I’m heading to a screening of Fresh on Wednesday night with Lindsay. There’s still time to get tickets for Wednesday’s screening. Just visit freshthemovie.com to purchase them online for $10 plus a fee of about $1.25 per ticket. Otherwise, they’ll be $15 at the door.

Tuesday, June 2nd (SOLD OUT)
Times: 6:30 pm (Screening & Panel), 9:30 pm (Screening only)
Location: Bryant-Lake Bowl 810 West Lake Street – Minneapolis, MN 55408

Panel to follow screening:
Jeremy Iggers, Long time Twin Cities Food writer & Executive Director of Twin Cities Media Alliance 
Kristen Tombers, Owner and operator of Clancy’s Meat and Fish
Sandy and Lonny Dietz, farmers at Whitewater Gardens
Rhys Williams,Land Stewardship Project Board Member & organic and sustainable food distributor for Co-op Partners. 
Ana Joanes, Director & Producer of FRESH

Wednesday, June 3rd
Times: 7pm (Screening & Panel)
Location: The Riverview Theater – 3800 42nd Ave South – Minneapolis, MN 55406

Popcorn served with local Hope Creamery Butter!

Panel to follow screening:
Joanne Berkenkamp, Director of Local Foods IATP 
Maggie Adamek, Research Fellow – Local Foods, Sustainability, and Wellness & Co-Chair for Homegrown Minneapolis Local Foods Commercial Use Subcommittee
Greg Reynolds, Riverbend Farms
Ana Joanes, Director & Producer, FRESH
Tracy Singleton, Owner, Birchwood Cafe

Check for a screening in your area here: http://www.freshthemovie.com/screenings/fresh-screenings/

Happy Summer! This Saturday I enjoyed a trip to Alexis Bailly Vineyards of Hastings, MN with Julia and Hailey. The wine, well, doesn’t deserve much comment. My notes are short and range from “drinkable but really too sweet,” “cloyingly sweet,” to “nasty. zero body. all acid,” “sour. wouldn’t buy it.” Only their Voyageur was somewhat decent, but its $21.99 price tag made my mind wander to how much I love Trader Joe’s. That said, it was a great day. Alexis Bailly has a fantastic tasting room. It’s like being in a barn–all the doors open with the winds coming right in. Cheeses were stationed throughout the room for pairing with the wines (among them a very good blue) and the pours were unlimited, if not generous. There was even a group of musicians playing in one corner. I much enjoyed their rendition of “Cielito Lindo,” I may have sung along. Try Alexis Bailly for a fun afternoon. $10 gets you a glass and all the tastes you’d like, and if you bring your own glass, “BYOG,” it’s just $7.50 to get in the door.

Their 31st Annual Open House continues next weekend (June 5, 6, 7) in celebration of the release of ABV’s 2008 wines. Tastings are offered May through Thanksgiving on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 11 am to 5:30 pm. Hopefully Tom and I will have a chance to return… with a picnic to make a day of it.

***For more photos, see Hailey’s blog. 

Last year Tom decided he’d like to start an herb garden on one of our window sills (After my agreement, this went into the grocery budget!). Living in a older brick building, we have the luxury of having large areas outside of every window on which to place planters. It’s true we have a northern exposure, but we have to be thankful for what we have, people. Since we had such a great summer of rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, peppermint, and oregano in 2008, this year, we decided to continue the garden.

As in ’08, we headed for Mother Earth Gardens, where we originally purchased our window box and plants last year:

At Mother Earth Gardens we strive to provide you with beautiful plants and products, but a central part of our mission is also to choose plants and products that have been grown, produced and delivered in a sustainable manner. We talk about the following words in our buying and decision-making: organic, sustainable, local, family, independently and cooperatively owned.

Luckily, tarragon is an perennial. It came back all on its own:

On May 3 we planted (or replanted, the case of the tarragon pictured above):

• Oregano
• Spearmint *new*
• Thyme
• Sage
• Chives *new*
• Rosemary
• Tarragon

As of Wednesday, it will be 1 month since planting. I hope to be able to plot our herbs’ progress as the season goes on so that we can both have a record of their growth and share it with you. And, of course, expect to see [Tom’s] entries on how we use the herbs in our kitchen.

Finally, I wanted to share a project from the weekend. Below are my newly acquired pots from my favorite Swedish store with extras from the work at Common Roots. We’re now officially out of soil, so I think this will be it for the season. Given that, I’m hoping these two bell peppers and a small crop of tomatillos will produce fruit. Tom, the doubter, isn’t sure we have the sun required. We’ll see. The first victory is that it is possible to water the plants *without* removing the screen (as long as the watering can is full enough).

Scrabble Junior edition Cheez-Its! I don’t buy a lot of boxed or bagged snacks aside from tortilla chips. Tom, of course, loves to make his own crackers. So why the draw? They’re not local, they’re not good for you… blah blah blah. Please! SCRABBLE crackers don’t come along every day. As expected, they taste just like regular Cheez-Its, possess the same power of addiction as regular Cheez-Its, and have the same aftertaste as regular Cheez-Its. However, they taste much better than Scrabble pieces. In conclusion, what other snack affords so much fun? 

Thanks to Marcela for hunting down all of those Ts and Ms for us.

I would make sure she had one of these (via Design Milk).