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Come See Us in Eden Prairie Today - Register for Tickets to Anthony Bourdain on Friday

UPDATE: Congratulations to our winner, Marie Pidde! We hope you had fun.

The weather in the Twin Cities today is forecasted to be sunny and warm. Fine. Spend your morning outside doing whatever it is you're compelled to do on a beautiful Sunday in April, but save the afternoon for us: your friends at Simple, Good and Tasty.

We're going to be at the Eden Prairie Community Center for the Eat Local Eden Prairie Fair and we'd love to see you. We'll be doing a coloring contest for the kids, selling Local Food Lover cards to the grown-ups, and extolling the virtues of local food to anyone who stops by. And in case you need an additional incentive to spend an hour or two indoors with us, we're giving away two tickets to see Anthony Bourdain when he comes to the Minneapolis this Friday.

Bourdain is executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles in New York City; host of the Travel Network's "No Reservations;" author of several books about food and restaurants, including bestseller Kitchen Confidential; and brash, outspoken critic of the local food movement, calling it, among other things, "annoying." During an interview last year with DCist, he said this: "We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market." And this: "Alice Waters annoys the living shit out of me." Several months later, during a panel discussion with Ms. Waters herself, as well as celebrity pastry chef Duff Goldman (see clip, below), Bourdain said "I'm a chef, not your dietician or your ethicist. I'm in the pleasure business."  But during the same discussion, he also admitted that he feeds his two-year-old daughter organic milk "at $7.78 a gallon! -- compared to $4.78 a gallon for non-organic!" And then added: "And that's something we dismiss or mimimize at our peril."

Watch this six-minute clip and you'll see that much of Bourdain's criticism, though brash and sometimes even rude, raises valid points about the perceived eliticism of local/organic food, from the point of view of a chef and a father who admits that he recognizes and appreciates its advantages and benefits.

 

 

Bourdain is appearing at the State Theater in Minneapolis this Friday, April 23, at 8:00 p.m. as part of the Hennepin Theater Trust Living Legends series. So don't miss your chance to win a pair of tickets to his show just by coming to the Simple, Good and Tasty table today, April 18, at the Eden Prairie Eat Local Fair from 1:00-4:00 p.m. at the Eden Prairie Community Center, 16700 Valley View Road, Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Admission is free.

Shari Manolas Danielson is editorial director at Simple, Good and Tasty. Her last piece for SGT was Observations from a School Lunch with My Kids -- And the Cook Manager. You can write to her at shari@simplegoodandtasty.com.