the fremont store

I was driving to my hometown for the July 4th weekend and decided to take a different route for part of it... some of it I had been on before, but only a few times, and some I hadn't done at all. I had my camera with, so took some pictures along the way.

In a little town called Fremont, there's an small town grocery / convenience store. The sign says it's been open for 157 years. Wow.

I've been by here before and wanted to take pictures because they have really cool old-school signs on the building (see coca cola sign above and 7 up sign below)... I think they've been there for 157 years too, and I love it. But, I had never stopped. When I did today, they were open - so I went in to ask if it was OK if I was creepy and took pictures of the building. Inside, there were 3 older (but spry) women sitting around chatting... and that was all. I grabbed a soda and approached them...

Me: How much?

Lady: Just the pop? 50 cents.

Me: OK, here you go. (pulls 50 cents out)

Lady: Oh, you just put the money in the register yourself.

Me: Really?

Lady: Yep - it's over there on the other side of the table.

Me: (walks around table and looks) Where?

Lady: There's a box under the table.

Me: Oh, there it is! (opens register and puts my own money in)

These ladies were adorable and we chatted for a bit about where I was from, why I wanted to take pictures, and the lady in charge's niece with all the tattoos that lives in the nearby town my brother lives in. On my way out, she asked me to sign her guest book (a regular notebook) at the front of the store - so I did. So cute.

I'm glad I took the time to stop... and I'm glad I went in to ask if I could take pictures (instead of creeping around outside) so I could talk to those ladies briefly. I wish I would've asked the ladies if I could take their picture... So, next time you see something you've thought about stopping to look closer - don't just drive by. Stop for a few minutes. You might be pleasantly surprised!

so far, so good!

I'm on my first real vacation of 2013! A friend flew in from out of town and we drive from the Twin Cities to Grand Marais. And, you may wonder why, if I'm supposed to be relaxing on vacation, am I sitting here on the internet writing? Well, because we're staying at a B&B and breakfast won't be served for T-29 minutes and I'm trying to distract myself because I'm very hungry after not having real dinner last night.

And why did we not have real dinner last night? Probably because we had burgers in the middle of the afternoon on the way here at the Duluth Grill, which has been featured on Diner's, Drive-Ins, and Dives. The burgers were quite tasty (friend had a bison burger, I had an asian peanut burger with an egg on top), but the homemade onion rings were outstanding. I like that this restaurant is into locally grown foods.

The clear favorite part about the Duluth Grill, for me anyway, was the Banana Cream Pie, which was featured on the DDD show specifically. I don't really need to say much here - just look at the picture.

Yup.

We were also told about a place called Betty's Pies that we just HAD to stop at. Because I'm terrible with judging distance, I assumed it was about half way between Duluth and Grand Marais, so we'd have some time to settle after the Banana Cream gloriousness (is that a word?). But no. About 45 minutes later, we were sitting at the counter of Betty's Pies having this:

I'm a little embarrassed about it, but we're on vacation - and I can't remember the last time I had a 2-pie day. We had a blueberry (which we were a bit indifferent about) and the Great Lakes pie (apple, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, and rhubarb, topped with oatmeal crumble yum). The Great Lakes pie was a big win.

And that, my friends, is why we didn't have dinner last night. On the bright side, we are now only T-15 minutes until breakfast, and I'll leave you with a couple of view pics from our B&B.

View from the deck around 5:15 a.m.

View from the deck - a little after 7 a.m.

a happy accident

In my last post, I mentioned it's grilling season! Turns out I was wrong. It's winter again.

And, because I prefer denial, I'm posting about the other grilling we did last weekend. In the spirit of full disclosure, I made the glaze and only purchased the salmon. The rest of was my brother and his girlfriend's doing - including the grilling part - so this post is really about the glaze since that's the only part I really did.

I knew that they were making mango salsa to go with the salmon, so I wanted to find something that I thought would go really well with that. On the Food Network website, I found a recipe for a Brown Sugar Mustard glaze - a Bobby Flay recipe and the reviews were awesome, so it had to be delicious.

So, I set to making the recipe and did it all like the recipe said - except I forgot to add the dijon mustard before I left the house. On the bright side, it smelled awesome without the mustard - and kind of like what you would dip potstickers in. So, we went ahead and used it on the salmon and it was really tasty and went great with the mango salsa they had made (and the grilled veggies and the risotto)!

There are two happy parts to this accident:

1. I think I found my new favorite glaze/sauce for lots of things. I'm going to try it with potstickers and burgers and whatever else it might be delicious on.
2. I don't have to look up a salmon glaze next time we make it - because I can redo this one, but make it actually according to the directions, the way Bobby Flay intended. 

 It was a good, and delicious, weekend. :)