When it comes to the eating experience, what kind of food are you?

• Are you a parsley sprig on watercress with a side of sprouts?
• Do you order your fish broiled when beer battered and deep fried is an option?
• Do you consider a rice cake a decadent treat?
• Yes to any of these? Skip today’s blog. Like a bratwurst smothered in sauerkraut, you’re not going to like it.

Today, my foodie friends, I’m inviting you to join me in reliving a recent gastronomical adventure where I feel I discovered the Foodie Holy Grail.

If you aren’t sure you’re a foodie, here’s a short quiz.

• Do you buy jeans with the “koosh” (lardass) more room in the butt?
• Have you ever ordered two entrées because you couldn’t make a decision?
• In your opinion, are the sweetest words ever spoken include: “lunch is served” and “all you can eat”?
• Yes to any of the above? You’re a foodie.

Recently, my wife and I, on a weekend getaway in Duluth, stumbled onto an event called Taste at Fitger’s. They just happened to be celebrating their 15th annual Taste of 2009 when we arrived.

Picture this: You’re inside a historic brewery-turned-Four Diamond Hotel overlooking Lake Superior. The hotel is connected to a maze of subterranean catacombs lined with boutique shops, restaurants and pubs. You can feel the history of beer surrounding you, and you know a lot of beer flowed past these brick walls at one time.

But tonight, history has been replaced with display tables and decorative booths as chefs and restaurant representatives from the Duluth area scramble to get their special treats ready. My unofficial count surpasses 50 tables. A $40 donation benefiting the local food bank earns us the privilege of sampling all of them.

After paying our donation, we receive a pass on a neck cord and a beer/wine glass for ample sampling. We pause in front of the first table, contemplating a fancy French pastry display.

We’re tempted, but I pull my wife aside to review the foodie basic ground rules: no potatoes no bread, avoid the salads and skip the fruit. From experience I’ve found these foods to be filling and at the same time confusing to a digestive system preparing itself for a meal containing drawn butter, heavy cream and anything alfredo. I consider fruit and salad "food wannabees” and there will be no place for them in our diets tonight. We pass on the pastries.

We were greeted at the next table by a bikini-clad cutie holding a platter of heavenly roasted pork. She looked deeply into my eyes and purred, “ribs or pulled pork.” I stammered. She looked at me coquettishly, “or would my big, strong fella like both?” My wife told me she never said that, but this is my fantasy and I was on that pig like piranha on a water buffalo.

Next came olive tapenades in cute little cucumber boats, followed by coconut-studded calypso shrimp and mahi-mahi enchiladas.

The next hour or so was just a blur. Although I do remember sampling a succession of hand-crafted masterpieces like spinach-feta phylo, falafel ball skewers and Zen house sushi.

We worked our way down one hallway and up another. We turned a corner and were greeted by a bevy of flapper girls cajoling passersby in front of the Fitger’s Brewhouse. As I recall, they backed me into the corner, tied me up with their feather boas and made me consume copious amounts of cherry infused bourbon. Again, my wife said that was just my imagination.

I finally escaped and found myself in front of the make your own caramel fudge sundae booth. The sundae booth was right next to a table offering plates of red flannel hash.

While my brain was trying to deduce how to combine the two, I heard it for the first time. It was a heavenly sound to a foodie, like a the crackle of a potato chip bag in the middle of the night. I set my plate of hash aside and followed my ears. This was my sound of music, for I knew beyond the snap and crackle and pop of meat on a barbecue was my Holy Grail.

As I approached, I found the aria I was listening to wasn’t just any old meat sizzling on a grill. Facing me were rows of jumbo shrimp wrapped in double-smoked bacon, skewered and slathered with a succulent, tangy sauce. The clever entrepreneurs had found a sizable chunk of Lake Superior slate and suspended it over tins of blazing sterno. That slate was white hot and those shrimp were singing.

I sent my wife on ahead. I had found Nirvana. By 7:30 I wiped my chin, waved the white flag, and struggled back to my room where I took a handful of Pepcid ACs and slipped into my jeans with the elastic sewn into the waist band.

I was stuffed, content, and on the phone with the front desk. I was making sure my name was on the list for Taste 2010.

Come and join me. I’ll be your guide for a memorable food extravaganza. When I’m done with you, you’ll never look at your sprout and tuna salad on flat bread the same way again.

Until then, I’ll remain Red Beans and Ricely yours,

Jeff