Time to call your buddy in Bismarck

TFS is making a play for the Great Plains

The Food Section’s official signup stats for the last 90 days.

As paid subscribers who last week read my drinking guide to the South’s area codes know, I’m a completist. “One-and-done” means nothing to me.

So, I was disappointed to see a gaping hole in Substack’s new Audience Insights map, which shows where a newsletter’s readers live. Until the company unveiled this feature, I didn’t have a clue if my subscribers were clustered in Pakistan or Japan.

(It turns out I have readers in both places, but most of The Food Section’s paying subscribers come from South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, in that order, with New York and Virginia following behind.)

According to the geographic data, I’ve gone three months without picking up any readers in Wyoming, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. I’m also missing readers in New Hampshire and Alaska, but the former is tiny, and the latter is pictured separately from the Lower 48, so I can live with those gray zones.

This is probably the only time you’ll see lutefisk, pennekjott, and rommegrot in The Food Section/ Photo by John Croft/Star Tribune via Getty Images

The northern Great Plains, though? That’s a void no self-respecting checklist keeper can ignore.

Still, I think we can clear up this little map blemish. Appropriately enough for that part of the country, through the end of February, I’m offering a bounty:

If you buy a gift subscription for someone in one of the six missing states—or persuade someone in those places to become a paid subscriber—I’ll extend your subscription by six months. That offer stands even if you’re a Sioux Falls resident upgrading your own status from free to paid.

¹

Granted, this isn’t the easiest of tasks. There are fewer than 5 million people in Wyoming, Nebraska, and the Dakotas combined, so our prospects are limited. But if it helps any, you can tell your friends on the fence that I’ve really enjoyed my time in their state.

After all, I’ve visited all 50.

Photo by Jeff R. Clow via Getty Images

Have a great weekend!

Take care,

Hanna

1. Substack still only releases home state information in aggregate, so if you believe you’re eligible for the six-month prize, you’ll have to email me to claim it: readthefoodsection@gmail.com