I'll trade you a kombucha for a tin of sponge candy

​What began as a few crafty souls gathered in an apartment has quickly grown to a room full of buzzing enthusiasts, swarming tables inside of Open Arms' building in South Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Food Swappers group meets once a month to share cans of pickles, jams, duck eggs, homemade breads, and more.  We caught up with one of the group's founders to discuss how they formed and where they see themselves headed. Then, we attended one of the swaps.

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www.barsys.net

Barsy's almonds share the nickname of co-owner Barbara Spenader.

​As soon as they arrived in the Wedge's bulk aisle, almond "hotties"--roasted nuts coated with a sweet-hot spice--quickly became an expensive addiction (and a fun nickname). I was eating so many of them, snacking out of hand and scattering them on salads, that I considered trying to reverse engineer the recipe.

And then, one day, they were gone ... replaced by almond "smokies."

Turns out that "hotties" and "smokies" are just two of the five almonds baked and seasoned by Barsy's almonds, the brainchild of two local entrepreneurs. The Hot Dish touched base with Barsy's Jason Hendrycks and Barbara Spenader to find out more about their, ahem, nutty business:

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Harmon Killebrew's legacy lives on in these bottles.

​Who doesn't want to root for a hometown hero, especially when it's a root beer?

Old Fashioned Killebrew sodas--root beer and cream soda--are part of famed Minnesota baseball player Harmon Killebrew's legacy. When Harmon's son brought the root beer to market more than a decade ago, it was said to be made from an old family recipe. But these days the revered slugger is unfortunately no longer able to practice quality control.

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Look for this sheep's milk yogurt at the Wedge soon.

​Star Thrower Farm owners Deborah and Scott Pikovsky (if Scott's name sounds familiar that's because he owns Great Ciao, the gourmet food distributorship) started raising Icelandic sheep in Glencoe, Minnesota, in 2007, and this summer, they're offering their meat, cheeses, and fleece at the Fulton Farmers Market (49th and Chowen in south Minneapolis) on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Among the cheeses to sample on a recent visit were a soft, pungent-but-not-overwhelming raw milk Camembert-style cheese and a firmer, sharper, aged raw milk tomme. Star Thrower also makes skyr, a thick, creamy, Icelandic-style yogurt with an assertive barnyard tang that's generally lacking in its cow's milk cousins. (For some the flavor might be a little much to eat plain, though it can add a nice complexity when used to make, say, raita or topped with fruit or granola.) Soon, Star Thrower skyr will be available at the Wedge co-op.

Star Thrower's booth also sells lamb meat and some fabulous sheepskins that would be great to pile on or burrow into during the winter months. For more information on Star Thrower Farms, see its website (warning: baby lamb photos may cause cute overload!)

Free wings! Free wings!

​Now that football season is officially back on, Buffalo Wild Wings is giving away free wings to celebrate.

Back in March, the Minnesota company promised six free wings to anyone who signed its Facebook petition to end the NFL lockout. The promise came with a caveat: the free wings would only be delivered if the lockout ended by July 20.

But in the best way possible, Buffalo Wild Wings is going back on its word. Although the NFL reached a deal five days late, the wing-maker is still honoring its free-wings offer.

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An oldie but a goodie: Schell's was founded in 1860.

​Schell's Brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota, is the second-oldest family-owned brewery in the United States, and even after 151 years in business, it isn't showing any sign of losing its edge: The brewery ranked in the Top 10 at the recent U.S. Open Beer Championships.

The longtime brewery may be experiencing something of a resurgence, as this is the third year in a row that Schell's has made the Top 10 list, pitting their beers against over twelve hundred others from around the world that competed in fifty different categories.

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​Buffalo Wild Wings has started the summer off with some spicy-hot profits: shares of the company are at an all-time high.

The stock hit a share price of $68.38 two days ago, more than 50 percent up from stock prices last year, says Matt DeFrisco of Lazard Capital. Yesterday, stock rose even higher, with the price opening at $68.28.

It definitely doesn't hurt that wholesale chicken wing prices are super low right now--they've fallen about 30 percent, DeFrisco said. But the ultimate test of the wings will come in the next few weeks, with the results of the potential NFL lockout.

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Glaze a Lake Trout fillet with honey/mustard, broil, and serve with salad.

​Does your stomach love Alaskan king salmon more than your pocketbook? Try a Lake Superior substitute. Our local Lake Trout is a member of the char family (think Arctic Char) that has a milder flavor than salmon, but a similarly luscious, fatty texture and costs roughly half as much at about $10 a pound. Lake Trout can be cooked in a similar manner as salmon and used in the same sorts of recipes--during hot weather, a broiled fillet makes a great salad protein.

This past May, the Wedge co-op started selling Lake Trout supplied by Lou's Fish House in Two Harbors, which processes fish caught by Lake Superior boats and drives the product straight to the cities. Not only is the catch local and wild, but it's very fresh. Plus, while the wild salmon season can be fleeting, Lake Trout are available year round.

Cracking an egg on your iPad could spell disaster!

​Gadgets that require a million accessories (the cases, the screen-cleaners, the back-up batteries...etc.) are a little exhausting, but as whole shelves of cookbooks are being replaced by their digital counterparts--accessed by an expensive electronic equipment sitting on the counter dangerously close to spattering batter and other cooking hazards--protecting that equipment does seem necessary.

Santiago Merea noticed that his wife loved using her iPad to bake, but she worried about damaging it with flour and eggs. She tried covering it with plastic bags that were too big or too small so Mera decided to create Chef Sleeve, custom-sized, clear plastic sleeves to protect iPads. Now Mera (who, interestingly, is the brother-in-law of Michael Tankenoff, creator of the Funtoxication iPhone app) is using his Minneapolis-based product design company to market Chef Sleeve for use in the kitchen--or the beach or wherever else the gadgets might be exposed to perilous substances.

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From stevia to Truvia: Cargill's foray into the sweetener biz.

​Fast Company followed Zanna McFerson, Cargill's director of high-intensity, or diet, sweeteners, to tell the origin story of Cargill's popular new "natural" sweetener, Truvia. It's the first mainstream, commercial, zero-calorie sugar substitute that originates from a plant (the stevia plant, specifically) and it's already snatched an impressive 12% of the market share from Equal, Sweet 'n Low, etc., since its introduction a couple of years ago. (Here's how we thought it tasted.)

Among the many crazy tidbits gleaned from the story:

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