Local Food

Over the past month, Simple, Good, and Tasty conducted our first ever reader survey. Of the nearly 100 people who completed the survey, almost 90% of you interact with SGT in more than one way - reading articles, coming to events, following us on Twitter or Facebook, subscribing to our RSS feed, and more. First of all, thank you! I was thrilled to hear from so many of you directly, and I appreciate you taking the time to help us make the site better and better. After nearly two years of posts, events, book clubs, and more -- and hundreds of thousands of interactions -- I'd say that this exercise was long overdue.

Organic Valley has a new feature on their website that lets you find out who your farmers are. By entering your zip code, you can get a list of the family farms in order from closest to farthest from your location (including mileage to a tenth of a mile) that are members of the Organic Valley Coop. The new feature, “Who’s Your Farmer?”, is part of the company’s effort to showcase their farms and make the local-ness of their products more visible. (You may have also noticed your local farmers pictured on your milk cartons, another effort to bring Organic Valley farms into customers’ homes.)

In preparation for this New Year's blog post, I went back and read what I wrote last year at this time. (If you haven't read it yet, Shari's terrific, extensive 2010 good food recap from last week is well worth your time.) I'm the kind of guy who holds himself accountable, and I'm not about to make a bunch of new resolutions without seeing how I did on the old ones. Here are last year's New Year's resolutions, along my my own view on how we did: 

The Roman god Janus, for whom January is named, has two faces: one looking forward, the other back. He represents gates and doorways. Beginnings and endings. Transitions. He’s also credited with introducing agriculture to the early Romans.

See why I chose him to symbolize SGT’s year-end retrospective on food?

As far as food is concerned, 2010 was a particular two-faced year. There was noteworthy progress in the fight for a more sustainable and humane food system, but also some crushing setbacks. This past year, food was used as a political football. A weapon. Even a scapegoat. But just as often, food was a means of self-expression, a way to communicate values and priorities, an invitation to see things with a different perspective. A chance to make a real difference.

What are your most significant food memories of 2010? We hope SGT helped shape at least some of them for you. Here’s a partial list of our own to get you started on your trip down memory lane:

Whether it be the vibrant yolk of "this morning's eggs," produce fresh from the field, or the treat of that summer's raspberry jam on a cold winter day, local food is something that enhances life in Minnesota all year round. But more than simply bringing enjoyment to our lives, our food choices can also have meaning beyond the plate, as evidenced by the ever-growing Meatless Monday campaign.

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.

 A little over a month ago, an op-ed in the New York Times got the online locavore community all worked up. Stephen Budiansky’s “Math Lessons for Locavores” contended that many of the commonly-spouted arguments for eating local are misleading or downright bogus.

A couple of weeks ago, when my kids brought home their school cafeteria’s lunch menu, I noticed a couple of interesting items. First, the menu now noted the number of calories in every item served, from pizza to carrot sticks. My eight-year-old twin daughter and son and my seven-year old daughter are a bit young to appreciate the idea of measuring the amount of energy food provides; but it’s important to know, and I’m glad the school has introduced the concept.

Even more interesting to me was a short blurb on the menu’s inner page: “Fresh from the farm! Locally grown fruits and vegetables will be featured on the menu from September 13-17, 2010, to promote Maryland Home Grown School Lunch Week. Melons, cherry tomatoes, red and green peppers, lettuce and cucumbers are some of the Maryland agricultural products that will be served in the cafeteria.”

In addition to shooting the Perennial Plate videos, I'm the chef for a series of Harvest Dinners that are hosted by my friends at Two Pony Gardens. The video below shows the work from garden to prep table to each course at the dinner. Here's a peek at the menu:

First course - Cucumber and sorrel water with raw and fermented vegetables

Second course - Wood-fired carrots and chantarelles with beets and spinach

Third course - Heirloom tomato with summer vegetables and duck jus

Dessert - Wild rice pudding with crab apple sorbet and blueberries

If you like what you see, we're doing it again on October 2. E-mail twoponygardens@gmail.com for details.

Minnesota isn’t exactly known as a falafel lover’s paradise, but if Erica Strait keeps doing her thing, the Land of 10,000 Lakes could quickly become the Land of Falafel. Strait is the 30-year-old chef-turned-entrepreneur behind Foxy Falafel, one of the Twin Cities’ newest street-food sensations.  In her first year on the scene, she’s managed to garner a devoted following of falafel fanatics at the farmers markets and special events she frequents. And I’m spending a couple days with Strait, serving up falafel sandwiches to get a glimpse at what goes into putting her falafel stand on the map.