Dining out: A taste of the Midwest

My family and I spent most of this summer traveling, most recently to celebrate my in-laws' 50th anniversary in South Dakota.

I'm sure each member of my family enjoyed something different about the trip, but one thing I liked was — you guessed it — the local restaurants we visited.

I've always enjoyed the distinctive food culture of Utah, which even in my childhood boasted such diverse eateries as Ding Ho, Dask's and Hires Big H, and which has grown more rich, exciting (and, for me, homelike) over the years.

And while traveling through the upper Midwest, I was struck by the strong local flavor of many of the places we visited. Like my local favorites, to those who love them, they taste like home.

Nowhere is that more evident than at the Open Door in the town of Menno, S.D., population 671.

A disclaimer: The Open Door, right in the middle of Fifth Street, is owned by my mother-in-law's cousin. But she has so many cousins, it's hard not to run into them in those parts, and The Open Door is a great place to eat.

You could spend most of the day reading the signs and looking at the pictures adorning the walls, except that you'd be too busy with the day's special meal —roast beef, mashed potatoes and vegetables on the day we visited — and the jukebox, which will deliver up blast after blast from the musical past, free of charge.

My kids danced all over the dining room to tunes by Elvis and John Denver, not to mention three rounds of "Purple People Eater." And afterward, we had the best peach kuchen — a German hybrid of cake and pie — I have ever, ever tasted, plus 25-cent chocolate-chip cookies still warm from the oven.

Menno is lucky to have The Open Door, just as Early, Iowa, is lucky to have the Crossroads. This little white-sided building, snuggled right up to Highway 71, serves up fabulous blueberry pie — darkly sweet and tart blueberry filling and flaky crust with a thin, crisped layer of sugar sprinkled on top.

It was especially enjoyable to eat that pie in the Crossroads' dining room, the kind of place where the staff is unfailingly pleasant and down to earth and you're likely to pass a few words about the weather and its effect on the coming harvest with a local farmer there for lunch. People who say Midwesterners are hard to get to know have never been to places like this.

There's a nice feeling, as well, at 4 Queens Dairy Cream in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Open only in warm-weather months, serving frozen concoctions of nearly every stripe, 4 Queens is the place to be on a warm summer night in Cedar Falls.