featherstone farm

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.

For years, I would see a vegetable like okra or mustard greens in a grocery store and imagine what it would be like to make a delicious meal with such exotic ingredients. I was constantly promising myself that next week I would find recipes to fulfill my culinary fantasies. But as the weeks passed, it became obvious that I needed something else to get my creativity going. Fortunately, my fiancé knows me incredibly well, and he gave me a CSA subscription as a gift.

There’s nothing typical about Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables, located in Rushford Vilage, Minnesota.

I love vegetables. My family and friends make fun of me, but when I look at their kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, they delight my senses in ways I can’t explain. So imagine my joy when I opened my CSA box yesterday and pulled out this Romanesco cauliflower!

Now I’m a registered dietitian and have been touting the benefits of eating your veggies for years, but I had never seen anything like this fluorescent green head of swirling spirals. I actually squealed with surprise when I pulled it out of the box. My husband and daughter came running to see what all the excitement was about. They both burst out laughing when they saw the thrilled look on my face, although you’d think they would be used to my exclamations by now.

Last night's Simple, Good, and Tasty local food event at Lucia's was truly amazing. Sure, there was the menu, created by Lucia Watson herself and perfectly executed in every way. And there was the great service, attentive and generous. There was the opportunity to meet and mingle with an astounding collection of people, just over 60 of us in total. There was the beautiful setting, the terrific organic wine, and the t-shirts that Lucia sent us all home with that said, "We know our Farmers better than we know our Doctors."  But what really made the night so especially fulfilling wasn't any of that.

It was the farmers.

I can't remember an event I've been as excited about as the one I'm co-hosting with Lucia Watson this Sunday, 10/11. The Twin Cities' first official "Know Your Farmer" event, fittingly held at Lucia's, is a chance to meet - and eat with - some of the best, most interesting farmers in our state. Even better, Lucia has designed a menu entrely from the foods these farmers have produced.