January 2011 | Simple, Good and Tasty

Generations of Fresh and Local Cooking

Posted in Family & Home, Recipes on Mon, 01/31/2011 - 8:00am by Merie Kirby -

One of my favorite rules to live by comes from Michael Pollan: Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Pollan’s advice is especially apt for me when I think about my own great-grandmother. Hilda Liljequist was born to immigrant Swedish parents in Boston in 1889. She attended the Boston Cooking School as a teenager, and took her first job as chef at a hotel in New Orleans. A few years later she made her way, by ship through the Panama Canal and by train, to a new job in Oakland, California, where she met and married my great-grandfather, a Scotch-Irish blacksmith from a Michigan farm who had actually run away and joined the circus as a youth. Later they moved to Los Angeles, when it was still possible to drive around the back roads of Hollywood, stopping to gather wild elderberries and pick oranges from a roadside grove.

WedgeShare Honors Food, Energy, and Community Organizations with 2010 Grants

Posted in Out & About on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 8:00am by lee -

Sometimes I wonder if the Wedge has been around for so long that we take it for granted. Yes, the co-op's selection is great. Yes, the co-op is community- and good-food-focused. Yes, they've been around since 1974, serving a diverse population of families, hipsters, activists, and more. We know that having the Wedge in our community makes us all better, but how often do we really think about it?

Last week, the Wedge did one of the great things that they've been doing for a while -- they gave a bunch of money to organizations that desperately need and completely deserve it. We're not taking these grants for granted.

The WedgeShare Charitable Giving Program

According to their press release:

At Book Club TONIGHT: The Amazing "Farmer Jane"

Posted in Book Club, Recipes on Thu, 01/27/2011 - 10:14am by Tracy Morgan -

New year, good intentions, resolutions. So, how are YOU doing?

Nearly a month into 2011, I’m thinking a bit about the intentions I had way back at the start of the new year (experiment with more vegan recipes, eat more veggies in general, and understand more about the food system and related politics), and checking in with myself on how things are going. One of the best things about working with food on a daily basis is that I don’t have to make an excuse to set aside time for these things. With little effort, I can get right to the core of the subject.

Exploring Philippine Farmers' Markets with an Eye Towards the Twin Cities

Posted in News & Views, Out & About on Wed, 01/26/2011 - 8:00am by Tracey Paska -

After my husband and I sold our house and moved across the globe to the Philippines last October, I braced myself for missing so many things in Minnesota: strolls through the Landscape Arboretum for spring garden inspiration; summer bike rides along lakeshores and wooded trails; weekend excursions to view autumn foliage; and, yes, even winter, for outdoor ice skating and hot cocoa breaks. Most of all, I would miss seeing the seasons change at my favorite Twin Cities farmers' markets. From morel mushrooms in May, to juicy berries in July and crisp parsnips in October, the amazing produce and products offered at these markets taught me the joys of eating fresh, local, and seasonal food.

Channel Your Inner Parisian: Buy Local Food, Savor It, Drink Good Wine

Posted in Out & About on Tue, 01/25/2011 - 8:00am by Katy Radtke -

Paris is a stunning city. The architecture is amazing, with such famous structures as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe; the art is overwhelmingly beautiful, with more museums than a person could possibly desire; and the food is absolutely to die for, with patisseries and cheese shops scattering the city. It is a place that, in my opinion, everybody should have the pleasure of exploring at least once.

How I Became a Minnesota Pineapple Farmer

Posted in Farms & Gardens on Mon, 01/24/2011 - 8:00am by Debbie Morrison -

Ten years ago, my husband and I escaped the January cold and spent a week in Costa Rica. We stayed at a beautiful but rustic lodge on the edge of the jungle, where the kitchen staff spoiled us with scrumptious meals made from the many local foods. Every meal was served with large chunks of fresh, juicy pineapple, and I couldn’t get enough of it. Perhaps it was the surrounding rainforest, or the sounds of birds, animals, and ocean waves on the beach that accentuated my pineapple-eating experience, but whatever the reason, I fell in love with fresh Costa Rican pineapples.

But all vacations must come to an end, and we were soon home in snowy Minnesota. Still in that post-vacation glow when I headed to town to stock up on staples, I was delighted to see that our local grocery store had pineapples on special. I bought four and looked forward to once again having fresh pineapple with every meal.

Egg|Plant Urban Farm Supply Helps City Folk Grow Their Own Food

Posted in Farms & Gardens, Out & About on Fri, 01/21/2011 - 8:00am by Mary Jo Koplos -

When I see a 3/50 project sign in a store window, I know that I have the opportunity to support a small, local, independent business. (The 3/50 project encourages consumers to pick 3 independent businesses that they would miss if they were suddenly gone and commit to trying to spend $50 per month at one of those businesses or others like them.) Just such a sign greeted me when I stopped in at Egg|Plant Urban Farm Supply for the first time.

My original trip to Egg|Plant was to pay for a class about using my new Pickl-It lacto-fermentation jars that I got through a group buy with some friends. That was when I met Audrey Matson, one of the store’s owners.

The Results of Our Reader Survey Are In!

Posted in News & Views on Thu, 01/20/2011 - 8:00am by lee -

Over the past month, Simple, Good, and Tasty conducted our first ever reader survey. Of the nearly 100 people who completed the survey, almost 90% of you interact with SGT in more than one way - reading articles, coming to events, following us on Twitter or Facebook, subscribing to our RSS feed, and more. First of all, thank you! I was thrilled to hear from so many of you directly, and I appreciate you taking the time to help us make the site better and better. After nearly two years of posts, events, book clubs, and more -- and hundreds of thousands of interactions -- I'd say that this exercise was long overdue.

Vegetarianism, the Meat Man, and Life Lessons With My Daughter

Posted in Out & About on Wed, 01/19/2011 - 8:00am by Levi Weinhagen -

My four-year-old daughter Irene and I love "the meat man" at Seward Co-op in Minneapolis. It doesn't matter that the meat and seafood counter is run by manager Chris Dick and several other smart and skilled folks (we know Mike best); to the little miss and me, anyone standing behind that counter is “the meat man.” As member/owners at Seward, our family does our weekly grocery shopping there. A consistent highlight of these adventures is the time we spend looking at -- and talking about -- the various meat products on display.

Feeding the Family: Two Weeknight Winter Suppers

Posted in Family & Home on Tue, 01/18/2011 - 8:00am by Kristin Boldon -

Winter in general -- and this cold, extra-snowy one in particular -- calls for warm, filling food. Slow-cooked, warm food is ideal, but most people I know don't have the time or energy for it on a busy weeknight. Many of us agree that any fresh food is better than packaged food, yet faced with a blank slate for supper and kids crying, "I'm hungry!" it's no wonder we throw up our hands and reach for a box of mac and cheese. (My kids like the Back to Nature kind, from Madison, Wisconsin.)