April 27, 2008 - May 3, 2008

« April 20, 2008 - April 26, 2008 | Main | May 4, 2008 - May 10, 2008 »

Living Green Expo

Filed under: Events

The Living Green Expo takes place this weekend in the Grandstand Building at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds , and it features all sorts of of food-focused booths, workshops, and demos--everything from local natural food co-ops to vegetable gardening and worm composting. Here are a few highlights:

Cooking demonstrations:
Rick Kimmes (Oceanaire) cooks Wisconsin trout, Mike Phillips (The Craftsman) makes his own cured meats, and JD Fratzke (The Strip Club) how to prepare meat from pasture-raised animals.

Workshops:
An introduction to beekeeping with a U of M bee lab scientist, and a discussion of the farm bill's impact on farming practices and the environment led by ag policy professionals.

If you haven’t signed up for a CSA yet, you can meet dozens of local farmers in the Community Food and Farm area.

Posted by Rachel Hutton at May 2, 2008 10:04 AM | Comments (3)

 

Drink of the Week: The Silly Rabbit

Filed under: Drink of the Week

The Silly Rabbit
Town Talk Diner
Vanilla ice cream; Trix; three Marie Brizard liqueurs: Raspberry, Blackberry, and Parfait Amour; topped with whipped cream
$11

Town Talk Diner's Silly Rabbit gets its name from the saccharine, Trix-sprinkled richness you can only find where anisette commingles with vanilla ice cream in a 16-ounce goblet topped with whipped cream. Think of the remaining milk from a bowl of Trix, only frozen. And with booze.

Three Marie Brizard liqueurs—Blackberry, Raspberry, and the roasted orangey Parfait Amour—comprise this "drink" (it goes down more like a hearty dessert). Despite the cost ($11), the Silly Rabbit is well worth the price of admission. We're talking a pint of ice cream, so good luck putting down more than one without succumbing to brainfreeze or bloatation.

Call us lushes, but if there's one complaint to levy against the Silly Rabbit, it's the relatively low alcohol content— less than three ounces of liqueur ranging between 40 and 60 proof equals about a shot's worth of booze. Even so, you'll want to keep these Trix away from kids.

Posted by Matt Snyders at May 2, 2008 5:21 AM | Comments (2)

 

In Praise of Rainbow Foods

Filed under: Shopping

I don't mean to circle back to the running theme of moving house from Uptown to Longfellow, but it's hard to avoid. We eat local whether we like it or not, and restaurants and grocery stores are clear windows into what a given neighborhood is really "like."

Along those lines: There were three grocery stores (that I knew of/frequented) in Uptown. Lunds, which was typically frequented by white, well-to-do older people. Kowalski's, which was typically frequented by white, well-to-do younger people. And the ill-maintained Rainbow on Lake Street, which was frequented by... everybody else.

For various reasons, my wife and I eventually wound up doing most of our non farmer's market shopping at a large Cub Foods about four miles to west. This was not an ideal solution.

Now we're living in Longfellow, and I've discovered a completely different aspect to the clean, well-stocked Rainbow up on Lake Street and Minnehaha. It's frequented by... everyone. White, black, Asian, Middle Eastern — the struggling, the middle-class, the wealthy — old, young, middle-aged — name a category, and a representative is probably strolling the aisles somewhere.

I like it. Let me restate that. I love it. It reminds me of moving to Brooklyn, riding the subway, and realizing that everybody takes the subway to get everywhere. There are a lot of things to dislike about modern America, and one of the most annoying is that folks tend to separate from one another, centrifuging apart into places where we don't even need to look at someone from a different race and/or economic class, let alone do business with them.

Posted by James Norton at May 1, 2008 1:15 AM | Comments (2)

 

Is this the best cookie ever?

Filed under: Food

The other day, I was at Kopplin's Coffee in St. Paul and decided to pick out something sweet to go with my cappuccino. I was about to go for the standard chocolate chip, courtesy Rustica Bakery, when this homely, bittersweet chocolate one caught my eye.

One bite and it was all over. Seriously, I think this may be the world's greatest living cookie. Here's why:

1. It has a deep cocoa flavor that's not too sweet.
2. And a hint of salt, which gives it a little edge.
3. Though the cookie wasn't hot, it had the textural qualities of fresh-from-the-oven: a crisp edge and crackled surface, and a center that's soft, pliable, and studded with chocolate hunks.
4. I'm a sucker for anything sprinkled with sugar on top.

Within seconds, my friend and I devoured the cookie, then immediately went back to the counter and bought another. And ever since, I've been finding excuses to plan my routes past Rustica. The bittersweet chocolate cookie is the best way to spend a dollar in this city.

Posted by Rachel Hutton at April 30, 2008 1:42 PM | Comments (2)

 

Pizza knife by Van Vacter

Filed under: Gadgets

Let's say that you've got an addiction to pizza, and twenty bucks burning a hole in your pocket. The solution? Quite possibly, buying a "pizza knife" (prosaic lowercase name courtesy of the company).

What does you $20 get you? Well, the kind folks at Van Vacter^TM (a product line of Lassen Scientific, Inc.) are happy to inform you that each pizza knife (the ultimate pizza cutter^TM) uses patent pending Slicing-Slots^TM to cut cleanly through the pizza's molten cheese, leaving the dirty business of completing any given cut to the deadly-sounding Finishing Wheel^TM.

That blizzard of verbiage boils down to this: you get two pizza wheels in one. The big wheel has holes in it. The holes keep the cheese from sticking to the wheel when it cuts. The small wheel, which trails the big wheel at a respectful distance and looks like a training wheel, completes your cut and eliminates the need to drag your pizza cutter back and forth, over and over again.

Does it work? Absolutely. This is a beautiful piece of pizza-cutting technology. Overly wordy and arguably overpriced, but absolutely beautiful. If you see one on special (quite likely) or at a rummage sale (far less likely), snatch it up.

Posted by James Norton at April 29, 2008 1:01 AM | Comments (2)

 

Heidi's makes Conde Nast Traveler's "Hot List"

Filed under: Restaurants

A big congratulations to Heidi and Stewart Woodman--their south Minneapolis restaurant, the eponymous Heidi's, was chosen for Conde Nast Traveler's annual "Hot List" of the "world's most exciting" new restaurants, clubs, hotels, and spas.

Read the review and then make your reservation--if you can get one.

Posted by Rachel Hutton at April 28, 2008 4:00 PM | Comments (0)

 

« April 20, 2008 - April 26, 2008 | Main | May 4, 2008 - May 10, 2008 »