7 Minute Miles Header

Game 1: Boston @ Twins ⚾️

Pic posted March 18, 2024

John’s breezy shade seat recommendation saved the day
Twins Win! 5-2


flourish icon

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day 2024 ☘️ 💚

Pic posted March 17, 2024

Dinner with the fam @ Malcolm Yards


flourish icon

Bûcheron, Minneapolis ✅

Posted March 15, 2024

At the start of the week, Colleen and I used the break between the women’s and men’s Big 10 basketball tournaments to have dinner at the new Bûcheron in the Kingfield neighborhood of south Minneapolis. While we mainly knew 4257 Nicollet as the original home to Revival, it was also home to Corner Table and Lufrano’s (h/t to Justine Jones at Eater Twin Cities on that last one).

Open about two months now, this 38-seat room was immediately familiar (yet seemed smaller – didn’t Revival’s dining room eventually expand next door?). Loved to hear that they used the old Revival benches to build the new bar. Also loved to see this comment from Revival on the Bûcheron Instagram page:

We feel honored to be part of the legacy that you are carrying on. It makes our heart full to see all the love and care you put into the space and know you will make memories of your own for years to come!

Lots have been written already about the husband and wife team of Chef Adam Ritter and Hospitality Director Jeanie Janas Ritter (see Sharyn Jackson’s preview in the Strib, Jason DeRusha’s article for Minnesota Monthly and Justine Jones’ story in Eater Twin Cities), so I won’t rehash the backstory. Let’s just say that I completely agree with Jason when he writes “It’s going to be fascinating to watch the first wave of Kaysen proteges do their own things.”

In addition to the owners, there is Chef de Cuisine Cory Western (Spoon and Stable & Demi), General Manager Tyler McLeod (Bellecour & Demi, KZ Provisioning) and bar lead Will Gobeli. Not sure who all we saw on our visit, but there were some strong The Bear vibes coming from the kitchen on our visit, with lots of white T-shirts and tattoo-covered arms. The back of house staff does come out to discuss the dishes, which was super fun (at least for us).

We ordered from all sections of the menu at the beginning of the night so our wonderful server could course it out appropriately. Here are all the items we had (as printed on the menu):

  • POMMES DAUPHINES, gruyère, celery, caraway | 10
  • LITTLE GEM salad, lobster, sherry mayo, winter citrus, tarragon | 19
  • Grilled CARROTS, kohlrabi, chickpea, cilantro yogurt, sweet & sour sauce, vadouvan vinaigrette | 17
  • SKREI COD roasted sunchoke, rapini, wild rice furikake, radish beurre blanc | 34
  • Feller’s Ranch STEAK*, shallot confit, potato mousse, kalettes, sauce bordelaise | 42
  • “COOKIES & CREAM” milk sorbet, cocoa macaron, vanilla custard, lemon verbena | 13
  • Shepard’s Way ‘Sogn’ CHEESE, fermented honey, quince, mustard, seeded baguette | 14

I loved every single thing I had and feel that this was the best meal I’ve had so far in 2024. Take the grilled carrots (pictured above): it was a true Ratatouille moment, with flavor combinations just bursting in unexpected ways. Colleen was disappointed in the salad, but her food allergies meant the kitchen had to put some things on the side that I was able to add back. My Feller’s Ranch steak with the potato mousse had fingerlings in the mousse, which was an excellent surprise. Both of our desserts were amazing and it’s always great when I can order a Milk and Honey cider in the city…

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Bûcheron (French for ‘lumberjack’)
4257 Nicollet Avenue • Minneapolis, MN 55409
612-255-5632 (online reservations via Resy)

Hours:
Monday – Saturday 5pm to 10pm
Sunday – closed


flourish icon

Guacaya Bistreaux ✅

Posted March 14, 2024

This one has been on my list since it opened. Finally made it over for the taco trifecta happy hour special (one calypso carne asada: island-marinated steak, lime cream, cotija cheese, guacamole; one jerk chicken: chopped chicken, jerk BBQ sauce, grilled pineapple, cilantro & onion mix; and one crispy fish: tempura fried jerk red snapper, pickled cabbage, cilantro aioli) 🌮❤️🌮❤️🌮


flourish icon

Tavern on Grand 💜

Pic posted March 13, 2024

We are really going to miss this place – go while you can…


flourish icon

Mega Pop Popcorn 🍿

Pic posted March 10, 2024

Major throwback vibes to school fundraisers


flourish icon

CK the meat raffle winner 🥩

Pic posted March 10, 2024

Her first meat raffle win was delicious on the grill


flourish icon

Smoked wings @ Mackenzie Pub ✅

Pic posted March 9, 2024

Nice to find these great snacks so close to the crib – smoked Buffalo wings with blue cheese, fancy fries (garlic herb butter + fresh parmesan) and a hand-made cherry Coke


flourish icon

Today’s self-care: TC Parlour Burger 🍔

Pic posted March 8, 2024

Still not quite the same as the restaurants, but it hit the spot


flourish icon

Self-care dinner @ 112 eatery ✅

Pic posted March 7, 2024

Chef Becker still has it. Haven’t been here in a long time, but it’s only a few blocks from the office. Pan-fried gnocchi and halibut with prosciutto crust & salmoriglio 💯


flourish icon

Strib’s 21 slam-dunk downtown joints

Posted March 7, 2024

Need to keep this list handy for future work outings:

Been to most of these, but forget about some of them being so close to the crib…

Photo credit: Anthony Souffle • Star Tribune

UPDATE: Twin Cities Eater weighs in with their choices as well.


flourish icon

Late night snack from Duluth

Pic posted March 4, 2024

Thanks for the special treat, MK


flourish icon

Maison Margaux is just beautiful

Pic posted March 4, 2024

Chef has a winner in the North Loop


flourish icon

Sunday night pizza on Randolph 🍕

Pic posted March 3, 2024

Quite the crowd at Carbone’s tonight


flourish icon

Yet another social media update 🤔

Posted March 3, 2024

Thanks to the social media manager in my office, I’m now back on the Gram. She has a goal to increase Instagram followers, so I registered @7minutemiles as a private account, followed @targetcentermn and started looking at the current state of that platform. As some of you may recall, I used to be @kingsbury for years and Colleen had her account stolen by a hacker (Meta support was not helpful).

It’s really amazing to me how much content is generated exclusively for Instagram, especially in the food world. Sports and entertainment is also still going strong and I’m slowly re-discovering golf, skiing and regional travel accounts (Meta appears to limit new accounts to 100 follows a day now). A few people have discovered my new account and sent follow requests, but I’m not sure how much I will publish there.

As Cory Doctorow wrote, now is the moment for POSSE – Post Own Site, Share Everywhere. IndieWeb has also written a lot about POSSE, which I had already started to try recently on both Bluesky and Mastodon. Need to think through this a little more, as I never liked when people would just post the same stuff everywhere.

Still really love the idea of people publishing their own sites and content – whether that is a small business website, a personal blog or something else. What I do here is neither free nor easy, but there are options out there for people if you look. The vast majority of people, however, will likely continue to use services like Instagram and TikTok as their only home to the content they create and publish.

As someone who basically dropped off all social media for a time to focus on my personal site, getting eyeballs on your content is infinitely harder, FOMO is strong and with comments disabled on my site, two-way communication is definitely hindered. And as Zeldman says, “go where the people are.

Still, people like Jason Kottke remain great examples of self-publishing ideas and implementation. I love reading his posts like this one on the latest kottke.org site redesign. My RSS reader follow list hasn’t changed much over the years, but there is still some great stuff that pops up in there from people like Teri Kanefield, Brian Krebs, Charles Edge, Tom Bricker, Mistletunes and Phil Roberts.

Back on the platforms, I got to explore Threads with the new Instagram account and didn’t see a lot of personal value there. The “For You” view was awful and the “Following” option showed that most activity on accounts I care about is remaining on the Instagram side.

I still enjoy reading content on Mastodon via Ivory, which remains the closest experience to what I had with Twitter and Tweetbot. Recently learned I can follow tags there and have been enjoying the “SKIING” tag a lot. Also like Bluesky, but wish I could use a Tapbots app for that service instead of the website.

Instagram on the web is much better than before, but I’ll probably get back to using the iOS app again once I have the full follow list in place. Still happy I hibernated my LinkedIn – it will be there if I need it in the future, but don’t miss it day to day…


flourish icon

Egg alert! 🚨 Egg alert! 🚨

Pic posted March 2, 2024

Regina eggs in the house for Easter 2024


flourish icon

Mister Donut Richfield, March 1972

Pic posted March 1, 2024

I remember dad taking us here often 🍩
Photo: Hennepin Country Library


flourish icon

Nova Bar Burgers with SK 🍔

Pic posted February 28, 2024

Thanks, Splinter, for the quick getaway break


flourish icon

Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce 🍟

Pic posted February 28, 2024

Tried the clown’s new, limited edition nuggie sauce – spicy Chinese takeout vibes 👍


flourish icon

It’s cookies for dinner time again

Pic posted February 27, 2024

My usual “one sleeve at a time” addiction continues


flourish icon

Porzana visit #2

Pic posted February 26, 2024

It appears all of the issues from Porzana visit #1 have been resolved. The place was packed and SK and I had a great time…


flourish icon

Kelly’s Bar in Red Wing, Minnesota

Pic posted February 25, 2024

One of the better burgers I’ve had in a while 👍


flourish icon

My 🐟 Burger Friday

Pic posted February 23, 2024

Stopped in the skyway location during pre-game errands


flourish icon

Great start to a very long Friday 🥩 🍳

Pic posted February 23, 2024

It’s been a while since I had steak and eggs @ Minnehaha Cafe


flourish icon

I am a creature of habit

Pic posted February 22, 2024

My regular breakfast order at the Minnehaha Cafe


flourish icon