however, was feeling restless after having spent a week in the hospital and he insisted on following us up the hill. As a friend recently pointed out to me, I might have inherited my streak of perseverance from him.

Once at the top of the graffiti-clad boulder, we lounged alongside our joyful dogs and consumed the expansive beauty of the colorful West Virginia sky at sunset. The West Virginia sky smears pastel-like colors across its canvas on every clear night. This is one of the things I love about West Virginia – the fact that the glowing sky at sunset is inspiration enough for a man like my father to climb the path to Sky Rock just one day after his release from the hospital.

Red Bud Isle: Austin, Texas

by Elizabeth Seward on

Within my first week of owning my dog in Austin, several people had recommended that I take her to Red Bud Isle. It sounded far away, being an isle and all. It wasn’t until a few months later that I finally researched the place and began to understand what it is in full: a half-mile long island in the middle of the Colorado River (Lady Bird Lake) intended for and used primarily by dogs and their owners. The parking lot sits adjacent to a field, which is surrounded by thick woods on every side, split only slightly by the dirt path that encircles the island. Much smaller paths dart off through the trees and toward the surrounding water, providing a dozen or so beaches and swimming holes that are dog friendly. These pools are, no doubt, my dog’s favorite part of Red Bud. But my favorite part is the scenery.

%Gallery-161016%Densely wooded areas are something I’ve been missing since moving to Texas. Impressively steep and lush hills are another thing I’ve been missing since moving to Texas. Red Bud offers me both of these. Dramatic cliffs outline the shores across the water. If you look hard enough, you’ll see hidden stairs leading to the water from the peaks of the hills. If you look even harder than that, you’ll see elaborate mansions dotting the hazy hilltop horizons. Meanwhile, green and waxy tropical leaves brush your shoulders as you wade into the water, in which you’re apparently not supposed to wade (but since many other people are swimming, it seems alright). The image is that of blue-green water lapping in softly beneath umbrella-spread trees that shade you from the oppressive sun. Some of the waters hug dirt beaches; some of the waters splash on cement stairs. At the tip of the island, on the opposite side of the parking lot, the waters crawl between stiff, exposed and braided roots of trees.

Dogs are allowed to be off-leash at Red Bud. As you trek the island’s perimeter and interior, you’ll find yourself approached by dogs of all colors and sizes. In my experience, these dogs tend to be well behaved. Perhaps this is indicative of the kinds of owners that take the time to visit Red Bud in the first place. Ebullient and prancing, these dogs are having their best day ever when at Red Bud. The proof is in their tongue-dropping, wide-mouth smiles. And there’s something infectious about dog happiness if you ask me. Dogs are these loving creatures created, more or less, by us. We bred them for sport and help, but also for love, and here they are now, needing us for food, water, shelter and play. When their basic needs are met, especially that last one, they are a testament to the fact that we too don’t need much to live. We don’t need much to be happy, either.

I Found My Silver Lining At Grayton Beach State Park

by Elizabeth Seward on

My husband and I were wandering down the East Coast with our two dogs. We had just made an unplanned visit to West Virginia to be with my family during a medical emergency and, as a silver lining to the sudden and stressful trip, we figured we’d meander down the Atlantic and across the Gulf on our way back to Texas rather than traverse the highways we already knew so well; the ones that run through Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas. We didn’t have much of a plan, but we had a bed in our van and a small list of dog-friendly beaches we’d be passing through.

%Gallery-160758%But by the time we reached Jacksonville, we were over it. One dog had already climbed up onto, and proceeded to puke off of, the lofted bed and onto everything we had with us in the van, causing us to pull over in a random rural driveway in Maryland. We cleaned out the car as best we could with bottled water. We drove to D.C. in search of a 24-hour laundromat and we ordered Chinese takeout as we waited for the laundry to finish. The smallest bill I had was a 20, and with no attendant in sight to give me smaller bills, I walked away with $20 in quarters. In Virginia, I woke up to the smell of reeking Chinese food in the parking lot of my gym with a tow truck parked beside me that didn’t pull away until I entered the gym. Once I was in the gym, a cop came and talked to my husband after a call had been placed reporting that I had left my dogs in the vehicle unattended. I hadn’t. We arrived to a park we’d been hoping to camp at in Wilmington only to find out there wasn’t any vacancy. We stopped at the Highway 21 drive-in movie theater in Beaufort, South Carolina, and woke up to a flashlight in our faces at 2 a.m. and a voice asking us to leave. Everyone else had cleared the field and in our exhaustion, we didn’t even see the movie we’d come to see. The iPhone had gotten us lost more than once and if that wasn’t bad enough, we got into an accident in Savannah. The car endured a few thousand dollars of damage, but it was still drivable. No one was injured and everyone involved was polite, especially the officers, so we went on our way to Jacksonville. And we were beat. We made our way over to the park we’d been looking forward to, but we were 10 minutes late and they wouldn’t let us stay. The men working directed us to another park and when we finally arrived there, we found out it was a community playground, not a place to camp.

To hell with the romantic detour, we decided that night. We agreed to leave town early and just drive straight to Austin. Still, I noticed Grayton Beach State Park on the map as we drove through the panhandle. We got there in time for sunset and although we only spent 20 hours there, that park was our silver lining. The dogs weren’t allowed on the beach, so we had to spend our beach time separate. I went first, inhaling more deeply than usual during yoga postures. With my feet rooted in the wet sand and the sun setting to my right, I felt as though, for the first time in two weeks, I could breathe. With each crashing wave that was lapped back up by the ocean, my muscles loosened. My head fell to the ground before me and, just like that, I let it all go.

We got delicious takeout that night from a little Italian place near the beach called Borago. We drank big pours of wine and whiskey at the bar while we waited for the food. We took the boxes back to our campsite and with the headlights turned on and shining toward us, we dined at 10:30 p.m. at the picnic table.

We continued west in the morning. We stopped at the KOA Baton Rouge on our last night of the trip. A woman in an especially sour mood greeted us. She scoffed at us for having a bed in our car and seemed intent on not letting us stay at all until a colleague of hers shooed her away and took over. He told me about his plans to drive straight down to Panama soon. He used to live there and is eager to return. Were it not for the reprieve we found in Grayton Beach State Park, the kind of “hospitality” the KOA woman showed us would have, I am guessing, broken my last nerve. But that 20-hour vacation is just what we needed. It was enough to redeem the two weeks that preceded it. It was enough to keep me focused on the drive to Panama this man would soon be making.

A Challenge: Learn All Of The Countries In The World

by Elizabeth Seward on

While in DC a couple of weeks ago with fellow Gadling writers, a few of us hopped into a taxi on our way to dinner. Our driver was an African man from a country he kept under wraps. He told us that if we wanted to find out which country he was from, we’d have to earn our way to the answer through his impromptu trivia. And so we tried to answer his questions.

“You have to exercise your anthropological and geographical versatility to comprehend my country of originality,” he teased us.

“I can guess the continent,” one of our writers chimed.

“Oh yes, guessability, no problem, Madam,” he cooed.

“West Africa?” she guessed.

“Well,” he drew out the word for a few seconds. “I will formally agree but I will formally disagree with you. I am an individual of complexity. You want a clue?”

“Yes,” we all answered in unison.

“OK. I am going to give you a complex geographical clue. Let me see. Name me 11 countries in the world that have four letters,” he began.And so we began: Oman, Iraq, Iran, Peru, Togo, Mali, Fiji, Chad, Laos, Cuba and Guam. Our geography scavenger hunt continued, question after question, until we arrived at our destination. The driver moved to DC from Sierra Leone.

After exiting the taxi in DC, I couldn’t get the ride and the driver’s questions out of my mind. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t definitively pinpoint Sierra Leone on a map. I found this to be both humiliating and humbling.

It’s been a loose lifetime goal of mine to learn geography as thoroughly as I can. To scratch the surface, my first geography goal is to learn the names of all of the countries in the world. This may sound ambitious, but it shouldn’t be considered a far-fetched goal for a writer who regularly writes about travel. I decided to finally begin learning geography the way I’ve always intended to learn it this past weekend. A houseguest showed me Sporcle, a website filled with quizzes, interactive games, trivia and other knowledge-based, time-wasting activities. When I saw “geography” listed as a section on the site, I knew I had found my resource for learning the world’s countries.

After spending an hour on the site, I knew all of the countries in Africa. I went back again the next morning to make sure I’d retained the information and I had. I’m now moving on to the rest of the continents. Never again will I lazily accept my fate as an American who hasn’t bothered to learn the names of the nooks and crannies throughout our world. Why should I think it enough to know the names of only 70 percent of the countries in the world? Why shouldn’t I know them all?

For a long time, I didn’t think it was incredibly relevant – not relevant enough to bother learning, at least. But I knew, like many do, the names of a hearty chunk of countries. These are the countries that come up in conversation, news and friends’ vacations. Moving forward, I am challenging myself and readers alike to learn the names of all of the countries in the world, at the very least. From there, let’s learn about the countries and their respective cultures in depth and begin travel planning, but first, let’s learn the names.

**Update 05.27.2012: I did it!**