birchwood cafe

It's fair to say that the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum's Toast & Taste in the Gardens is one of my favorite annual local food events in the Twin Cities.

A few weeks ago, I declared June 26 "Signal Free Saturday," an opportunity to put down our cell phones, laptops, PDAs, and iPads and look our loved ones directly in the eye for the first time in weeks, months, or years. I was excited for the excuse to give my wife my full attention, rather than the usual 50 percent. I was excited to play with my kids without wondering if something more interesting was in my email. Work be damned, I was going to be free!

Only it turns out that giving up the phone is more complicated than that - or at least that's how it felt to me. Here's how it went:

Savory waffle from the top kid-friendly restaurant in the Twin Cities

Spring is such an exciting time! Although it's too early to start planting right now (apparently, winter might not be over yet), it's not too early to start thinking about the work that needs to get done to make this summer our most productive and fun ever. For me, that means warming the soil for our backyard farm, experimenting with different homemade mustard recipes, joining a CSA, and looking for ways to help my kids understand where our food comes from.

My first cooking job was at a small German diner on my hometown’s Main Street in Northern Minnesota. It was a hybridized place; we hand-pounded schnitzel cut from pigs the chef had raised, but we also served a dizzying number of filet-o-fish sandwiches. And when we ran out of green beans we opened up a jumbo can.

I remember a farmer knocking on the back door one day, carrying a lumpy paper grocery bag overflowing with fresh green beans. As the chef was shaking his head no, a few of us young cooks came up behind him and said, “We’ll clean them, chef!” The farmer, who was practically giving them away, handed them over. They were delicious, but the chef hated them because of the time it took his minions to top-and-tail their way through the bag.

From the Fork the Fire website:

There’s nothing like the power of food to bring everyone together. That’s why over 80 restaurants will rise up in force to help Heidi’s and Blackbird - two Twin City restaurants that lost everything recently during a tragic fire in south Minneapolis.

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.

The blustery weather provided the perfect backdrop for this past Saturday's free Peace Coffee cupping, attended by more than 20 coffee lovers. When we arrived at Peace Coffee's Minneapolis headquarters, we were treated to Peace Coffee's new seasonal Pollinator blend (which replaces the well-loved Winter Snowshoe Brew), muffins and scones from the Birchwood Cafe, and Marketing Director Mel Meegan's tour of the warehouse and its impressive roasters. A few minutes later, we were sitting at long tables, staring at delicious-smelling cups of coffee grounds. I don't think any of us knew what to do.

It's not terribly unusual for me to come home from a meeting with food. Whether it be Surly cupcakes from the Salty Tart bakery, Fisher Farms bacon from the Birchwood Cafe, or a whole heritage chicken from Jackson Hollow farm, I spend a lot of time talking about food, surrounded by food, and tempted by food. Still, even for me, it felt a bit strange to leave a meeting with my arms full of frozen, organic baby food: sweet potatoes, apples, a carrots/beets and rice combo, and more.

What a year it's been! Between our first post - proudly proclaiming that we joined a CSA - and our recent letter to Santa Claus, we've grown gardens, pickled dilly beans, and made lifelong friends. Here are just a few highlights from 2009: