World News – USA – The Olive Garden is open but Marilyn Hagerty is not eating there

At 94, the writer of a North Dakota restaurant review that became an internet sensation is still working. However, with the pandemic, she had to make some changes.

North Dakota’s most famous restaurant reviewer has been eating at home lately. It’s not that there isn’t a place to go in and around Grand Forks, where she lives and writes. Its governor, Doug Burgum, has allowed restaurants and bars to stay open despite the state having the third highest death rate from Covid-19 for the past week.

It’s also not as if Marilyn Hagerty runs out of breath at 94. She submits three columns a week for the Grand Forks Herald despite officially retiring from the paper – two or three times? as she puts it. She had been retired for at least two decades when she wrote a column in 2012 recording the arrival of her town’s first olive orchard.

woman. Hagty’s report, written in her usual way of evaluating facts through critical reviews, cramped the internet. An overnight sensation in her 80s, she appeared twice on Anderson Cooper’s syndicated talk show and signed a book deal with Anthony Bourdain’s overprint.

Today she calls this whirlwind period – the time when I was viral. one???? That sounded different this year, however, so she thought twice about the wisdom of sticking to her usual busy dining calendar.

woman. Hagerty has lived alone since the death of her husband, Jack Hagerty, who was the editor of the Herald, in 1997. « She went on as usual, » said her son James R. . Hagerty until she told him on the phone about a month ago that she had gone to a truck stop for breakfast. This was around the time the Covid-19 outbreak in North Dakota became the worst in the country.

After some family back and forth, woman. Hagerty decided to limit her professional food to takeaway and delivery until it was safer to go out in Grand Forks.

For a New York City restaurant critic who was led by Dr. . Hagty’s 2020 experience can be like looking at an alternate reality. Hundreds of New York restaurants have gone out of business this year, from nationally reputed places like Blue Smoke and Uncle Boons to scruffy neighborhood cafes that looked like they would be returning by the day they were renting out are. ? Sign appeared in the window.

In and around Grand Forks, however, woman. Hagerty couldn’t imagine any restaurants being killed by the pandemic. She knew of one that was temporarily closed.

« The Ramada Inn has a coffee shop that serves a lovely Sunday breakfast and it’s closed, but the bar at the Ramada Inn is open.  » She said. They serve dinner there. â ????

Of course, Grand Forks had a town around 50. 000 inhabitants, initially fewer restaurants. One result of this is that woman. Hagerty returns to write about places she’s already checked out more than is typical of her professional counterparts in larger cities. She has returned several times to take the temperature of the olive garden, most recently in February when she ordered the same meal she immortalized eight years earlier.

Fettuccine Alfredo has 1. 010 calories and costs $ 12. 99, ???? She wrote. The salad was well chilled. But since there were only two black olives to be found, I asked for more. one???? In her original review, Mrs.. Hagerty had noticed that there were « several » in the salad. Olives that seemed to please them.

Her last meal at the indoor restaurant before agreeing to stay home for a while was something in return: The Blue Moose Bar & Grill, a pub across the Red River in East Grand Forks, Minn.

Nathan Sheppard, one of the owners, said as a woman. Hagerty shows up at the host’s booth unannounced, about every 12 to 18 months. It doesn’t cause a stir that you might have seen on TV or in a movie.

« Usually one of the floor managers comes back and tells me, » Hey, Marilyn is here.  » Mr. Sheppard said. « If she sees something negative she will say it politely, but she doesn’t Gordon Ramsay and starts tossing plates and saying, » This ratatouille is rubbish. â ???? â ????

woman. Hagty’s Blue Moose update noted the persistence of cooking over time approvingly, but safety was also clear to her. Face covers are required in all indoor public spaces in Minnesota, and female. Hagerty reported that the restaurant offered masks to customers who forgot theirs. Social distancing was also observed. « The moose works carefully, » she wrote.

Some Blue Moose customers have asked if they really need to wear a mask, Mr.. . Sheppard said but not many, especially now that Covid is a familiar presence in the area. In March, you still heard people talk about whether or not this was real because they didn’t know anyone who had it. he said. Now everyone knows someone in their personal life who has it. â ????

Some North Dakota restaurant owners resisted masks until about a month ago when Governor Burgum announced a month-long order requiring indoor face coverings. Mrs. Hagerty recalled going to a hamburger tavern in Grand Forks just prior to the governor’s action and worried about the number of exposed customers loitering at the bar. They and their companions at dinner wore masks.

« I was with two of my friends and we’re not spring chickens, » she said. They looked at us kind of weird, but I don’t mind. I go everywhere. â ????

While she is best known to outsiders for writing about the national chains that play an important role in the local restaurant scene, Ms. is. Hagerty has also written about places that serve Thai, Vietnamese, and Somali cuisines.

woman. Hagty’s two other weekly columns are not about food. She writes one in the form of a letter telling a friend out of town about the latest happenings in Grand Forks. The other fills her with little things that she notices.

« I only write about semi-crazy things, » she said. â € œA little like what you tell your friends, but you wouldnâ € ™ t write in the paper, but Iâ € ™ ll write it in the paper. â ????

The Herald pays her a freelance rate for these pieces. Mrs. Hagerty jokingly said that the paper probably doesn’t have the heart to fire her. However, any journalist will suspect that their editors know the value of a reporter submitting three times a week and never running out of ideas.

« She’s not doing it for the money » sir. Hagerty, who writes obituaries for the Wall Street Journal, said of his mother. She does it to stay healthy. She refuses to be an old person. â ????

Even with her self-imposed house arrest woman has. Hagerty was not at a loss for the subjects. She covered the search for smaller Thanksgiving turkeys, the pandemic security adjustments in the University of North Dakota dining room, and the holiday frenzy at a 71-year-old candy store whose chopper, chocolate-covered potato chips may be Grand Fork’s second greatest claim to gastronomic fame.

And of course woman. Hagerty wrote about Takeout. This has opened up new perspectives for her on familiar topics, allowing her to let readers know what locations have roadside service or a special pick-up window. And it gave her the opportunity to experience the olive garden in a different way.

She brought home the restaurant’s shrimp scampi and some other items last week, she said. She didn’t seem inclined to tip her hand before her thoughts were printed, but it sounded like a subtle reassessment was underway.

Her verdict was published on her newspaper’s website on Saturday. « Somehow I like shrimp scampi in the olive garden better than in the take-home format » Ms.. Hagerty wrote. But these days of the coronavirus, home dinner has its appeal. â ????

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Marilyn Hagerty, Olive Garden