September 2012

DIY Craft Cocktails: Make Your Own Simple Syrup

There's a ridiculous secret underlying the current revolution in cocktail culture: it's actually almost impossible to make a bad drink (especially if bourbon is involved). All that's really required is balance: a strong, tactile, clean note of alcohol, finished with interesting side currents of bitterness, sugar, or salt. A successful drink should land loudly but end quietly on the palate.

Read more »

Event Recap: Farm in the Cities 2012

This past Sunday night, if you had walked into the ballroom on the third-floor of Solera Restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, the first thing you would have seen was meat. Four kinds of meat, to be precise – coppa, dry cured ham, black-pepper sausage, and fennel sausage – all made by Mike Phillips of Three Sons Butchers in Northeast Minneapolis. An entire table of meat, enough to feed the several hundred people who had turned out for the second-annual Farm in the Cities benefit dinner. And after the meat, the next thing you would have seen would have been the chefs, many decked out in their whites, ringing the table and joking around as they arranged the twenty-something butcher boards of charcuterie.

 

Read more »

Farm To Fork, A CSA Series: Warming Recipes For Fall

This is part 7 of a summer long series about our CSA boxes and what we do with them. Recipes for Citrus Beet Salad, Stuffed Peppers, German Sausage Chowder, and Apple, Cheddar, and Walnut Quick Bread follow. 

 

It’s finally starting to feel like fall in Fargo.

 

Read more »

Event Preview: Food + Justice = Democracy

If you are on any type of local food listserv in Minnesota, you’ve received an invitation, or two, or ten to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Food + Justice = Democracy national meeting, convening September 24 -26 in downtown Minneapolis.

IATP’s goals for the convergence are lofty; the conference is billed as a national meeting to change the food justice narrative, where “participants will co-create a national food justice platform to push our government and our political leaders to prioritize a fair, just and healthy food system.”

Read more »

Hunting for Dinner: Squirrel Hunting with Mom (and Fried Squirrel n' Waffles)

It’s amazing to me how loud a single leaf falling through the canopy of a forest can be. As I sit quietly in the woods on this September morning, I again notice how loud sounds can be in the forest. It is early in the morning on Saturday, September 15th – the day of the small game opener in Minnesota – and I am sitting in the woods about fifteen minutes south of Burnsville with my newest hunting partner.


Read more »

Event Preview: Second-Annual Farm in the Cities at Solera Restaurant

This weekend, a collection of all-star Twin Cities chefs and farmers will be coming together for a good cause. Spearheaded by Jorge Guzman, the executive chef at Solera Restaurant, the second-annual Farm in the Cities event highlights the true meaning of farm-to-table dining, all while benefiting a good cause.

 

Read more »

A Minnesota Canning Bee: How to Host a Home Canning Party

Two years ago on a sunny Saturday morning in October, my husband and I pulled up to a church in North Minneapolis with a flyer, some produce from our garden, and a carload of anticipation. Earlier that week, a friend had forwarded directions to a canning bee for anyone brand new to canning. There was one typed line in the email: “This sooo sounds like the crazy stuff you’re always trying!”

 

My friends know me well; I called right away to register for the last two spots in the canning bee. From 9:30 am to 5:30 pm that day, our group of 10 quietly listened and scribbled down the canning expert’s notes, poked our heads over steaming pots of pickles and salsas, and had silly full-teeth grins every time we pulled a jar from the hot water bath.

Read more »

The Latin Tongue: Nacho's Supermercado

What would you do if you heard about a place called Nacho's in the suburbs? Not a chance right? Sounds like someone's excuse to serve monstrous plates of high calorie, cheese smothered food. Now, what if all you did was add the word Supermercado. Nacho's Supermercado. Ok, I suppose it sounds a bit like a joke, but it is real and it is in downtown Hopkins. We simply could not resist checking it out because nothing about the name and location made sense. I was careful not to research it so that our surprise would be complete. What we found, was definitely a surprise, in more ways than one. 

 

Were there nachos? Nope. Was it a supermercado? Not really. Did they have a tortilla press, excellent barbacoa and three types of tamales? Well, of course. Lucky us…again.

 

Read more »

SGT September Book Club: How Food Affects Health and Wellness

Now that the weather is turning cooler and school is back in session, the SGT Book Club is back, with not one but two books. In Minneapolis, the book club will be discussing Marion Nestle’s Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition & Health; in Bemidji, the book club will be discussing David Agus’s The End of Illness.

 

Meetings are open to all, whether you finish the whole book or just have fresh ideas about our food or health system that you want to discuss. So come on out and join us for a lively discussion!

 

Read more »

Globally Aware: Learning About Food Issues from Another Hemisphere, Part 4

In my life, I have access to everything I need and want and more. I often go through my day without thinking about this privilege, easily fulfilling my daily desires: moving from the food coop or farmer’s market to the drugstore to the gas station to the post office, all within minutes of my home. Having just spent a year living in South America, away from all of these conveniences, I have gained a renewed and humbling appreciation for all that I have in America. As a middle class, white American, I experience an access and abundance that is quite extraordinary. In Minneapolis, I also have the good fortune of working as a public health nutrition educator and cooking instructor. Much of my work aims to improve the access and ultimately the health of other Americans who, for a variety of reasons have less ease within the system.

 

Read more »