“Follow the beige.”

“Duluth is basically just one giant hill.”

My roommate Claire warned me about this when she picked me up from the bus stop the day I got here. And Friday night it hit me hardest as I walked from the bus stop six blocks uphill to a Couchsurfing party I’d decided to attend.

After living in NY for a short period of time walking six blocks is nothing, and especially since here there’s no human waste to step around or young men desperately shoving handfuls of phone chargers in my face when I’m stuck at a red light.

But here the 20 degree weather caused my chest to tie itself into one of those knots similar to those which, no matter how hard you pull every loose end of your shoelaces, won’t come undone. My hair had frozen solid by the time I passed 1st street, my gloves had let in every gust of wind by 3rd and by the time I got to the front door on 6th I dropped my bag of food, tore of my useless outerwear and twisted the top off of the victory honey whiskey with my crimson fingertips.

I looked around to find the usual party fare: foods that can be turned into or that don’t require silverware.

At least a few bags of deliciously oversalted tortilla chips spilling onto the tablecloth accompanying the large bowl of diced tomatoes accented with bright green flat parsley bits and pink tinted chunks of onion swimming in juices that indicated they’d done it the right way and let it all mingle in the fridge overnight.

There were tubs of waxy, dark chocolate donuts and baby carrots that one by one rolled off of the table as they got pushed further and further to the outskirts, and slices of whole wheat wraps packed full of raisins, cream cheese, fete and spinach.

As a beer was cracked for me I laid out Tupperware boxes that resembled a Crayola crayon carton with Laser Lemon, Brick Red and Fern peppers, juicy Scarlet tomatoes and fresh Tumbleweed falafel that I’d packed before my journey into the Midwestern Tundra. The lid of the tzatziki I made popped off to flood my nostrils with minced garlic in one stir, fresh cucumber in the next, and red onion in the last that I’d added for color.

Finally I sat down and introduced myself to as many people as I could, announcing that although I was not a local I was very, very excited to say that I’d “lived” in Duluth for a week. The event was hosted by some local Duluthians who had invited anyone and everyone to invade the city for the weekend and see what life on the shore is all about.

The amazing thing about Courchsurfing events is that the normal party conversation goes beyond majors and hometowns. It often even skips those steps and begins with stories about nights spent locked out of your hosts house, wandering the streets of Paris and eventually walking into a rave that went on for three days where sleeping was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Or about the difference between buying bread in Germany and buying bread in Poland. And eventually comparing leftover currencies that had been shuffling around the bottom on your backpack since your last trip.

So we moved further into Friday and eventually hours into Saturday emptying bottles, filling our stomachs and exchanging past experiences and future plans. I was eventually introduced to Mike, a man who had more than a few words to say about the hotdish and how I should tackle cooking for the traditional Minnesotan.

Mike noted two main things to keep in mind. “Follow the beige.”

I had spent all week trying to figure out what would and what wouldn’t be off-putting to a Minnesotan if it ended up on their plate. My audience for Sunday was going to be church ladies and their families so we decided to plan a menu that would appease my desire to cook a real hearty, flavorful meal but without any ingredients that would make someone push the food around their plate until I wasn’t looking, then dump it in the garbage.

“You say cumin they freak out- horseradish they know.” Mike advised that I stuck with ingredients that lacked in color and exoticism. He said that when it comes to a hotdish people aren’t looking for fancy, they’re looking for comfort. He advised me that I’m not looking to appease “good eaters” and remind them of their time spent in Thailand eating authentic curried lamb on the street or their weekend getaway to the tropics where fruit was readily available hanging off of every tree limb. The colors are mute, the food is warm and when it hits the tongue it reminds you of something close to your heart. A wedding, a family reunion or the like.

Although alarming colors and some textures are ill-advised as additions to a casserole, Minnesota is graced with a few allowed and appreciated tastes. Lye and mayonnaise aside, horseradish was the main suggestion because it can easily be mixed in to add a bite for me and a familiar note to perk up the tongue of a local.

Of course though, with every spice comes an even bigger helping of down to earth home-cooking. “You want to load the mashed potatoes with butter and cream- real hearty,” and “Don’t pick your cheese for flavor, pick it for consistency,” reflect the reliance that those in the Great Lake State have on soft, simple, familiar foods.

Ultimately, I was told that I should focus on a form of culinary deception. Cook the onions until their translucent and yellow is about as colorful as you can do when it comes to peppers. Heat should only be kicked up in the form of a dash more horseradish but the avoidance of anything not on the list of ingredients at the back of a Norwegian cookbook.

Mike’s parting words were assuring and reminded me that no matter what I decided to cook I’d be well received with a “Minnesota Nice” spin on my audience’s opinions.

“They’re at church so they’ll be polite and pretend to like it.”