White Castle gets romantic on Valentine’s Day: Here's what it's like to dine solo - City Pages (2019)

What does one wear to a 5 p.m., solo Valentine’s Day reservation at one of the most subtly exclusive dining experiences of the year?

A ball gown? A track suit? A Ronald McDonald costume? When planning one’s approach at a joint known to roll out a “literal red carpet at some locations,” nothing seems off-limits.

But when my hour came, there I stood, tugging on the doors of the White Castle at Lake Street and Blaisdell Avenue -- locked out, and pleased I was not in a ball gown.

Over and over, I scanned signs that said, “Lobby Closed for Reservations Only, Drive Thru Open.” Except I did have a reservation. And all the doors were locked. To be fair, the normal way of approaching any White Castle is always through the drive-thru (duh) and I hadn’t yet tried that window…

Just as I began to turn away, giving up all for lost, the warmest host I’ve ever met poked her head out of the door and lilted, “Do you have a reservation?” thus initiating one of the weirdest, most charming experiences of my dining life.

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Sarah Brumble
Hooligan racing is the best sport no one’s heard of at the X Games - City Pages (2019)

Not long ago, this sport didn’t exist. Now races are sponsored by Harley-Davidson. Yet Jacobson gets where people are coming from when they can’t understand his sport of choice’s appeal—especially if they’ve never seen it first-hand.

I spent the race holding my breath as brave competitors ripped their throttles at the starting line of a dirt track and then thundered into a deeply rutted corner far too fast. Riders stuck their boots out to prevent high siding and jostled elbow-to-elbow, fighting for little more than glory, points in a series, and a checkered flag. Toward the finish, one bowling ball of a dude dressed in an Evel Knievel suit came barreling in hot, pushing for the finish, as a country boy’s voice rose an octave over the Winona County Fair’s PA.

Roland Sands, the quasi-godfather figure of modern hooligan racing, was once quoted saying, “It’s frightening and it takes balls, but there’s a lot of satisfaction and it makes beer taste really good. That’s how you feel after surviving hooligan.” It only takes witnessing it once to get what he meant. I was as hooked as I was filthy… and thirsty.

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Sarah Brumble
Booya’s fans are rabid. But... what is the cherished Minnesota tradition? - City Pages (2018)

We think we’re so cosmopolitan here in the Twin Cities. “Food World’s Best Kept Secret,” they say.

Still, most of us are mere city rats: clever, resourceful creatures, sure, but ones legendary for spending entire lifetimes rarely adventuring beyond reliable feeding destinations—which, these days, are crafted by Daniel del Prado.

But sometimes, between sleeping and scrounging and screaming about traffic, the clouds part and create a perfect beam of early autumn light, falling just so on the perimeter of ye olde trusty work parking lot. This fleeting moment of illumination catches on a hand-painted sign, seemingly from 1982. On it, one word screams like life itself:

BOOYA

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Sarah Brumble
Death by Pink: When Nature’s Most Cloying Color Spells Doom - Atlas Obscura (2015)

HAVE YOU EVER EXPERIENCED THAT DISTINCT feeling of rising terror when walking through the “girls’ aisle” at a toy store? Or wanted to cower in fear at the idea of being dressed head-to-toe in PINK by Victoria Secret? In a deeply sociologically-motivated study, we set out to determine whether those dusky visions of Hell flitting before our eyes have root in the natural world, or the manmade. After extensive research, the answer to that particular question remains unclear, though one thing is certain: out in the wild, there’s good cause to fear the color pink.

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Sarah Brumblepink, atlas obscura
Minneapolis’ Iconic Cheese-Stuffed Hamburgers, the Jucy Lucy, Ranked - Playboy (2015)

Everyone in Minnesota, even Prince, knows that the king of all cheeseburgers is the Jucy Lucy. A large part of this has to do with how, as a food, it allows us to let go of our Great Northern Restraint, tapping into a time before polite society and manners. To the unfamiliar, eating one of these things can feel a lot like killing an animal with your mouth.

At their most basic, the burgers are delightfully simple things: take two ground beef patties and stuff cheese inside instead of melting it on top. Most menus come with all-caps warnings about the inherent dangers of this beast. Molten cheese gushes everywhere. Grease squirts ruin shirts. First date food it is not.

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Sarah Brumbleburgers, playboy
Marcel Breuer's Church of Saint John's Abbey - Atlas Obscura (2016)

Built between May of 1958 and August of 1961, the church of Saint John’s Abbey bursts forth from the plains of central Minnesota like a concrete demon from a galaxy far, far away.

Lording over the campus of Saint John’s University, the church is one of just two ever created on American soil by legendary designer and architect Marcel Breuer. This fact alone helps explain the feeling that the concrete behemoth looks more like an imported relic from Eastern Europe’s post-Soviet glory than a home-grown feature of soybean fields and flyover country.

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Sarah Brumble
One man's epic quest to eat almost every basket of wings in town — for science - City Pages (2018)

* Warning: Hundreds of chickens were harmed in the making of this article.

If you’d like to confuse a server right quick, a delightful way to go about it involves sitting down and busting out a scientific scale and a sheet of plasticized graph paper with tick-marks down to the millimeter at your table. Then, when you’ve eaten, refuse to let them remove your basket of seemingly cashed chicken wing bones.

“Oh, we’re not done with those yet,” my dining companion demurs, ever so politely.

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Sarah Brumble
You'll Never Vote Alone - Belt Magazine (2016)

I arrived in Cleveland convinced the RNC would be the death of me. There is not a drop of hyperbole in this statement. And it’s true what they say: when people think they’re close to death, they do crazy things.

On my way out of Minneapolis, I left my affairs in order. I even went so far as to eat a last meal.

That’s also how, the morning before the RNC began, I found myself at St. Rocco’s 9 a.m. mass, on the city’s westside, and in a formerly Italian neighborhood. I’m not at all Italian; I am also not really Catholic, though sometimes I can fake it thanks to years of schooling at the hands of nuns.

I really don’t know why I picked this out of all the churches in Cleveland, but after Googling Saint Rocco (a.k.a. St. Roch) everything came together. The 14th-century man was known for showing off his wounds and is invoked for protection against the plague.

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Sarah Brumble
Dispatches from the Super Bowl of Starch: The Lexington’s $50-a-head ‘fancy hotdish’ competition - City Pages (2018)

On Wednesday night, more than 100 guests filled the Lexington’s wood-paneled, leaded glass, fire-lit Williamsburg Room in honor of the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s first-annual Fancy Hotdish Competition, a joint effort put together by two of the city’s most timeless institutions after noting that -- among a  of silly events -- the Carnival festivities lacked anything for foodies.

Pacing the room in anticipation of hotdish-riche, members of the Royal Family and devotees of the Lex all bided their time to sample cheffed-up takes on something that epitomizes Minnesota eating, yet also perfectly fits the Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity: we know it when we see it.

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Sarah Brumble
National Radio Quiet Zone, West Virginia - The American Guide (2014)

The difference between quiet and silent is vast.

There are no signs to mark your entrance into the weird airspace that is the National Radio Quiet Zone. Wending through the Appalachians, the omnipresent bleeps and bloops coming from that smartphone in your pocket are the first to go. Next is the radio fading from your stereo, leaving nothing but static. Finally, aboveground power lines disappear as gas stations with analog, rolling numbers at their pumps proliferate.

Though a world away in many senses, visiting the NRQZ isn’t physically difficult. It was specifically chosen for its unique topographical isolation, paired with a relative proximity to major cities and knowledge centers; it’s far away enough to count, but not so removed as to be unuseful.

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Sarah Brumble
Wanchese, North Carolina - The American Guide (2014)

Growing up, the Outer Banks’ Northern Beaches felt like my second home. Yet, now three decades into my relationship with the region, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to an area known as Wanchese.

In the original American Guide to North Carolina, Wanchese is nothing but a footnote along the way to bigger, more well-tread destinations.

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Sarah Brumble
Sochi's History In Pictures, From Proletariat Retreat to Oligarch Playground - Playboy (2014)

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Russia the 2014 Winter Games nearly seven years ago, Vladimir Putin made it clear that they would be his pet project. Officially, these Games are intended to reintroduce post-Soviet Russia to the world, while serving as a personal, unofficial capstone to Putin's 15 years as the country's leader. They are also meant to turn the host city, Sochi (a.k.a. "the Florida of Russia"), into a premium tourist destination for the well-to-do world traveler. That, however, will be easier said than done. Despite Sochi's reputation as the long-time go-to spot for R&R (both among the proletariat and Russian elite), trouble is as much in the water as redemption.

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Sarah Brumblejournalism, history, sports, playboy