Cook County News Herald

Minnesota nice –

do we really sugar coat everything?



 

 

I recently attended a Woman’s Wellness Weekend at the Audubon Retreat Center in Sandstone, MN. My cousin, my mother and my aunt from Las Vegas were there too. It was great! Relaxing and eating fresh organic cuisine for three days and two nights. I also tried for the first time yoga and Nordic walking. Both are wonderful sports.

At each meal we were given thought provoking questions to discuss and then five women would get up and share their answers. Thequestions went like this: If you were a tree what kind of tree would you be and why? If you were an animal what kind of animal would you be and why? My favorite answer to this one was Paris Hilton’s chihuahua.

If you had a million dollars, how would you spend it? We decided that after taxes it would only be about six hundred thousand so most everyone saved it for retirement. Now ten million—that would have generated more interesting ideas! Traveling around the world, a big party for all my friends with Lyle Lovett and his Large Band,
an indoor community pool for Annandale. Hmmmm….

 

 

But the real nitty gritty came with the question – What quality do you most admire in a person? To which my mother and her sister said without hesitation – “honesty” to which my cousin and I replied “That’s a lie!”

My mother and my aunt became mildly defensive and said they loved it when people were truly honest. Now between you, me, and the walls, I have been around my mom and her sister long enough to know that they find brutally honest people lacking in tact and manners. They won’t admit it but they like to hear the watered down, sugarcoated truth as much as the next Minnesotan.

Nobody I know in the state of Minnesota, the land of niceties all around, likes to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth all the time, so help me God.

Okay, I can’t speak for all of Minnesota but in my case and in the words of Johnny Lang, Lie to me.
Tell me I look great in the morning. Tell me you love the new color I painted the living room walls. Most of all tell me you love
my cooking!

Here are my favorite “sugar laden, you can only eat one, my teeth hurt it is so sweet” candy recipes. Enjoy! If you try them and you don’t like them— lie to me.

We are what we pretend
to be, so we must be
careful what we pretend
to be.

Kurt Vonnegut

Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on an alpaca farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael,
and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and
LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of homestyle

recipes.


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