The night before last I was looking for a source for the Alessi juicer by Philippe Starck (below left) after recognizing it in one of the scenes in Food, Inc. The juicer appeared in the kitchen of Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and I was curious about how much it cost (answer, $90). The movie was great for so many reasons. You should see it; I hope it will change the way you think about food. I hope it will change the way you think about a lot of things. Enough with the seriousness, though. This post is here because you should also see this website that I found the juicer on! They have a lot of great stuff. It’s Emmo Home. Emmo is meant to spell out the sound of saying the letters M. and O. M.O. for Modus Operandi (so they say in their FAQ). But that’s not what matters. Check out all of these lovely things!

Juicy Salif Squeezer by Alessi, Kiwi watering can by Alessi, Bread Bag by Stelton, Salad Plant by Black + Blum. Images: http://www.emmohome.com/

p.s. They also carry the Cycloc Bike Rack by IC Design Group (featured here previously).

The sight of the Midtown Farmers’ Market yesterday morning was a little disappointing; it seemed like there were even fewer vendors than the past two weeks and nary a fresh vegetable to be seen. At least there are always tamales. And then suddenly, as we were settling down with our coffee and tamales to listen to some acoustic guitar covers, Martha spied something out of the corner of her eye:

Asparagus! I left Martha to guard the tamales while I b-lined for the farmer, lest someone swoop in and scoop up the last precious spear while I was breakfasting. The price of foodism is constant vigilance!

The farmer in question really had no need to do any selling—he had the only asparagus in the whole market and I was definitely going to walk away with some, no matter what he said. But this farmer was a wily one and knew how to turn a one pound sale into a two pound sale. As I approached and revealed my interest in asparagus, without saying much he handed me a green, tender shoot and indicated that I should eat it. “Raw?” I asked. He just nodded and I decided that was good enough for me. Raw asparagus is not something I have ever eaten before, but I don’t know why—the flavor was so fresh it was like eating green peas right off of the vine. Ever since becoming more aware of seasonality I eagerly await the arrival of asparagus in the spring, but only after biting into this fresh, green-tasting spear of asparagus did I really get it. You can get asparagus all year round from various states and countries in the supermarket, and it’s generally fine for roasting, but its flavor is completely bland by comparison—an entirely different vegetable. Asparagus at its best—fresh and tender in late spring—is something to get excited about.

Our farmer friend tempered my enthusiasm for eating the stuff raw by warning me that my stomach’s flora probably wouldn’t be able to handle eating a lot of raw asparagus. I’m not sure why this would be true but I took his word for it and have been serving it cooked (in every meal since returning home). But with the thinnest spears in a mug of water  on the kitchen table the temptation to reach over and eat one is strong.

This was the first fresh vegetable I have gotten from the Farmers’ Market this season. I will be out of town the next two weekends, but when I get back in June I am excited for the region’s farms to be into full production.

If you live in the Minneapolis area, you may have noticed Common Roots Café is starting a garden behind (and around) two houses just behind the café. Much work has already been done: the two homes are undergoing major renovations, plenty of asphalt and contaminated soil were removed, and new topsoil and compost were brought in. A pile of wood chips meant for pathways awaits. But how to get it all in place?

Volunteers! The first volunteer day was this Tuesday. We enjoyed great weather for hoeing, raking, and shoveling: cloudy, grey, and cool. Even though it wasn’t an official volunteer day, I was back on Wednesday, this time in bright sun, to help some more. The forecast for Saturday morning looks promising; planting time is from 9 am–2 pm and a late-afternoon rain is predicted. Since our friend Peter is coming to town, we’ll be heading first thing to the Midtown Farmers’ Market and then back home with plenty of time to do some gardening. The plans for the garden, masterminded by Cathy (from Nature’s Nest Farm), include fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, and flowering plants—all to be used in the café.

I feel very lucky to have had a little part in this and hope to be able to continue to help as the garden progresses. If you’d like to keep in the loop on how you can help, try Common Roots’ events page, their facebook page (with photo gallery), or following them on Twitter @commonroots. 

As winter slowly releases its icy grip on the north, I get pretty desperate for any vegetable that isn’t a root. It is pretty exciting when green things start to reappear in the grocery, even if they have to be trucked in from California in late April. So it is with fresh fava beans, a clear indication that it’s spring somewhere.

And at only $2.99/lb, they’re a steal. Well, not quite. Most vegetables entail some amount of waste, and in the case of fava beans it’s a whole lot. The beans are encased in pods, like peas, and then each bean has a thick shell around it that also needs to be removed. 

How much waste is this? The total weight of everything was 9 3/8 oz (although the Wedge charged me for 10 1/4 oz—I wonder whose scale is wrong). The weight of the edible beanswas 1 5/8 oz, while the weight of the pods and shells was 7 7/8 oz (slight discrepancy here due to my scale being accurate only to somewhere more than 1/8 oz). Only 17% of what you buy is edible. $2.99/lb? In terms of food you can actually eat, it’s more like $17.50/lb. Yikes! Such is desperation for at the end of a long winter.

This wouldn’t seem so bad if you could come up with a useful way to employ the pods and shells. Anybody have any ideas?

Living in a city with an IKEA (as opposed to the nearest one being 2 [2006-08] or 6 hours away [2005]) can be dangerous. I may or may not have been there twice in the last 14 days. I didn’t see any of these items when I was there last week… so they must be just coming in to stores. It’s about time they got some new napkin patterns!

Solig paper napkins, $0.99—$1.99

Dyning hammock in assorted colors, $29.99

I’m interested to see what the Dyning hammock is like in person. For its price, it would be lovely if it were light and squished up small so as to be camping-friendly.

And the trays! There are several new trays also part of the Solig line; the price is right too. We have one tray at home with a great black and white striped pattern, a gift from Sarah, that makes for fun food presentation. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have a couple more?

Solig trays: Left, $7.99; Right, $4.99 each

Lastly, I almost forgot, there are new bags. I still like my ’05 beach bag best… mostly because it was purchased at IKEA Florence and because it’s just generally awesome, but these are pretty great patterns too. Below are the Solig gardening bags in three colors at $2.49 each and the new Solig beach bags at $1.49 each. This is why IKEA=Love.

All images: http://www.ikea.com/us/en

**Update: If you’d like to see the catalog pages check out AT’s “sneak peek” of the summer line.