Star Tribune

For someone with a bacon mustache in her bio picture, I realize I have written precious little about meat here in these Simple, Good, and Tasty pages. My swooning and waxing poetic about squash, asparagus, garlic scapes, rhubarb, blueberries, apples and tomatoes (oh, sweet tomatoes) may lead you to believe that I am a feeble carnivore indeed. It just goes to show how eating with the seasons, along with myriad benefits lauded every day here at Simple, Good, and Tasty, has the added perk of increasing one's consumption of fruits and vegetables. To pay attention to what is most ripe and fresh at the farmers market inevitably gets my wheels turning and inspires me to figure out ways to cook and eat those beautiful foods.

At Simple Good and Tasty this week, we're focusing on the 2010 Minnesota State Fair. So instead of recipes for your CSA box, I wanted to showcase one of the best new foods at the fair, the Peaches and Cream parfait from Salty Tart at the Produce Exchange booth, located across from the International Bazaar.

I first heard about it in July in this post by Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl on the Dara & Co. blog at Minnesota Monthly's website: 

I’m still a paper calendar kind of a gal.

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:

Alex Roberts Photo by Kate NG SommersChef Alex Roberts is a low-key kind of guy. He doesn’t yell or throw temper tantrums, a la Gordon Ramsay. He doesn't have the legendary ego of a rock star chef ("I don't feel that I'm the best at anything," he recently told the Star Tribune's Rick Nelson).

I'm exhausted and full, and my throat hurts. And yet, somehow, Simple, Good, and Tasty's February local food event at Grand Cafe last night was just perfect.

Maybe it was the beautiful restaurant that made the night so special - wooden and warm, with strings of lights and lovely paintings on the walls. Maybe it was the food - an exceptional cassoulet prepared with locally raised duck from Au Bon Canard and house made sausage by Grand Cafe's chef Jon Radle; a delicious salad with beets, walnuts, and chevre; and an astoundingly good ginger bread pudding with orange compote and caramel cream. Maybe it was the fact that Simple, Good, and Tasty was celebrating a full year's worth of blog posts, directory listings, and events connecting Minnesotans to our food sources. But my guess is that it wasn't any of these things.

Star Tribune Photo by Kyndell HariknessMy family and I (pictured above) are happy and amused to have been featured in a Star Tribune article by Julie Pfitzinger this weekend entitled "Eat Well, Be Well." Most people who know us don't think of us as the world's healthiest family, although this quote from the article is certainly true:

Image Credit: David Joles, Star TribuneI was delighted to find myself quoted in the Star Tribune this morning, in an article entitled: "Making the local food movement accessible." The article, by Hayley Tsukayama, is all about how to eat local food on a student's budget, and includes terrific advice from Lucia Watson from Lucia's, Tracy Singleton from the Birchwood Cafe, and Jennette Turner. Here's an excerpt from the article:

I had the pleasure of attending the Grand Opening celebration for the newest Mississippi Market Natural Foods Co-op in St. Paul on Thursday morning. Although I don’t have an “official” count, it looked as if I was joined by about 250 other folks eager to get in right when the store opened to check out the new space. The opening ceremony was brief and to the point, and included words from Gail Graham, General Manager; Nina Johnson, board president; and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman.

I'm extremely happy to let you know that we've got an ideal location for our June Simple, Good, and Tasty meal: St. Paul's Heartland Restaurant. Here's what the City Pages said about Heartland, naming it St. Paul's best restaurant for 2009: