Attention Twin Citians

Sorry, we're not using "Twin Cities" in the branding anymore. It's "Minneapolis-St. Paul." (Even though the two cities are TWO cities and not a single entity implied by the dash in Minneapolis-St. Paul.) So let me start over.

Attention people of Minneapolis-St. Paul (and surrounding areas):

The still-a-little-bit-relevant City Pages is currently conducting its Best of the Twin Cities (oops!) survey for an April issue. You can fill it out by March 31st at http://polls.citypages.com/bestof08/. Be sure to show your allegiances to your favorite spots. Don't worry about leaving blanks. I sure the hell didn't know what to put for "Best DJ" or "Best State Fair Food."


Maybe we can get the City Pages to make the change to Best of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Area in time for next year.

Bye Bye Dara

Twin Citians who have occasionally grabbed the free weekly, the City Pages, are most likely familiar with restaurant critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl. Despite giving great reviews of all the foodstuffs the Twin Cities have to offer, she's a colorful and hilarious writer. She can come up with the most outlandish and lengthy metaphors in her task to give you the most accurate sense of the restaurant. To make a point on the cost of wine, she started one article the following way:

Recently I received a sad and plaintive email from a doctor's wife. She wanted to use my bank account to free a Nigerian fortune worth, if you can believe it, hundreds of millions of dollars. And she chose me! As I crowbarred my neighbors' windows in search of additional Social Security numbers, I wondered why she picked me, and then I realized: All the big restaurants I've reviewed lately have been expensive, and more expensive. Of course she would think that the Twin Cities was a land of nothing but millionaires: The price of an average glass of wine seems to have zoomed from $6 to $9, and as far as the dinner entrees, $23 seems to be the new $12.

The City Pages was recently bought by a national media company that owns the Village Voice. Both before and after the change in ownership, the weekly's talented writers have gone to greener pastures. Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's departure solidifies the City Pages' downfall in my eyes. I'll still take a look at it from time to time, but it's not the newspaper it once was.

Moskowitz Grumdahl will now write for the Minnesota Monthly magazine. Local media critic David Brauer writes about the meaning of this departure in his December story City Pages just lost its sugar mama in the MinnPost.

This week she writes her final piece with the City Pages. It's probably not of interest to first time readers, but fans may appreciate it: Bye-Bye - January 30, 2008

For most of her career at the City Pages, she was simply Dara Moskowitz. Then she got married and added the Grumdahl. Personally, I don't know why someone with the last name Moskowitz would add the equally large portioned Grumdahl, but perhaps I shouldn't be too critical when it comes to choosing names.