27 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Lesson 5 in How To Talk Minnesotan...A Visitor's Guide covers eating out in Minnesota. Please! This is so painful! I'm on a diet. Oh well....I'll proceed with the highlights.

Minnesota Spices

The three workhorses of Minnesota cooking are salt, pepper, and ketchup. If the ketchup bottle is not already on your table, the waitress will bring it automatically. The last customer probably used it all. We use ketchup like it was water.

When Chinese restaurants began to open in Minnesota, one of the first obvious changes the owners had to make was to remove the soy sauce from the table (Minnesotans kept mistaking it for coffee) and replace it with ketchup.
But what kept Minnesotans away from Chinese restaurants more than anything else was the fortune cookies--the fortunes left customers with a bad taste in their mouth. So the restaurants that now offer Fragrant Hotdish and Mandarin Jell-O on the menu, due to public demand, now serve Minnesota-style fortune cookies. Here are the ones I have collected from friends.

~You will change the oil in your car every 2000 miles.

~There could be thunderstorms tomorrow.

~You will run out of 2 percent milk.

~A stranger will knock on your door and try to sell you insurance.

~The tops on your new shoes are not real leather.

~People around you think you are okay, mostly.

~They will put in bottled water at work.

~Your Olds 88 has a burnt exhaust valve on the #2 cylinder.

~Romance will enter your life unless you're careful.

~The smell in your root cellar is a dead gopher.

~Your subscription to USA Today is about to expire.

~The big shade Elm in your front yard has had it.

I would like to add that unless Chow Mein or Chop Suey is on the menu of any Chinese restaurant that we go to, my mother-in-law becomes confused and has no idea what to order. I would also like to say that when visiting Wisconsin, all restaurants, no matter if they are Italian, Chinese, French, or Mexican, I repeat ALL RESTAURANTS, offer all-you-can-eat Wing Dings on Wednesdays, and all-you-can-eat fish on Fridays, if they want to remain in business. That's just the way it goes.