A Taste of Minnesota

So, dontcha know that Pradeep, my supervisor and the head of the research team at IRRAD, has planned a get-together at his apartment for this Saturday.  We decided that it would be a potluck, and you know what we Minnesotans have to bring to a potluck—BARS!  “Yes,” I exclaimed, “I will be bringing bars!  Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve had bars.  I’m so excited to bake some bars.  I’m not too fond of lemon bars, but maybe I could make Erlyce bars, which are named after an old family member who always made really good bars up at the lake, or maybe seven-layer bars, or…”  And everybody gives me this confused “huh?” type look.  “Bars?” they say.  “You mean, like granola bars?”  So the seemingly simple task of trying to explain what bars are begins.  I say, “No, well, kind of.  I mean, like brownies can be considered bars, especially if they have nuts in them, or there’s cookie bars…”  No luck yet.  “They’re about this size,” I explain as I make a bar-sized square with my hands, “and about this thick, you know, they’re bar-shaped.  But, I mean, they’re that shape because you cut them that way, so they don’t have to be exactly that size.”  Furrowed eyebrows.  “Um, they’re made in a pan, you bake them in the oven, they usually have chocolate, well except in the case of lemon bars or strawberry-rhubarb bars, and maybe butterscotch chips and definitely cookie-like crumble and probably fudge and or caramel and maybe some coconut flakes…”  And they say, “So, it’s like cake?”  “Yes, like cake but more dense and thinner…[dead silence]…I guess I’ll just have to make some bars.”  I thought about offering hotdish as well, but I think I’ll save that for the next potluck.