We visited the Art Shanty Projects at Medicine Lake this afternoon with Hailey. Despite the rain and perhaps because today is the WARMEST DAY OF THE YEAR at thirty-six degrees, we enjoyed our first visit to the shanties. Having come prepared (thanks to Mel) with art to share, all three of us exchanged art at the Ice Art Swap Shanty. Tom took home an antler-themed picture frame, I found a set of notecards, and Hailey traded for a piece of pottery.

Our favorite was Tiny Shanty, the smallest three story mansion on the ice where visitors can create tiny art and enjoy tiny tea time courtesy of the tiny wood stove’s tiny log fire.

Thanks to Scott and Caly for welcoming us to their tiny home. Check out Tiny Shanty’s gallery for more pictures or the Projects’ flickr page.

Click the image to see this photo set on Flickr.

Seven local designers, two great calendars. See below for details on how to get yours.

happify

For the fourth year running, happify brings a 2010 calendar in the form of 12 postcards, offset printed in a rich chocolate brown on an extra-thick (110#) recycled cream 5″x7″ cardstock. On the reverse side there’s space for writing a note and sending them off as postcards to friends and family. These may be oversized according to USPS standards, but they’re well worth the 44¢ stamp. Calendars are shipping now at happify.etsy.com.

$12, plus shipping ($2 in the U.S., $3 to Canada, and $5 to anywhere else). Free shipping when ordering 2 or more calendars.

Through December 31, 2009, Martha and Tom readers will receive complimentary shipping on all happify orders (by including M-AND-T in the space labeled Message to the seller, optional) and get $2 off additional calendars when ordering more than one calendar. Please note that the discount may not be reflected immediately. Happify will refund any shipping charges through paypal.

redblackbrown

Redblackbrown’s second annual calendar is the work of six Minneapolis designers. Each month is based on a different fortune cookie fortune from local Asian restaurants. The redblackbrown calendar is screenprinted on cover weight kraft paper in white and brown cut to 4.65″x5.4″ sheets. See all twelve months here.

$20, plus shipping ($4 in the U.S.).

Order soon: redblackbrown printed this year’s calendar in a limited run of 100. Find your calendar at redblackbrown’s Big Cartel shop.

Note that Minneapolis locals can place orders for pickup by emailing hello (at) redblackbrown (dot) com.

Images :: happify and redblackbrown

Do It Green! Annual Green Gifts Fair

• Saturday, November 21st, 2009
• 10am to 5pm
• Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis on Lake St. & Chicago. Ave.
• FREE entrance (vendors accepting cash or check only, though, so come prepared!)

Do It Green! Minnesota’s Green Gifts Fair takes place this Saturday, conveniently before the crazed post-Thanksgiving shopping. Organizers envision the event as an introduction to green giving and low impact ideas to celebrate the holidays with over 70 vendors to explore. Shoppers are encouraged to bring their own bags and coffee mugs. If you plan to eat at Midtown while you shop, consider bringing silverware and a reusable napkin as well. Those who bike, bus, or carpool will receive a free gift at the event. More information doitgreen.org.

Gastro Non Grata: A Salute to Comfort Food and Cans

• Sunday, November 22, 2009
• Doors at 6pm
• 21+
• At the TRIPLE ROCK, 629 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis
• $5 at the door, additional donations help Craig & Jeff break even.

Beer, food, and music! What more could you want? Northern Brewer will start the night with a Lambic tasting and chef Landon Schoenfeld will present three sample courses as the night goes on. The beer guest for the night is 21st Amendment Brewery. Music by Falcon Crest, Arctic Universe, School of Rock, Cadillac Kolstad, Cornbread Harris, and The Annandale Cardinals. As before, Clancey’s Meat and Fish will provide meat door prizes as only they can. More info at Gastro Non Grata’s blog.

Midtown Farmers’ Market’s Thanksgiving Market

• Wednesday, November 25, 2009
• 1pm to 4pm
• Lake Street and 22nd Ave S near the Light Rail in Minneapolis

Meat, vegetables, apples, bread, chocolates, and canned goods will all be available. Weather permitting there may be crafts as well. Real Bread bread will be available by advanced order: contact Brett at brettlaidlaw (at) eckmeier (dot) com for options. Hilltop Pastures will be at the market as well. According to the market website, they have a waiting list for turkeys, but they’ll be dropping off orders and selling other products on Wednesday. Thanks to midtownfarmersmarket.org for the details!

No exclamation points were harmed in the writing of this post!

True, Halloween hasn’t even happened yet, but Thanksgiving is growing near. The Wedge, the source of the turkey pictured here, has already posted their Thanksgiving hours on their homepage and will begin taking turkey orders on Monday, November 2. Tomorrow will be the last day for the Midtown Farmers’ Market, but as Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine recently noted, if you’re a Mill City shopper:

you should be aware that you can order Wild Acres turkeys from the Mill City Farmers Market. But don’t dawdle, supplies are limited and the deadline is Nov. 13.

This year we’re ordering our turkey from Clancey’s Meats and Fish in Linden Hills, where they just began taking orders. From what I know thus far, Clancey’s turkeys are never frozen: orders are taken, sent to the turkey farm, and the turkeys are slaughtered and delivered for pickup just before the big day. (Also good to know: Clancey’s can connect you with sources for heritage breeds if you’re interested.) The birds start at 10–15 lbs. and go up from there in 5 lb. increments. At this point I’m not sure how many will be joining us for Thanksgiving dinner so it’s hard to estimate how much turkey we’ll need. I’m curious—what size bird are you ordering? Are there any other great sources for turkeys we should know about?

There’s something perverse about biking across a snow-covered city to get to the farmers’ market — particularly when it’s only 10 days in to October. But that was the situation we faced this morning as we headed out to the Midtown Farmers’ Market. There are a few weekends left for the market, but with snow (and, more critically, frost) here the vegetables will be thinning out (Gardens of Eagan recently tweeted about a slushy head of broccoli they pulled from the field) as will the market shoppers, until only the die-hards remain.

Frost only came in the last week, so farmers still had plenty to offer. Feeling that our diet was lacking in things green — a problem which only worsens during the winter — we bought broccoli, parsley and kale. We also bought three kinds of squash: acorn, spaghetti and delicata. With the squash from last week, I now have five distinct varieties of squash sitting in a bowl in my dining room. Clearly, some kind of squashstravaganza is called for.

As if five squash weren’t enough starchy, orange-fleshed, sweet vegetable, we bought sweet potatoes, in a 2 for $5 with Russets. We also bought garlic to store (although garlic doesn’t last long around here). And, after a successful apple tart last night, we bought more of the Haralsons that were sold to us last week as the ultimate baking apple . Finally, we got a loaf of honey-wheat bread from Brett and Mary of Real Bread.

As we were buying the sweet potatoes from Julie of Pflaum Farms she mentioned that her mom kept talking about sweet potato fries. That seemed like a good idea to us; when we got home we roasted a few of the sweet potatoes, cut into sticks and tossed with oil, salt, pepper and thyme. The fries accompanied sandwiches made on Brett and Mary’s bread with mayo, turkey from last night’s dinner, roasted red peppers and black beans. Washed down with cider, this made for a nice lunch on a snowy fall day.

As I’ll be stuck at work this afternoon, I decided to volunteer on my own this morning to get started on what Common Roots is calling the final harvest. Details below.

It’s been a great season for the Common Roots garden. The garden has already provided 1300 pounds of produce! Frost is predicted soon, so TODAY between 2:30 and 5:30 Common Roots will be harvesting most of what’s left, planting the boulevard strip on Aldrich Ave, and doing some weeding.

Danny would be happy to have as many hands as possible. If you’re interested in helping out, follow Common Roots on Twitter and give a tweet that you’d like to lend a hand, or email info (at) commonrootscafe (dot) com.

Common Roots Cafe
2558 Lyndale Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55405
(612) 871-2360

Update: “today” above refers to Thursday, October 8, 2009. If you are interested in volunteering in the future, feel free to contact the address mentioned.

Get ‘em while they’re cheeeeeeeeeep. I’m working from 10–7pm on Friday so I’ll probably miss this, but I thought I’d share. Note that the sale is NOT available at Aesthetic Apparatus’ online store, only on Snelling.

Image: theapparatus

The Heavy Table has a great post today which combines all of the secrets from yesterday’s live tweets (follow @heavytable to keep in the loop) with photos to help your imagination along. For those of you who can’t make it, this post will give you a picture of the best-of eats on day one of the fair. If you’re like us, and you’ve LIVED IN MINNEAPOLIS FOR A YEAR AND A HALF WITHOUT GOING TO THE MN STATE FAIR, this post will convince you that you are CRAZY and that you should GO TODAY. Incidentally, we’ll be heading to St. Paul this evening, tomorrow evening, or both, and we’ll definitely keep this list of suggestions in mind (along with the google map, thanks guys!).

From what our friends at The Heavy Table shared, it’s the beverages I’m most excited about. I’m currently craving the $1 Cider Freeze, the trio of Summit beers on a stick ($7.50), and Stanly’s Sugarbush Maple soda ($4). The last of these looks to be the most promising. As The Heavy Table puts it, Stanly’s is

A local alternative to soda… not just “as good as a Coke” good, but “far, far better than a Coke” good. It’s got an almost creamy flavor, a maple kick, and a refreshing hit of carbonation.

Based on the prices shared here, it looks like we’ll need to carry plenty of $5s and $1s with us in preparation for this 4,000+ calorie snack-feast.

Image: Becca Dilley, The Heavy Table