The Locals

Last week I had the opportunity to shake the hand of a man I consider to be, for lack of a better word, a hero.



That's Michael Pollan. He's an author, professor and as far as I can tell, a big ole nerd. And I love him. This is the first piece of his that I read and I was instantly intrigued. A friend had recommended a book of his to me which I then read... most of. He definitely made botany more interesting than any text book could, and yet he cited his sources and presented a lot of really obscure information about apples, tulips and... well that's as far as I got. Compared to that article, it was more of a dry read. Mostly because I think it lacked that deep down passion the 1st article I read had. He is now popular enough to have 250 show up to a packed book signing and lecture at Barnes and Noble in Edina. A farmer friend of ours down in Houston told us that they left their day jobs to become farmers after reading that book. Talk about starting a movement.






The use of the word "local" is now part of the vernacular. It's already on the track to becoming a word like organic, that automatically makes the general population think it's more expensive, and is probably healthy. I can't wait to see a "local" sticker put on high fructose filled fruit snacks being sold at Cub that were produced in a General Mills factory somewhere in Minnesota.

But that doesn't mean I'm not on the local train. Far from it. I want to man the caboose on the local train and I like to think we're doing our part. While we aren't doing a vegetable CSA this year, we buy produce at Mill City Farmers market every weekend now that it's open, and try to get over to the co-ops as often as we can. For the past two months any meat we've cooked at home has come from our Meat CSA and we are never looking back. Aside from the great price of $5/pound for everything from pork shoulder to pasture fed chickens which produce the occasional green egg.




“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.” (Steven L. Hopp)

WELL SHIT PEOPLE, we can do this! You don't have to change your entire life to make a difference. Buy a pack of Thousand Hills Cattle company ground beef, some faribault blue cheese, buns made at a local bakery and just like that you have yourself a local meal, and a delicious one at that.

Okay, I'll put my soapbox away.

We're being good locavores and have been tending to our vegetable (and fruit!) garden. In hopes of saving the world (and quite a few hard earned dollars) last Saturday we built our rain barrel which will keep our garden thriving all summer. If it ever rains.


For the record, I too did my fair share of sawing. Note to self, buy a Jigsaw.




We just need a flex downspout now and yes, I plan on weed wacking the dandelion farm you see to the left. And if you were slighly deceived, those ARE windows painted on our neighbors garage. Northeast has class.



That evening, if not mostly by circumstance, we ate an entirely local meal. We made a salad that won us a $100 gift card over at the Heavy Table and grilled up some incredibly tender, flavorful rib eyes from Sunshine Harvest farms.



Eating local is that easy.


For more haps on eating local in MN visit Lee's awesome site http://www.simplegoodandtasty.com/
and wander over to the The Heavy Table, and then make it your homepage.
http://heavytable.com/

Paired-May Edition or Art-a-Whirl Weekend, Part II

After walking around NE all day on Saturday looking at art, all I really wanted to do was take a nap. But of course I procrastinated and by the time I was really ready to jump back into bed, I had to get ready to go to Paired.

When I received the email the day prior telling me the location of the upcoming underground restaurant I was really confused about the location. It was pretty close to my house and the address sounded really familiar. A few minutes later it dawned on me that it was actually at Claudia's new house. Awesome! Claudia just bought a HUD owned foreclosed house about a month ago and won't be moving in until about a month from now so it lended itself as a great location (especially since Chris had all the amenities of cooking in an actual kitchen).













The featured artist was Gudrun Lock. The photographs displayed were both grotesque and beautiful representations of women performing their least favorite chores with their feet. We also watched a short film she created about a friends childhood encounter with a pig slaughter. She herself wore a necklace made of maraschino cherries and had cocktail wienies as a hair piece. Totally wild!









We heard a few words from Claudia about her house buying experience, from Gudrun about her art, and from Chris about his meal choices. Incorporating the theme of Gudrun's Art, the meal included the feet of chickens as well as dishes that he least likes making.















The food was great. The first course was a leek soup with chicken feet and crostini(I think I would prefer a crunchy version of Chicken feet... it mostly just reminded me of a chicken wing in flavor) and regardless of how little creativity is involved in a beet and goat cheese salad, it's still a winning combination.






I had the pleasure of meeting Andy Sturdevant


It's okay to play with your food if you're an adult... right?










For the entree we had roasted pheasant with potato gratin, grilled asparagus and a lemon beurre blanc. All was delicious, but I could lick the plate clean of that beurre blanc. Mmm.







Dessert was a thin orange mousse dotted with a ginger gelee and poached rhubarb served with Sake. Quite tasty.






As usual with Paired, the food and wine are great but the company can't be beat. We had a great time chatting with our neighbors at the table, and socialized into the early morning hours.










(The blurred motion in this picture is actually a toe falling off of the chicken foot)






The aftermath



If you're interested in attending Paired there are two dates remaining until the Underground restaurant retires. Email pairedmn (at)gmail.com to get on their mailing list.

Art-a-Whirl Weekend, Part 1

My mom came into town last weekend and that always means lots of plans, in addition to things already happening in Minneapolis I know I must attend. My mom, having far more time than I do to actually read her emails from places like Surdyk's, knew that the North East Wine Tasting event was going on at the Nicollet Island Pavilion and decided it would be a nice treat for us to attend on Thursday night. Decent food, decent wine and overall just a pleasant evening




Friday marked the beginning of Art-A-Whirl, and I knew I wouldn't be interested in cooking a meal that night. I also knew the Northeast Social had opened a week prior, and since I enjoy being apart of things before they get popular (like the time I saw The Strokes at 7th Street Entry? I still brag that I liked them before you did) I figured we'd check it out. Plus, the addition of restaurants within walking distance of my house always makes me excited. Up until then I had only heard one "mixed" review (seriously, how can you get a good gauge on ANY restaurant within the 1st month of them opening in a popular location) and wasn't afraid to check it out for myself.





The place was totally packed and holy hell was it loud. The location is really pretty and not unlike the decor in The Sample Room (though I would venture it's about 200 square feet smaller). I walked into Eva's Delicatessen once, bought nothing, and thought nothing of the space. They now have an exposed brick wall (my memory doesn't serve if that was actually exposed before) beautiful hardwood floors and dark wood trim with a lovely tin ceiling (can I put one in my house without looking like a jackass... or without my house looking like a restaurant?). And It was packed. And they had a piano player. Amped. (He was really good though, for the record)





We had great service despite how busy they were (have I gotten to the point as a restaurant goer that you EXPECT bad service if you go to a busy restaurant? Damn, that's just sad) and I even participated in my first twitter inspired meeting.




The food was good. Just, good, not great, definitely not bad. It had a mild layer of creativity surrounding it, but I wasn't overly impressed with their options. In fact, I had one of those "well, none of these sound GREAT to me, so I guess I'll have the trout" moments. I didn't take my menu (or a picture of it) and they don't have their menu online so I don't remember a lot of the details. They also have these "social beers" to share. My mom and I just about flipped a lid when they brought an ice bucket to the table as we had ordered a bottle of red wine. It turns out they're for the beer






I had the trout wrapped in prosciutto (my Alma mater restaurant tria also served this when we opened, if that displays how creative I felt the food was) with something on the side (clearly not amazing since I don't even remember what it was). EDIT: looking at the pictures it was a salad and potatoes. Boring.


The trout was a huge portion which was fine since I didn't have an appetizer, and the flavor was nice, but certainly not memorable. The only other entree I tried was the gnocchi stroganoff which my mom ordered.




The texture was right on and the sauce was creamy and light. I found the menu a tad "heavy" now that I think of it. Especially as it's 94 degrees while I type this. Granted it was chilly that night so appreciated in that regard. But what I need on that block is something a little different from the Modern and Erte. Bring a little local flair. Yeah it's trendy, but it's the RIGHT THING TO DO (so I saw Michael Pollan speak last night and got totally star struck, so what?) Where are the ramps, the spinach, the radishes, the sunchokes? Anyway. The meal was fine.

The desserts however, were amazing. Well, one dessert. The other was good and unique enough (chipotle chocolate mousse)

But the one... Rosemary honey panna cotta? Now we're talking. I don't even normally order dessert because a nice piece of dark chocolate when I get home is usually all I need but there were four of us so of course dessert was ordered. This was creative and it was well executed.





All in all, I would go back, but maybe not for a few weeks. I might stick to sandwiches unless they change their menu to make it a bit more alluring.