sustainable food

For a city its size, Minneapolis is home to an impressive number of great restaurants, with amazing chefs focused on providing seasonal, local, sustainable Minnesota-and-Wisconsin-grown food. Add in St. Paul (which you really should, especially given the existence of Heartland, named St. Paul's best restaurant in the City Pages 2009 poll), and the number becomes almost shocking. Restaurant Alma has been quietly delighting fans of local food since 1999.

Please join us for another amazing meal this month! The May local, sustainable Simple, Good, and Tasty dinner will be held at the Birchwood Cafe, whose praises I've sung several times here already. Openings for the meal are filling up fast - please email me at lee@simplegoodandtasty.com as soon as possible to reserve your spot.

Two and half years ago, in the fall/winter of 2006, a new eating and drinking establishment opened on the border between Park Slope and Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Called the Flatbush Farm, it won over locals almost immediately with its friendly bartenders, inventive drinks, hearty daily specials, rustic interiors, and enormous candle-lit backyard.

Finally! Thanks to Sustainable Table, my wife and I can converse again. According to their website: Sustainable Table was created in 2003 by the nonprofit organization GRACE to help consumers understand the problems with our food supply and offer viable solutions and alternatives.

This is a big local, sustainable, and organic food weekend in the Twin Cities, so I thought I'd dedicate this post to a few of the events I'm most likely to try and make it to this Saturday and Sunday, April 25 and 26:

Lucia Watson is a phenomenal chef and business person who is extremely important in the Twin Cities local, sustainable food movement. She makes some of the finest food in the country. Here's a bit more about Lucia Watson, who you might not know much about - especially if you don't live in the Midwest (this information comes from Lucia's website):

It was just over 6 weeks ago when I joined my first CSA, bought Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and started hunting down restaurants serving local, sustainable foods.

While we all love our local and sustainable upscale dining establishments in New York City, it's sometimes hard to afford eating at them as often as we'd like.

My friend Jen turned me on to San Francisco's Bi-Rite Market, the kind of mom and pop supermarket our moms and pops never had (or even imagined). The home page of the Bi-Rite Market website proudly proclaims the store as:

a destination for restaurant quality prepared foods and catering, organic produce, sustainably raised meats, poultry, and seafood, as well as fine wines and everyday groceries.