The Cities Category Archive: Food

Rain gardens blossom in Minneapolis

Posted at 3:57 PM on April 24, 2012 by Jon Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Environment, Food, Minneapolis

A rain garden installed in the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minneapolis last year (Image courtesy of Metro Blooms)

A tornado in August 2009 knocked down trees and caused flooding at Phelps Park in the Bryant neighborhood of Minneapolis.

"That started some neighbors talking about bringing some aesthetics to the neighborhood," said Bryant Neighborhood Organization board member Erin Schwarzbauer. "We were trying to just rethink how our backyards work, as well as our neighborhood as a whole."

The neighborhood organization was looking for a solution to the flooding and loss of old trees. They were referred to Metro Blooms, a non-profit organization that promotes ecologically-friendly gardens and landscapes. Metro Blooms helped the Bryant neighbors plan about 15 rain gardens on the pathway of the new RiverLake Greenway, a bike boulevard that connects the Mississippi River to Lake Harriet.

"[It's] just kind of in an effort to make our small little neighborhood distinctive as people bike through and to bring that aesthetic of rain gardens to our neighborhood," Schwarzbauer said.

A rain garden is a flat, bowl-shaped garden usually planted with native plants and grasses that's used to prevent runoff from polluting nearby bodies of water.

Minneapolis has a goal of 3,000 rain gardens by 2015. Between 2009 and 2011, the number of rain gardens in the city jumped by almost 65 percent to 1,400, according to the city's department of public works.

That growth has partly been fueled by neighborhood projects like in Bryant.

But the gardens are more than ornamental. They're also designed to reduce the runoff to storm sewer systems, which often carries sediment and pollution into nearby bodies of water.

Last year Metro Blooms helped households in west Powderhorn plant 130 rain gardens to limit runoff to nearby Powderhorn Lake, said Metro Blooms Executive Director Becky Rice.

"It will capture the runoff before it leaves your property and allow it to infiltrate to the aquifers, so it can reach the rivers and the lakes and stream clean and cold," Rice said.

Native plants are typically chosen for rain gardens because of their hardiness and deep roots, Rice said, making the gardens "relatively" easy to maintain.

"It's a functional garden and it does require attention, but the plants can be fairly maintenance free," Rice said. "Especially in an urban environment where people are planting in their front yard, they're often looking for something [like a rain garden] that's a little more controlled or a little more showy."

Rain gardens also reduce impact on the city's stormwater sewer systems, said Lois Eberhart, water resources administrator for the Minneapolis Public Works Department said.

"A lot of rain gardens are designed so the water soaks into the ground," Eberhart said. "Soaking into the ground helps reduce the volume of stormwater runoff, so we have less stress on the system, less flooding, less erosion of creek banks."

In Minneapolis, the effort of putting in a rain garden is rewarded by a reduction in stormwater utility fees that pay for stormwater infrastructure.

"Learning about rain gardens helps people think about other things they can do to improve lakes and the river," Eberhart said. "When they have rain gardens and take pride in those, they're more attentive to cleaning up pet waste, maybe sweeping up grass clippings to keep them out of the gutter."

In Bryant, most neighbors who will receive rain gardens in June have already received their designs.

"They're beautiful and people are excited to get them planted," Schwarzbauer said. "There's going to be an education piece during the installation, so other neighbors are able to watch the recipients getting their rain garden installed so they'll be able to install their own."

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Minnesota Idea Open announces semifinalists

Posted at 11:30 AM on April 18, 2012 by Laura Yuen (0 Comments)
Filed under: Arts , Education, Food, Immigration, Livability, Race

A statewide call for creativity on how to build relationships across faiths and cultures produced a staggering 600 ideas.

That set a new record for the Minnesota Idea Open, which is in its third year.

Which ideas rose to the top? An interactive food truck, a charity flash mob, multicultural barn-raisings, and a mobile app for "culturally curious Minnesotans" were among the 25 semi-finalists announced today. You can read about the individual pitches here.

An eight-judge panel of media professionals and community and faith leaders will whittle the finalists to five in May. Then the competition will open to the public for voting, "American Idol"-style. Three winners will each receive $15,000 to implement their ideas.

Created by the Minnesota Community Foundation, the challenge aims to engage the state's residents to learn about critical issues and develop new solutions. This year's challenge is working across ethnic, racial and religious lines in a state that's becoming increasingly diverse. Our three-part series "The Outsiders" grew out of this initiative.

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Compromise keeps Tin Fish in business

Posted at 3:00 PM on March 22, 2012 by Rupa Shenoy (0 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Minneapolis

The Minneapolis Park Board and owners of the popular lakeside restaurant Tin Fish have come to an agreement that'll keep the business open.

Tin Fish's lease with the park board ran out late last year. A park board subcommittee wanted to renegotiate the lease so that 20 percent of its revenues would go to rent and improvements. Tin Fish owner Sheffield Priest said that was too high.

Last night, the park board voted unanimously (8-0) to approve a contract that sought a compromise. The lease is complicated, but basically the park board will get about 18 percent of the restaurant's revenues -- with 3 percent of that going toward improvements to the building.

Tin Fish owner Sheffield Priest said those terms are agreeable to him.

"All of you have been working hard on this and we've been working hard on this," he told the board at the meeting. "And we know that there are a lot of people behind me who love the Tin Fish who've also been hard on this. And I just wanted to say thanks for all the support. We can all just enjoy the Tin Fish this summer."

Erwin said many residents had come forward in support of the Lake Calhoun restaurant.

"I was here along with three other commissioners when we approved the Tin Fish originally and we received a lot of emails because people were upset about approving a restaurant in a park," he said. "And I think that's it's really rewarding to us to see how committed people are now to saving this and having it in the park."

Curtis Gilbert contributed reporting to this post.

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Bigger compost piles coming to Minneapolis

Posted at 1:48 PM on March 8, 2012 by Curtis Gilbert (1 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Livability, Minneapolis

Minneapolis has made way for bigger backyard compost piles.

The City Council passed an ordinance today allowing back yard composters up to 245 cubic feet for a typical tenth-of-an-acre city lot. That's seven feet square and five feet high -- about twice the capacity the previous law allowed. If you have a bigger lot or one that doesn't have a house on it, you can make your heap even bigger.

Creative commons photo from @nacybeetoo via flickr.

The piles must be contained with something durable -- a wooden box, say -- but they don't need to be covered with anything more than "leaves, straw, wood chips, or finished compost."

Neighbors worried about the smell of decomposing organic matter can take comfort in this, though: Only plants are kosher for composting within city limits.

No humanure in Minneapolis, please.

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Poetry Lin Motion

Posted at 10:29 AM on February 20, 2012 by Laura Yuen (3 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Minneapolis

You might be thinking, "Enough with the Jeremy Lin puns already!"

One Asian supermarket and deli in Minneapolis wants you to have some literary fun with the NBA's sudden star -- in the form of haiku.

On its Facebook page, United Noodles announced it will award a Knicks No. 17 jersey to the best writer who can reference both Lin and the grocery in the Japanese poetic form. For those of you who don't remember the rules you learned in fifth grade, haiku comprises three lines totaling 17 syllables -- five, seven, and five, respectively.

It's harder than it looks. Here's my desperate field-goal attempt:

United Noodles
Concocts Taiwanese beef soup
Lin-finite pleasures

Sharpen your pencils and have at it. Deadline is March 1.

In the meantime, check out this brilliant "SNL" sketch from over the weekend about the media's cringe-worthy blunders referring to Lin's race, including some pretty tasteless jokes and an exhausting barrage of puns. I, for one, am co-opting the term "Amasian."

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Hospital teaches low-income families to fight obesity

Posted at 12:39 PM on January 27, 2012 by Julie Siple (0 Comments)
Filed under: Food

When Shaawn-Dai McDowell opens her refrigerator in south Minneapolis, one thing is clear: She eats a lot of greens.

Collard greens, chard, spinach, lettuce. The refrigerator is full of them.

"We gotta have them," she explained. "We have a lot of kids around here."

The vegetables are a big change for McDowell, who has lost 100 pounds since 2007, thanks in part to a program at Hennepin County Medical Center.

Today on Morning Edition, we explored what's known as the hunger-obesity paradox. That's the counter-intuitive reality that people who struggle to consistently get enough healthy food in America can also be overweight.

For many people across the state, affording nutritious food --and finding the time to cook it-- is a challenge.

McDowell is one of those people. She's is a single mom, raising four kids of her own, plus her nephew. She works 40 hours a week as a personal care attendant, but relies on food stamps to feed her family. She spends mornings at her apartment in south Minneapolis making sure the kids catch their buses in time, evenings helping with math homework.

"Five schools, five friends, five pairs of shoes... you know how stressful that is," she said. "If you're stressed out, you're not sitting there worrying about your eating. That's the last thing you're worried about."

That changed when doctors raised concerns about her weight. They also recommended McDowell enroll her kids in Taking Steps Together, a program designed to help families living with or concerned about childhood obesity. She joined, worried about both herself and her daughters.

The program offered practical help like shopping tips, nutrition education, recipes and exercise advice. It helped McDowell figure out how to stretch her food stamp allotment. Food stamps aren't designed to cover a family's whole food budget, but McDowell sees no other choice.

"If I start using the other money for food, there goes the light bill, part of the rent," she said.

The changes required a good amount of time and energy, but McDowell sees herself as living proof that people can be healthy and fight obesity on limited funds. Still, she admits it's not easy.

She opens her cupboard and sheepishly eyes a big box of white rice.

"We're going to switch to brown rice, but this was on sale, and it's such a large box, I did get it."

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Dining with Dara: Eat your vegetables; vegetarian dining options

Posted at 3:08 PM on January 5, 2012 by Minnesota Public Radio (11 Comments)
Filed under: Food

Eat healthier by adding more vegetables to your diet as part of your New Year's resolution. (MPR photo/Julie Siple)

By Dara Moskowitz-Grumdahl, Minnesota Public Radio

What do the actor Brad Pitt, former President Bill Clinton, and Socrates have in common? All are vegetarians.

Bill Clinton, once famous for his fried chicken eating ways, is actually a vegan today. Eating more vegetables, and less meat, is a popular New Year's resolution, and vegetarian dining options in the Twin Cities are available.

Cultural anthropologist Margaret Visser's 1988 book "Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal" discussed how so many of our everyday food traditions descend from ancient Anglo-Saxon rituals. For instance, Visser said that a lot of the ways that Americans prefer food — a whole roast chicken, a big pork chop — actually comes from medieval, Anglo-Saxon traditions meant to prove that food wasn't adulterated, in a what you see is what you get spirit.

In this New Year's resolution season, it is difficult to adhere to meatless Mondays and plant-based meals when the Western tradition is that of pork chop on a plate. But what if you leave that tradition?

Ethiopian restaurants, like the Blue Nile in Minneapolis, or Fasika in St. Paul offer a whole different way of eating. Diners use injera, a whole-grain pancake made of the high-protein grain teff, to scoop up different stews made of various legumes and vegetables. Both restaurants offer vegetarian sampler plates that are full-on feasts, and a completely different way of eating your vegetables.

Cultures with a strong current of Buddhism are great places to find spectacular vegetarian food. Dancing Ganesha in downtown Minneapolis has an extensive vegetarian menu. Their charred baby eggplant with roast peanuts in a fresh coconut curry is magical, smoky and fresh in the most spectacular way. In Eagan, Sambol restaurant specializes in both Indian and Sri Lankan cuisine. Their black lentils are nearly as good as foie gras.

Thai restaurants are another resource for eating vegetables. In St. Paul, Supatra Thai makes a papaya salad that is perky, energetic and zingy with lime it tastes like it could dance off the plate. In Minneapolis, Naviya's Thai makes exquisite curries — big thunderous green curries, deep and dusky massaman peanut curries. They use fresh, beautiful organic vegetables, broccoli as bright as emeralds — it's beautiful to see.

It's an interesting way to think differently about resolution season: Look to another culture, and see how they've been managing to move vegetables to the center of the plate — for thousands of years.

Ethiopian

Blue Nile
2027 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis
612-338-3000

Fasika
510 Snelling Ave N, St. Paul
(651) 646-4747

Indian & Sri Lankan

Dancing Ganesha
1100 Harmon Place, Minneapolis
(612) 338-1877

Sambol Indian Cuisine
1260 Town Centre Dr., Eagan
(651) 688-8686

Thai

Naviya's Thai Brasserie
2812 W. 43rd St., Minneapolis
612-276-5062

Supatra's Thai Cuisine
967 West 7th St., St. Paul
651-222-5859

Dara Moskowitz-Grumdahl is a longtime food critic and the senior editor of Minnesota Monthly.

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A Christmas reading tradition

Posted at 12:37 PM on December 23, 2011 by Laura McCallum (0 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Livability, St. Paul

Most years around this time, I open up my Villager newspaper (formerly the Highland Villager) and find myself absorbed in the latest holiday story by St. Paul author Roger Barr. For nearly 15 years, he's been writing short stories on the saga of the Bartholomew family and their life-sized nativity scene. It's a busy time of year, and there's never enough time to read, but these stories have always been a nice respite from the holiday craziness for me, and a reminder of what this season is truly all about.

Now, Barr has compiled his 13 stories in a book, Getting Ready for Christmas... & Other Stories. All of the proceeds go to benefit emergency food shelves, which is a recurring theme in many of his short stories. As you've probably heard in Julie Siple's excellent hunger reporting, more Minnesotans are using food shelves in these tight economic times. Kudos to Barr for using his talents to try to help those less fortunate this time of year.

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Mpls celebrates local food program

Posted at 2:00 PM on December 9, 2011 by Madeleine Baran (0 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Minneapolis

The folks who helped bring urban bees and mini-farmers markets to Minneapolis are holding a community celebration Monday night.

The city-run initiative, called Homegrown Minneapolis, has been around since 2008 - relying in part on funding from the Statewide Health Improvement Program.

Since then, they've helped set up mini-farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods, organized an effort to increase healthy food options in corner stores, opened up city lots for community gardens, taught residents the basics of food canning, and helped create a system for food support recipients to use EBT cards at farmers markets.

Photo: Sandy Miller checks the progress of her produce on June 13, 2011. Miller is part of a community garden program in her Minneapolis neighborhood. "Eventually," says Miller, "we'll add raspberries and other things we can share with people in the community." (MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel)

"We're linking arm in arm with folks in the community to really figure out what can we do to have a more sustainable healthy local food system," said Homegrown Minneapolis coordinator June Mathiowetz.

The event starts at 4:45 p.m. at the University Research and Outreach Center at 2001 Plymouth Ave. N. Residents will also get a chance to share their suggestions for improving access to healthy local food. More information on Homegrown Minneapolis is available here.

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The Aliveness Project looks to expand

Posted at 9:30 PM on December 1, 2011 by Julie Siple (0 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Minneapolis

Clyde Cross relies on food and friends at The Aliveness Project in south Minneapolis

Twenty-six years.

That's how long the Aliveness Project has been serving Twin Cities residents who live with HIV and AIDS. The nonprofit got its start in the early days of the outbreak in Minnesota, when contracting HIV carried an intense stigma.

It's a different world for HIV patients now. Drug treatments make it possible for people to live much longer than in the past. But Joe Larson, executive director of The Aliveness Project, said the disease is still isolating.

"We have many people who say, 'Don't mail anything to me. I don't want anyone in my household to know I have HIV,''' he said. "I've even had people say, 'I don't even want my mail carrier to know.'"

The are afraid, he said, because they have been rejected in the past.

The Aliveness Project provides case managers, free hot meals, a food shelf -- and a place to gather. Nearly three decades later, Larson said that gathering place is still important.

"This is a place you can come meet someone else who's been living with HIV, maybe for many years, and realize this is not a death sentence," he said. "That makes a huge difference."

But with rising numbers, their space is tight. The Aliveness Project is raising money for a renovation. The group wants to double seating for its daily meal and expand the food shelf so it can offer fresh produce.

Clyde Cross is one of the many who came for food and found more. Cross, 50, has been living with HIV since 1996. He relies on the food shelf because at the end of the month, funds run low.

"When I started eating healthier, I seen my whole health situation turn around," he said. "I was able to stomach the medication."

But that's not the only reason he comes.

"We're all compatible here, in terms of what we're dealing with in life, medical wise. We can sit, talk to each other. And boy I tell you, I've been uplifted talking to people here."

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Small Mpls farmers markets require more vendors to be farmers

Posted at 3:25 PM on November 9, 2011 by Elizabeth Dunbar (6 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Livability, Minneapolis

You might see fewer bananas, avocados and sunglasses at most Minneapolis farmers markets next spring.

A new city ordinance says at least 60 percent of the vendors at farmers markets have to be food growers. The new rules do not apply to the main Minneapolis Farmers Market near Target Field, where shoppers can browse plenty of items not grown by Minnesota farmers: clothing, jewelry, soaps, plants, and fruits and vegetables that obviously can't be grown here.

But eight other farmers markets around the city — Mill City, Midtown, Northeast, West Broadway, Uptown, Fulton, Kingfield and Nicollet Mall — will have to follow the new rules -- unless they decide to become craft markets instead. As the city's news release proclaims today, the city was interested in putting the "farmer" back in farmers markets.

The ordinance follows up on a city initiative called Homegrown Minneapolis, which aims to encourage "a local, healthy and sustainable food supply."

City Council member Cam Gordon authored the changes and says the city's previous farmers market ordinance was neutral on the local aspect of farmers markets.

"Before, someone could organize a 'farmers market' that was all food distributors bringing in produce from California," Gordon said in a news release.

There are still no limits on that kind of activity at the main farmers market, though.

According to the release, there are several other parts to the new ordinance:

• Mini markets are included in the ordinance and are allowed to have a more flexible vendor mix, with one distributor selling fruits and vegetables not from Minnesota and one food processor that sells things like pickles or jellies.

• A new market type was created to allow certain markets to have up to 70 percent of the vendors selling arts and crafts.

• Food sampling will be easier for vendors.

• Vendors not selling food for immediate consumption can operate from unpaved surfaces.

UPDATE: I updated this post, after finding out that the Minneapolis Farmers Market — the big one located near Target Field and I-394 — is not included in the rule saying 60 percent of vendors have to be farmers. That fact was not included in the city's news release.

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Cured wild boar loin or Sardinian hare stew, anyone?

Posted at 12:15 PM on October 10, 2011 by Laura McCallum (0 Comments)
Filed under: Food, Minneapolis

Former Pioneer Press reporter Hank Shaw is back in the Twin Cities today to promote his book, Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast. You may remember Hank from his investigative reporting on the business ties between some Minnesota politicians and a Minneapolis-based telephone company accused of cheating customers in seven states.

Hank's latest venture has nothing to do with politics. It's all about food. Hank, who now lives in California, writes about foraging, hunting and fishing on his blog, and in his book.

He'll be at the Corner Table in Minneapolis tonight, signing books and talking about wild foods in the Midwest. He says tonight's menu will include "four courses, all wild Minnesota ingredients (or ranched game equivalents, as it is illegal to sell real wild game)".

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