st. paul

This month's book club selection, The Compassionate Carnivore, by Catherine Friend, chronicles the author's journey to better understand and appreciate the face on her plate. Here's a short excerpt from Indie Bound, describing the book:

One of the best things about living in the Twin Cities is uncovering all the fun, creative things to do around town. Pop-up retail is hot these days. And occasional sales have long been a part of our vintage/antique market. But when you take those concepts and throw in a healthy dash of high-quality, artisan goods, well, what you have then is the new W7 Collective. And being a St. Paul native, I always love to see this kind of happenin’ gig on my side of the river!

Unpeeled is a probiotic beverage, which means (from their website): Unpeeled is a 100% naturally cultured (kombucha) green tea with cold-pressed fresh crushed, raw ingredients, then barrel-aged to maximize nutritional value (probiotics) and to promote a fresh, crisp, smooth flavor. The brainchild of a former NASA wastewater engineer, Unpeeled claims the following benefits:

This Saturday and Sunday, May 2 and 3, the St. Paul State Fair Grounds is host to the Living Green Expo, billed as: ... a free, family-friendly event that inspires people to lead healthier and more sustainable lives. The focus of the event is living green, of course - not specifically food - so the many vendors and providers (250+) include those in industries as diverse as transportation, building, arts, and music. Here are the details:

Local beer is easy to find these days, especially if you have a tendency to drink microbrews, as I do, and live in a decent sized city (like Minneapolis or St. Paul, as the case may be).

We'll, not really. But we do have a garden started in our yard, thanks to A Backyard Farm, which I wrote about in an earlier Simple, Good, and Tasty post. A Backyard Farm, in its first season, is the brainchild of Joan and Coleen, two terrific women whose quest to grow local, sustainable foods in Minneapolis and St. Paul now now extends to other people's home gardens. We had Joan and Coleen out to our house a couple of weeks ago, and we discussed an approach that would work for us.