Simple, Good, and Tasty exists to promote local, sustainable, and organic foods and the people who produce them. Simple, Good, and Tasty is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Why Simple, Good, and Tasty?
The way our culture views food says a lot about what we value. At Simple, Good, and Tasty, we value:
- Health - Local, organic food helps us live longer, healthier lives.
- Fun - Sustainable food is fun to eat and makes us happy. Good food is an experience and an exploration. We love to grow, eat, and cook our own food.
- Community - Eating with people forces us to slow down and appreciate each other. We also love to explore new restaurants, food, and people.
- Inclusiveness - Sustainable, organic food should be accessible to everyone. Every single locally grown meal makes a difference to our lives and our environment. Simple, Good, and Tasty is for people who are “in the know,” but also for people who just want to learn more, and might be exploring the very basics.
- Time - Good food is worth the time it takes to grow, to prepare, and to eat.
- Money - Local, sustainable food can be more expensive to produce because it takes time, and because the people who grow it earn a living wage. Good food is absolutely worth the extra money.
- Taste - We will never trade delicious foods for healthy ones. We’re convinced we can have both.
Meet the Team
Core Team:
Lee Zukor - Instigator
Lee eats too much, and not always what’s good for him. In fact, he once went to the dentist because he sprained his jaw eating gummy worms. Since starting Simple, Good, and Tasty, Lee has traded non-dairy creamer for Organic Valley half-and-half, and roadside jerky for Minnesota’s local Big Bull. He still loves Vietnamese food.
Lee has more than 15 years of experience creating great user experiences, developing terrific products, and managing high-performing teams. He has held management and executive positions at Best Buy, Target.com, Accenture, Wize.com, and Bewiki.com.
You can reach Lee at lee@simplegoodandtasty.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/leezukor.
Molly Nutting & Stephen Eisenmenger
Stephen and Molly are the husband and wife team behind fivefivefour, LLC, a website development services company in business since 2004.
Stephen started his Information Technology career when dinosaurs and mainframes running COBOL applications roamed the Earth. What's a mainframe? Exactly! Molly likes to talk about "being here" right now with what's happening on the web with the latest tools, techniques and trends. 65,000,000 years is a lot of background when 8 years of internet time seem to have done just fine thank you very much.
Stephen and Molly are recovering vegetarians. It just seemed silly at some point to eat only vegetarian food when some of that was processed to the hilt, and there was a local, sustainably- and humanely-raised turkey there for the taking (well, purchasing).
In 2005, Stephen and Molly hit it big in the media with a spoof they did of the USDA's MyPyramid.
Stephen and Molly tend a 1/5 acre urban farm in Minneapolis, although some of the farm land is taken up by their house, the sidewalks and the garage. They do enjoy gardening and teaching their 2-year-old son how to nurture nature. Their favorite food is local and organic.
Mark Zukor - Website Designer
Mark is a freelance art director and graphic designer (and Lee’s brother) who’s created everything from ad campaigns to websites for companies like UPS, Olympus, Best Buy, British Airways, US Bank, and Honeywell. Before going solo, Mark worked at some of the country's best agencies, and also taught creativity classes to advertising students.
While eating is one of his favorite pastimes (it runs in the family), he's learning to make better choices and appreciate the value of quality local, sustainable food. Plus, with the help of his wife, a professional cook and caterer, he not only can identify the ingredients in a pesto sauce, but can also correctly tell the difference between tarragon and rosemary. (He still lets her do all the cooking, though.) Since his brother Lee started SGT, Mark's food IQ has expanded to include such things as CSAs, sunchokes, and ramps.
You can find more of Mark’s work at www.markzukor.com.
Contributors:
Shari Danielson - Writer
Shari’s favorite food is an organic heirloom tomato freshly picked from her backyard garden, still warm from the sun; sliced horizontally into five segments, each one topped with one whole basil leaf, also just picked, and a thin strip of mozzarella di bufala; drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and finished with a sprinkling of sea salt. Her favorite restaurant in the Twin Cities is the one that most recently hosted a Simple Good and Tasty dinner. Her favorite restaurant "up north" is The Angry Trout. Her favorite restaurant in the entire universe is Chez Panisse -- but she’s never actually eaten there.
Shari's a writer, editor, information designer, marketing consultant, fitness instructor, wife, mother, dog guardian, daughter, sister and friend. Her career used to be centered around marketing communications, public relations, advertising and promotion; but lately, she’s been more focused on helping people make more informed food choices, live healthier lives, and treat the world and its inhabitants with more respect.
She has her own website, by the way -- www.writingblindly.com -- but with all the work Lee has her doing for Simple Good and Tasty, don’t expect it to be updated too frequently.
Stuart Flake - Designer (logo)
As a kid, Stuart spent his days doodling after class. As a professional designer, Stuart’s sketches and ideas now spark creative innovation for some of the most recognized brands in the world.
From Disney, to Target, Best Buy, Nintendo, Aveda and more, Stuart has a knack for turning creative inspiration into brilliant designs and business-generating results.
Stuart graduated from the Art Center College of Design with a degree in Graphic Design and Packaging, and spent the next 14 years contributing award-winning design at agencies like Cahan & Associates in San Francisco and both Little & Company and FAME in Minneapolis. With over 18 years of retail, corporate, consumer and packaging design experience, Stuart can talk design and marketing strategy with the best of them. But he’d rather just draw you a picture.
You can reach Stuart at What Agency
Kristen Meinzer - Writer
Kristen is a Brooklyn-based writer who was raised in Minneapolis, MN. Her work has appeared in a number of print and online publications, as well as on The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, VH1, and other networks. She is currently a planning producer with CBS News Productions and a contributing writer to YourTango.com. Additionally, she is the publisher of
TheYearOfAsking.com, an online journal that chronicles her attempts to receive something everyday, and receive it for free, for an entire year.
Kristen makes no claims of being a foodie or a food expert. She does, however, embark on at least one new culinary adventure a week and date the son of an organic dairy farmer/sustainable food activist. Also, she proudly admits to eating more than just about anyone else she knows, primarily in the form of carbohydrates.
Tracy Morgan, Contributor
Tracy is a Twin Cities-based food fan who has slid off the corporate ladder and is dabbling in a life full of passions. Most critical to this adventure, she is the owner of Segnavia Creative, a marketing and business development company specializing in growth and start up businesses. She loves applying vision, creativity, and a fresh perspective to help entrepreneurs, business leaders, and individuals find their way forward. She couldn’t be happier to have found her own way forward … and out of the cube farm.
A gourmet-ish cook, Tracy loves food, throwing a great party, and everything to do with traveling and dining out. She supports her local farmers’ market, plays with her juicer, eats lots of veggies, walks often, saves scraps for her mom’s compost pile, and dives deep into the vintage and antique resale business - all of which she frequently writes about on her blog.
Tracy is equally into yoga, health food and champagne.
Alex Christensen - Content
Alex is lucky to have grown up surrounded by great food, the son of parents who put in their time at Valley Natural Foods. This is where Alex thinks he picked up his love of all kinds of pork (especially bacon), coffee, pastries, and fruits and veggies - and his distaste for additives, preservatives, and artificial colors.
Alex lives in Burnsville, MN, but spends the school year studying economics and political science at Washington University in St. Louis. In the fall of 2009, Alex will be living and going to school in Dublin at Trinity College.
Alex is an enthusiastic soccer player and referee, a proficient bass player, and a serious music fan. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Kate Sommers - Photographer
Kate is a full time foodie and wine snob, a part-time wedding photographer, an aspiring blogger, and a newlywed. She works for a "National Chain of Neighborhood Grocery Stores" but refuses to name any names. You can find more of Kate’s terrific images at http://imagespetites.blogspot.com.
Advisors:
Scott Danielson, Chief Experience Architect, Idea Couture Inc.
Scott brings a unique combination of experience, education, and ability to Simple, Good, and Tasty. His professional experience includes documentary filmmaker, award-winning creative director, user-experience design pioneer, Internet-entrepreneur, literary translator, jazz drummer, and teacher; his education spans studies at NYU, Syracuse, University of Minnesota, Wharton, La Sorbonne, and Atheneum Ede-Wageningen in the Netherlands.
Scott is known for transforming obstacles into solutions, concepts into reality, and investments into returns. This combination has earned him more than 100 awards for product design, marketing, promotion and packaging. Scott convinced a conservative board of directors, in 1995, to fund a visionary initiative called Prodigy Internet (the first Internet online service), and has led C-suite initiatives for AOL, IBM, ESPN, NBC, HBO, Microsoft, PBS, QVC, TNTAsia, AARPHealth, and UnitedHealth.
Tracy Singleton, owner, The Birchwood Café
Tracy has worked in restaurants since she was 14, including a stint at Lucia’s before opening the Birchwood Café in 1995. Over the past 14 years, Tracy has grown the Birchwood Café into a community treasure and a popular destination for people all over the country who love good real food. She’s done this, in part, by working closely with area farms to make local, sustainable food the focus of her life and business.
Tracy’s love of “local, fresh, healthy food” is evident in the food she serves, the community she’s built, and the reputation she’s earned. She is actively involved in Mayor Rybak’s Minneapolis Homegrown food initiative and is a Board member of the Seward Civic Commerce Association (SCCA). Tracy was named one of Mpls/St. Paul Magazine’s 2007 restaurateurs of the year, and was recently named one of the Star Tribune’s 50 People, Products, and Places that make the Twin Cities great for people who love to eat.
Tracy is a proud Mom, an avid cyclist, a passionate dog lover (she has 3), and a Yoga addict. She likes frosting (especially cream cheese frosting) more than cake.
