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After years of living in a city, I find myself a bit confused about what to do with the backyard in my new rural home. How do I maximize the space to provide myself with local food in the truest sense of the word? First, I sketched a plan for a garden, which was easy after a seven-month gig working on an organic vegetable farm. But I’m not a vegan, so I find myself wanting more.

For years, I’ve tracked blog posts and articles battling out the pros and cons of backyard chickens. Plus, I learned how to take care of chickens myself during my time on the farm last year. So I decided that the missing piece in my plan for a backyard farm is chickens.

The cheese available in the United States has changed dramatically in the past decade. From coast to coast, the quantity and quality of locally made cheese has increased, and so has our interest in sampling new and different types. From Brebis (sheep’s milk cheese) to Chêvre (goat’s milk cheese), and from a triple cream to a Tomme, we are wide open to new tastes and textures; but we may not be up to speed when it comes to taking care of this fragile food.

To be able to fully enjoy the flavors of a cheese it needs be stored properly and served at the right temperature. Those delicate wheels, wedges, blocks and logs that have been carefully coaxed to ripened perfection and are teeming with beneficial microorganisms that deserve better treatment than in your fridge and on your counter.

I'm exhausted and full, and my throat hurts. And yet, somehow, Simple, Good, and Tasty's February local food event at Grand Cafe last night was just perfect.

Maybe it was the beautiful restaurant that made the night so special - wooden and warm, with strings of lights and lovely paintings on the walls. Maybe it was the food - an exceptional cassoulet prepared with locally raised duck from Au Bon Canard and house made sausage by Grand Cafe's chef Jon Radle; a delicious salad with beets, walnuts, and chevre; and an astoundingly good ginger bread pudding with orange compote and caramel cream. Maybe it was the fact that Simple, Good, and Tasty was celebrating a full year's worth of blog posts, directory listings, and events connecting Minnesotans to our food sources. But my guess is that it wasn't any of these things.