For the second time this month, I spent the day in a local 8th grade classroom talking about my travels in Vietnam.

The kids were all world geography students and they were eager to see photographs from a land so far away. And yet they were able to pick out things in my photography collection that reminded them of home.

This shot of me eating a Vietnamese version of pineapple on a stick got a big reaction each time it flashed on the screen, revealing the true colors of all the kids in the class: They were Minnesotans.

A true Minnesotan knows all about food on a stick.

Wonder why? You obviously haven’t been to the Minnesota State Fair.