organic food mn

Here goes - words and picture straight from the Harmony Valley Farm newsletter:

On Tuesday evening, I was lucky enough to join a group of about 50 local food lovers, journalists, and guests of Crispin Cider Company to introduce their newest baby: Honey Crisp Unfiltered cider. Its addition to the Crispin family – which also includes Original, Light and Brut varieties – officially comes next month, so it was a treat to sneak a little taste ahead of time.

Ah, I just love our Minnesota weather. One minute it’s 85 and humid, and the next thing you know it’s mid-60s and feels like fall. This past weekend was one of those sweatshirt-craving, appetite-confusing weekends at the market. My brain was saying summer but my mouth was pleading for stew. Lucky for me, the St. Paul Farmer's Market is in full swing and I can appease my fickle palate in all sorts of ways.

Mill City Farmers Market is always overflowing with fresh food, families, and foodies. On a recent visit there, director Marjorie Hegstrom talked to Live Green Twin Cities about the market's mission, its growth, and its waiting list that’s a mile long. I met Marjorie at the Market at 6:30 am, ensuring there was plenty of time to watch local farmers and food producers (who had arrived as early as 5:30 am) set up their stands beside the mighty Mississippi River before the market opened at 8:00.

I recently had a chance to help the great team at Riverbend Farm in Delano, MN pick and pack their weekly CSA/farmshare harvest (they produce 80 shares each week). Riverbend is a terrific, well-respected farm, which provides foods to many local Twin Cities restaurants, including the Birchwood Cafe, Common Roots, Corner Table, and many others. Here are the photos I took, along with a few notes from the day.

I got to meet Carter from Simple Provisions a few weeks back, when he delivered fresh, local milk, ice cream, hot dogs, and bread to my house. Carter is a nice man, gentle and unassuming, and I had to pry the following basic information from him:

Before last week, I didn’t know what garlic scapes were. I’d never seen them, smelled them, or touched them, and I most certainly did not know where they came from. But our Harmony Valley farm share delivered local, organic scapes to Minneapolis last week - and oh, how far my family has come in one short week.

According to Mother Earth News:

After all of this blogging about the local, organic Minnesota food we’ve been getting from the Harmony Valley Farm CSA, I’m excited to finally get the chance to visit the place. Harmony Valley has named Sunday, June 21 Strawberry Day, offering farm tours, strawberry picking, and other fun activities for the whole family from noon to 6 pm. Here are the details of the event, straight from the Harmony Valley site:

Okay, okay - it's organic food labeling that we need help with - not the food itself. The food itself? I'll let the excellent book Real Food by Nina Planck describe it:

Organic means food was produced without synthetic fertilizer, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, genetically engineered ingredients, and irradiation.

Organic certification is a substitute for knowing who's growing your food and how they're growing it.

- Greg Reynolds, May 24, 2009