Blog

Taste a Little More Summer with an End-of-Summer Panzanella Salad

Posted in Family & Home on Fri, 09/10/2010 - 7:00am by Gabriela Lambert -

I don’t even want to say it out loud, for fear it will come true, but does any one else feel like summer is... gulp... over? These dreary days, these gusty winds, these cool temperatures speak of change, of autumn, of... double gulp... winter. Mother Nature has decided that this year, she’s going with the rip-off-the-band-aid approach to seasonal change and she’s not messing around.

Your CSA Box: Delectable Dips

Posted in Family & Home on Thu, 09/09/2010 - 7:00am by Kristin Boldon -

I opened my latest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box to find tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, onions, jalapeno...

You can see where this is going, right? Sometimes what to make with the ingredients inside that weekly (or bi-weekly) box is pretty obvious, and this box was shouting SALSA! I bought some Whole Grain Milling Company corn chips in preparation. Then I went to work.

Easy Tomato Salsa
(adapted from Cook's Illustrated)

(makes about one cup)

1/2 small jalapeño. Remove ribs to reduce heat. Wear gloves to cut by hand.

1/4 small onion, peeled, root removed

1 small garlic clove, minced

Is There Such as Thing as Seasonal Meat?

Posted in Farms & Gardens on Wed, 09/08/2010 - 7:00am by Elizabeth Millard -

As a proud member of the Ploughshare Farms CSA, I've gotten the hang of eating seasonally to some degree -- beet time still feels like a challenge, for example, and I always run out of preserved summer vegetables long before the last snow shoveling round. But lately, as I've been boosting the number of backyard barbecues, I've been wondering about a different type of seasonal eating. I began wondering: does meat have a season, too? Here's what I discovered in talking to farmers and a co-op manager: the answer is yes, but also no.

New Coffee Shop Helps Peace Coffee Tell Their Whole Story From Bean to Cup

Posted in Out & About on Tue, 09/07/2010 - 7:00am by lee -

When I heard that Minneapolis-based Peace Coffee would be opening their own coffee shop this fall, my first reaction was not overly enthusiastic. Apart from a select few, coffee shops are not known to be hugely profitable, and I feared this new venture would pull resources from one of my favorite local companies and drag it down. Peace Coffee has been growing its fair trade, organic, bike-delivered, coffee bean business for years. Why risk all that the company has worked for rather than simply add new accounts and products to their already successful model? When I got the chance to speak with Lee Wallace, Peace Coffee's CEO ("Queen Bean" on her business cards), it all made sense.

"The new coffee shop allows us to prepare our coffee the way we envision it when it comes out of the roaster," Lee tells me, "most roasters know roasting but not about being a barista, and most baristas don't know much about roasting."

Two Books Help Locavores Navigate What's Local and in Season

Posted in Books & Media on Mon, 09/06/2010 - 7:12am by Leslie Kruempel -

It’s the locavore’s dilemma: there’s a staggering amount of information out there these days on how to “eat local,” but the resources themselves aren’t necessarily fine-tuned to one’s particular locale. I may share similar principles with a local food lover in San Francisco, but we certainly do not share the same growing season or farmers markets. So if I prefer a tomato from my own backyard over one shipped halfway across the country, shouldn’t I also prefer a cookbook with local roots?

Best Fair Food: Peaches and Cream!

Posted in State Fair, Family & Home on Sat, 09/04/2010 - 7:00am by Kristin Boldon -

At Simple Good and Tasty this week, we're focusing on the 2010 Minnesota State Fair. So instead of recipes for your CSA box, I wanted to showcase one of the best new foods at the fair, the Peaches and Cream parfait from Salty Tart at the Produce Exchange booth, located across from the International Bazaar.

I first heard about it in July in this post by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl on the Dara & Co. blog at Minnesota Monthly's website:

Gifts From the Minnesota State Fair That Aren't Deep-Fried or on Sticks

Posted in State Fair, Out & About on Fri, 09/03/2010 - 7:00am by Tracy Morgan -

It’s often difficult to remember that the fair is about more than just food. Because, well, we quite like the food. Local, ethnically diverse and deep-fried qualities notwithstanding, we simply love the food at the state fair. And we all justify our indulgence with the knowledge that it’s just a one-time-a-year fling. Yet, there’s more to the fair than just food. So, what if we wanted to enjoy the fair more than just once a year?

Short of winning yourself a blue ribbon for a baked good or a prize hog, what else can you take home from the fair? Better yet, what kinds of gifts can you find that can deliver the essence of the fair to someone you love? I decided to poke around and find out. Here are my favorite food and food-related gifts to find at the Minnesota State Fair:

Please Come to Our Awesome Local Food Event September 21 at Barbette

Posted in Out & About on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 7:05am by lee -

Truth be told, we're having a little bit of a hard time over here figuring our what we're most excited about.

On the one hand, we're big fans of Barbette, a French-influenced restaurant owned by Kim Bartmann (who also owns the Red Stag Supper Club and Bryant Lake Bowl) that's been serving up delicious local food in Minneapolis' Uptown area for years.

On the other hand, we're also big fans of Fulton Beer, a Minneapolis brewery that's been wowing our taste buds since we were first introduced in 2009.