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By Carla Waldemar
If you’re French Canadian, there’s a single word that will cause the heart to flutter, pulse to race, and eyes get misty. No, it isn’t “amour,” it’s “poutine.” (Well, one and the same, some would say.)
In Montreal and Quebec City, poutine receives the veneration usually reserved for holy relics. I even encountered poutine in Anglo-centric Winnipeg last week. If anything can breach the feud between that nation’s French and English, it’s poutine.
Imagine, then, my delight to find it on a menu right here in South Minneapolis, thus forestalling withdrawal symptoms. The co-dependent fostering this addiction is Duplex, the sweet little café at 25th & Hennepin, better known for its high-class food. For it’s time to tell you that poutine is nothing more than glorified French fries. (The key word here is “glorified.”) In French Canada, they’re served everywhere from white-tablecloth restaurants to diners and drive-ins. Especially diners and drive-ins.
And just what are they doing here at Duplex? “We had a French Canadian cook who couldn’t live without them,” explained our server. “He’s since left, but we can’t remove them from the menu. It’s gourmet bar food,” she allows, and unquestionably furthers yet more instances of poutine addiction. (Has Hazelton added a potato-abuse counselor?)
Here’s the difference from McDonald’s fries: Ketchup is verboten (or however you say “forbidden” in French). The correct procedure goes like this, just as it does in Duplex’s miniscule kitchen. Spuds are house-cut into long, slim slivers, flash-fried, then drained of excess oil and salted. Super-salted, actually.
Then they’re slathered with a rich, brown gravy — settle down, you unbelievers: Just wait till you taste ’em — and topped again with lots and lots of melted cheese. (In Duplex’s case, it’s white cheddar from Wisconsin.) Got the picture? In drive-ins, they’re handed over in a paper cone. Here, they rate a china plate. And there’s more than enough for sharing — that is, until that dependency sets in.
However, you can’t just walk into a nice place like this and simply order fries. (Well, actually, you can.) So, to fill out the drive-in menu motif, we also ordered the duck sloppy joe. It’s another riff on six-pack food, gentrified in this kitchen by calling on tender shreds of duck meat, slow-braised with plenty of sweet peppers and tomatoes, given a sprinkling of cilantro, and sent out on a grilled bun, along with — ready? — more French fries. But these aren’t clad in gravy and cheese. They’re actually sweet potato fries and accompanied by an über-rich and elegant lemon aioli that delivers a wallop of heat as well.
With both (and a to-die-for bread pudding — yet another blue-collar comfort food), we sipped a crisp, fruity vinho verde, Portugal’s quaffing white wine at only $5 for a generous glass. But then, that’s Duplex for you — serving folks what they, deep down, really want to eat and drink at bargain-basement (rather than urban-duplex) prices.
Duplex
2516 Hennepin Ave. S.
381-0700
duplexmpls.com
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Art beat // Closing and opening
By Dylan Thomas
Art of This leaving current space, but won’t cease to existLYNDALE — A few weeks before they planned to shutter their Nicollet Avenue art space for good, John Marks and David Petersen of Art of This Gallery reflected on “Open Summer,” their ongoing, open door, last blast summer project. A free-for-all residency program that eventually enrolled 80-some artists, the slowly percolating “Open Summer” was building steam as it headed into its, and the gallery’s, grand finale at the end of August. And for all the potential pitfalls in telling some seven dozen people where the gallery key is hidden, about the worst thing that happened all summer was when someone spilled salsa in the refrigerator and never cleaned it up.
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On the mat // Green yogis in Linden Hills
By Sarah McKenzie
Devanadi Yoga, a new studio near Lake Harriet, is a trailblazer in the local yoga community. The small 525-square-foot studio, tucked behind the Bruley Center on West 43rd Street in Linden Hills, is the first yoga studio in the state to be certified by the Green Yoga Association for its environmentally friendly efforts. The studio’s green practices include using non-VOC paint, controlling the thermostat to keep the building energy efficient and encouraging students to walk, bus or bike to class. Tanya Boigenzahn Sowards, studio director/owner of Devanadi Yoga, said being green is “core value of the studio and it ties back to the yogic philosophy of doing no harm.” “Minneapolis frequently ranks as one of the top green
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Everyday gardener // Q&A
By Meleah Maynard
Struggling tomatoes, rain barrels and rootbound plantsEven though spring started in earnest in March this year, it still seems like summer is going by too fast. So, fast, in fact, my inbox has been a bit stuffed with questions. As always, I’ve replied directly to people who asked for help with various things. But here in the column I’m going to cover some of the questions that seem likely to be of interest to a lot of gardeners. By far, the questions I’m getting most are about tomatoes, so I’ll start there. Q: My tomato plants look good and have a lot of flowers, but I’m not getting a lot of fruit this year. What’s going on?A: It’s been too hot for tomatoes to set fruit
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Flavor // A smokin’ sensation on Nicollet
By Carla Waldemar
If you’re wondering what caused the traffic stand-still on South Nicollet the other evening, let’s just say I should have kept my window shut. When passing cars got a whiff of possibly the best aroma in the galaxy — I’m talking about barbecue, of course — they halted to demand, “Where’d you get that?” At C&G’s, of course. Greg Alford launched C&G’s Smoking Barbecue exactly a year ago; the anniversary balloons in the otherwise-Spartan, clean-as-a-whistle hole in the wall provided the only touch of whimsy in this serious business. Greg was born in Louisiana, which may explain his superior taste in food. He grew up in Detroit, one of 12 kids whose mamma set him to cooking when he was 5, he
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Wild city // Eating the yard
By Mary Jean Port
I love August. It is so lush. All summer, as I nurse the garden along, I anticipate these eating days. We now have too much of everything: tomatoes, green beans, heat, humidity, and also thunder, for those of us who have a dog frightened by it. I have been working our piece of ground for 14 years, and have good soil to show for it. Back when we first started, my husband was more of a lawn guy. He liked the idea of a garden, but drew a line in the grass with his toe. Don’t dig up anything beyond here, he said. So I dug my first of what are now 10 beds, and planted the pumpkin right on his line. The vines ran out of the garden and took over the whole backyard. My husband good-naturedly threw up his hands. We started with vegetables, and
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Kid rock
By Sam Lane
Twin Town Guitars hosts a camp that gives young musicians a chance to play and perform in a bandMore than 60 excited, camera-toting fans packed Cause Spirits and Soundbar on a warm August afternoon waiting for two headline bands to take the stage. The hotly anticipated musicians weren’t well known. They weren’t 20-somethings trying to strike a record deal. They weren’t middle-aged men trying to relive their youth. They were kids, ages 8–17, who spent prior weeks at Twin Town Guitars, 3400 Lyndale Ave. S., preparing for their first concert. In an economy where budget cuts deal constant blows to public school music programs, the owners of Twin Town have spent the last three summers providing a haven for aspiring
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