Blog

What's Your Family Food Plan For the Summer?

Posted in Family & Home, News & Views on Wed, 05/26/2010 - 7:11am by lee -

Although I spend a lot of my time thinking and writing about good food, I'm pretty inconsistent when it comes to what I actually do. When my (then) three-year-old boy went on a calcium strike, for example, I caved in after about four minutes and made him chocolate milk. When my daughter pouted instead of getting dressed for school, I offered a piece of candy as motivation to speed things up. When I picked the kids up from school, I'd bring lollipops and crackers. When I had a rough day at work, I'd reward myself with a piece of ice cream pie.

I'm writing about these things in the past tense because I'm committed to change. Summer's coming, and my strategy of doling out treats in order to keep people happy needs to change. It will change.

“Money is Not a Game” – Woody Tasch Offers a Different Way to Think, Behave and Invest

Posted in News & Views on Mon, 05/24/2010 - 9:53pm by Shari Danielson -

I’m a firm believer in the power of the marketplace, that every dollar we spend on food is a binary vote: either FOR an agriculture system that makes our bodies, our communities, and our environment healthier, or AGAINST it.

A Sugar by Any Other Name Would Taste as Sweet

Posted in Family & Home, Health, Recipes on Sun, 05/23/2010 - 10:10pm by Kristin Boldon -

Sugar is enjoying a resurgence in popularity after years of being vilified for empty calories and its role in things like tooth decay, obesity and diabetes. As the negative effects of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have become better known, sugar's profile has risen. Cane sugar, as opposed to cheaper beet sugar, has especially benefited from HFCS's bad press; it is actually being touted as a healthful ingredient. Yet cane and beet sugars are highly processed, refined and provide no nutritional value. Other, less refined, sweeteners have some benefits that sugar doesn't. Yet nearly all of them raise blood sugar, and have little nutritive value. So why bother?

Kid-Friendly Meals: It's All About Packaging

Posted in Family & Home on Sat, 05/22/2010 - 9:46pm by Kelly Lester -

I think most people associate the term “kid-friendly” with bright colors. A kid-friendly party would have a clown in a neon costume. A kid-friendly park would have some kind of large climbing apparatus painted in blinding primary colors.

To me, however, kid-friendly is the color white. As in a white flag. As in “I surrender.” The most kid-friendly item in our house is, of course, the TV; when a kid is in front of it watching a show with say, a bright purple dinosaur, it’s a reminder of the fact that I’ve simply given up for half an hour.

Galactic Pizza Event: Out of This World

Posted in Out & About on Sat, 05/22/2010 - 6:36am by lee -

Photo of Pete Bonahoom (right) and Lee Zukor (left) by Arif MamdaniThanks to our friends, families, and community for coming out to play at Galactic Pizza in Minneapolis on Thursday night. We ate well, shared stories, and (some of us) went home with tasty prizes from Equal Exchange, Peace Coffee, and SGT.

"Yards to Gardens" Matches Gardeners to Land Owners

Posted in Farms & Gardens on Thu, 05/20/2010 - 10:02pm by Amy Thielen -

Yards to Gardens (or Y2G) might just the most benevolent site in the web universe. Essentially, it functions as a matchmaker between people who want to garden but don’t have the space, and those who have the space, but not the time. (It also puts people who want chicken manure in contact with those who have it, and gives room to shout to those who are trying to give away extra seeds and clay pots, but more on that later.)

I say it’s benevolent because the founders of Y2G know that it’s just not right to let someone suffer with an unfulfilled primal urge to dig in the dirt. (They just want to grow things!) The purity of their sentiment is matched by the other side of the coin: people who have yards and gardening space and just want to see it put to good use.

The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove

Posted in Books & Media on Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:26pm by Elizabeth Roca -

Cathy Erway’s first memoir, The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove, is the kind that includes recipes at the end of each chapter. Well it might: Erway spent two years cooking nearly every meal she ate, avoiding both restaurants and takeout food, and recording her experience at her blog, Not Eating Out in NY. This memoir shares what she learned during those two years, intertwining kitchen discoveries and personal revelations and including a thoughtful assessment of the state of eating out in America.

There's A Lot to Celebrate at The Black Forest Inn

Posted in Out & About on Tue, 05/18/2010 - 3:16pm by Gabriela Lambert -

Before I begin, I feel obligated to disclose that I’m writing this under the hypnotic effects of a deliriously delicious bratwurst dinner. Having said that, I’m here to proclaim that I am, once again, officially in love with The Black Forest Inn. I say “again” because I used to love The Black Forest Inn back in my twenties, when I had a gaggle of single friends and the thrust of a weekend day revolved around deciding where to go for a bleary-eyed brunch or an afternoon beer, or two or three. I have fond memories of wiling away the afternoon in the gorgeous beer garden at The Black Forest, drinking weiss beers and sharing crispy potato pancakes with my buddies, by turns immersed in the earnest debates, uproarious laughter or funky silences of post college life. And then I grew up. I moved away, got married, had some babies and moved back.