The poor suckers who arrived late didn’t get much of a chance to eat pretzel bites (from the Kitchn, using a pretzel recipe from Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Martha Stewart. That’s a lot of genealogy for some pretzels). These were amazingly easy to make (make dough. Let it rise. Roll out and cut into bite size pieces. Boil. Bake.) and super delicious with the Sierra Nevada Stout and Stoneground mustard we happened to have handy. They also disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The fashionably late also had a pretty limited shot at the gougères I made, relying in large part on the recipe from David Leibovitz. Mmm… gougères. A word that is probably not etymologically related to “gorge,” even if that is what the word makes me think of.

My primary cheese for this recipe was Roth Käse’s Gruyere, which I learned about when I wanted to make Delicata Squash and Gruyere Dip (from the Kitchn). I went to Seward Coop, and asked at the cheese counter where I could find Gruyere, since they have a LOT of cheese available. They pointed me in the right direction and said “we also have this really good Gruyere from Wisconsin.” To which I replied, “sold.”

Again, I was surprised at how easily this recipe came together. I was very proud of myself and felt like a real baker because I actually used the kitchen scale to measure things out. Then I felt dumb because I had to look up how much 50 ml of water weighs. The answer to which made me remember my science history, and the fact that the kilogram was originally defined as the mass of one liter of water at its melting point. And it still works out close enough for cooking and even baking, that a milliliter of water weighs 1 gram at room temperature.

In today’s fun fact, according to the US CIA World Factbook in 2006, the Metric System is the official system of measurement for all nations except for Burma, Liberia, and the United States. I know it would hurt to convert to the metric system, and my brain would probably never fully adjust, but man, it just seems silly and contrarian to not get on board with rest of the world on this one.

Anyway, the gougères? Delicious.

Also delicious and popular? Bacon-wrapped potato bites from the Kitchn. Self-explanatory AND tasty.

Last but not least, in an effort to incorporate some healthful things that non-meat and non-dairy eaters could enjoy, I made a ridiculous quantity of Giada De Laurentiis’s Spinach and Cannellini Bean Dip, except I used Mayacoba beans from Rancho Gordo and some hummus, using the basic recipe from Simply Recipes. I later learned that spinach and white bean dip is super good mixed up quasi-frittata style with some eggs, cheese, and turkey.

And now I am already thinking of recipes I want to make next time people come over. Monica Bhide’s Chile Pea Puffs Recipe (via 101 Cookbooks) looks pretty appealing. And I could see going with another variation on the gougères, such as the Pink Peppercorn and Parmesan Gougères from the Kitchn.

Ah, Al’s. It’s the Minneapolis classic I’ve been hearing about for a decade, without actually hearing much information: It’s narrow. It’s dinery. The people love it. All of the people.

It’s all true. Here’s something else that’s true – Al’s knows their carbs. Every carb-based food item we tried when we visited on Good Friday was awesome. Blueberry pancakes? Awesome. Waffle? Awesome (or at least that’s what Ian said, and I don’t think he’d lie about waffles). Hashbrowns? Extra awesome (crispy crust, appropriate level of grease). Okay, the toast was just regular supermarket bread, but it doesn’t really count. You think I’m there for the toast? You are mistaken.

You know what else was awesome? The bacon. Bacon is hard to mess up, because it’s bacon, and therefore intrinsically awesome, but this was really good bacon. The eggs I had were just fine; they were diner eggs. They just paled in comparison to the hash browns and bacon.

What about the narrow? What about the waiting? All true. Al’s has fourteen seats, all at the counter. That means there are about fourteen standing spots right behind those fourteen seats. And every time someone arrives or leaves, there’s a complicated choreography of making room for movement related to entering or leaving.

But while we waited, I had no choice but to watch the cook make pancakes (mmm… pancakes) and hashbrowns (double mmm… hashbrowns) while eavesdropping on all the people in line in front of me and dining at the counter. So, while I was sad at first about waiting, I realized that the wait is the best part.

Because when do you get to watch the operation run like clockwork (what choice do you have? There are fourteen seats!) Our wait and our meal took approximately one hour, since the hour we had on the parking meter had expired, but we had not yet received a ticket despite the vigilance/near-psychic ticketing powers of the Dinkeytown meter maids. They must completely turn over the seats 3+ times an hour.

Where else can I hear conversations where it sounds like the people are talking about drugs, but really they are talking about Aveda products? Or about the fart-producing abilities of various Surly brews (one Al’s patron reports that the Cynic is way more potent than the Bender. Now you know)?

Where else can you hear conversations like:
Waitress: Do you want coffee?
Sorority-looking Girl: No.
W: Can I get you something else?
SG: Juice.
W: What KIND?

And the hashbrowns. Mmm… hashbrowns. Also, they are super quick with the coffee, and it’s the right temperature to guzzle pretty much right away. They’ve thought of everything.