local food minnesota

Has it really been a year? Today Daniel Klein's the Perennial Plate series releases video number 52, officially completing a full year of weekly videos featuring Minnesota foods, producers, recipes, and farms. Many of Daniel's terrific videos, which cover topics from hunting and eating squirrels to making ice cream in the snow, have been posted all over the web -- on the Huffington Post, Grist, and right here on SGT.

Last week I wrote a post on reasons to eat locally-sourced foods. While writing that article, it occurred to me that there are also good reasons not to eat local food. Oftentimes the “local” label is applied liberally to refer to food grown on small-scale farms who produce according to organic and sustainable principles. But really, “local” just means grown and/or processed within a certain radius of where you live.

Simple, Good, and Tasty's Local Food Lover program has been getting a lot of good press.

In January of this year, Rachel Hutton from the City Pages wrote:

"It's 25 days into 2010 and you've already taken up a kettlebells routine and finished that novel--but what have you done to incorporate more sustainable eats into your diet? Simple, Good, and Tasty can get you started with its new Local Food Lover card, which offers discounts on local food and beverage from restaurants and retailers around the metro."

In February, Alexis McKinnis from the terrific Girl Friday blog wrote:

Photo credit: Erincooks.comMy family celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas, and with today being the first day of Hanukkah, I can practically fry a potato - or a sweet potato - in my mind. I've often wondered how the ancient Jews in Israel knew that I'd be wanting to serve up seasonal food in Minnesota this time of year. Proof that God exists? You tell me.

"There aren't very many good frozen potstickers," Rashmi Bhattachan tells me. I don't disagree. But when I bite into one of her new beef momos, filled with Thousand Hills Cattle Company ground beef, I don't care about potstickers. I just want more of Rashmi's delicious, warm pockets of Nepalese goodness. These tasty momos, seasoned with traditional Himalayan spices (cumin, coriander, garlic, and ginger) and served with a tomato based chutney, disappear quickly in my belly. I think I've eaten four of them before I stop to take a sip of my mango lassi.

Here are a few photos from last night's Simple, Good, and Tasty local food event at Lucia's, taken by my talented friend Kate Sommers. (Our recap of the event can be found here.) Kate's blog Les Petites Images features photos and musings, mostly focused on food. For the complete set of photos from last night's event, please see our flicker photo series.

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.