Taste #28: Fresh and Natural and Empty organic grocery store
Where no co-op has gone before Shoreview, Bloomington, Plymouth and Hudson, Wis., all have at least one thing in common: All are without a natural foods co-op (or a Whole Foods Market, for that matter). Enter Fresh & Natural Foods. Owners Kerry Larson and Bill [...]

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Peas! Glorious Peas!!
We have peas, and boy do we have peas. After two months of careful grooming, and diligent watering, my happy little sugar snap peas are almost ready to harvest!! I hate to pull them off the vines, they’re just so pretty there. But eventually I will. And I’ll probably have them eaten before [...]

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Mondrian Cheese
So, I’ve got my sister working for me now. Okay, not really, but she sent me this great photo from her phone earlier today. It’s “Mondrian Cheese.”
She knows I’m a big fan of the artist, Piet Mondrian, and thought I’d like the cheese. Next time I make it out to Denver, I’ll have [...]

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Taste # 22-23
A gold medal park Outdoor noshers have a fabulous new picnic destination: Gold Medal Park. Here’s the plan: Drop by the grab-and-go case at Spoonriver for a turkey-mango chutney sandwich, a blue cheese-walnut-apple salad or a chicken quesadilla (don’t forget a refreshing bottle of Vignette soda, made with pinot noir or chardonnay [...]

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A winery to visit, a restaurant to avoid, beautiful kabobs, and a nature lesson.
A weekend up north at the in-laws was jammed pack with both adventure and culinary lessons.
It started with a trip to the very beautiful Chateau St. Croix Winery just north of St. Croix Falls. What a surprise. Based on [...]

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The Taste #4: Cultural Revolution Conversion
4. A better breakfast. Cultural Revolution isn’t your basic fruit-in-the-bottom yogurt. Organic, non-homogenized milk and butterfat, from a network of Amish family farms in southeastern Iowa, results in a luscious texture, gentle sweetness and modest traces of fruit flavorings. Man, this stuff is good.
I have to admit, I am [...]

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A Kohlrabi Dinner
I first fell in love with Kohlrabi last summer at the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. It is such an inviting vegetable with its pale green screen and goofy looking tentacles. It actually reminded me of an organic-y spaceship. Fortunately, one of the vendors was offering samples, so I was able to try it [...]

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Buon Giorno Italia
After our weekly trip to the St. Paul Farmer’s Market, we took a detour through the little town of Lilydale and stopped at a great little deli for some lunch. We found what we were looking for on Hwy 13. A place I’ve been reading a lot about, The Buon Giorno Italia. What [...]

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The Taste #7
“The succulent mango” teased the headline on the blackboard hanging above the produce department at the Seward Co-op Grocery & Deli. As always, that attention-getter was chased by a highly readable history, buyer’s guide and how-to-use tutorial on the delectable fruit. Such literary license might be an anomaly for supermarket shoppers, but it’s [...]

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Off on a little tangent…Sorry folks, but in an effort to encourage everyone to start supporting local agriculture, I though I’d provide a link to check out your own personal ecological footprint. It allows individuals to measure the impact on natural resource use. Take a look. It’s very humbling. Click here to go to www.myfootprint.org. [...]

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