To paraphrase Sara Bareilles, I’m not gonna write you a ratatouille recipe. (I promise that will be the last Sara Bareilles reference – ever – on this blog.) I’ve done it before, and with farmers markets overflowing with more zucchini and eggplant than a blogger knows what to do with, you can be sure you’ll […]

My taste in pizza runs strongly to the Neapolitan, and the pizza I make most often at home has a very thin, crisp crust. But I am by no means some kind of Neapolitan absolutist: I keep an open mind about the many styles of pizza in the world. Sometimes I even make a different […]

With a little bit of a chill in the air this morning (it’s the first time I’ve seen temperatures in the 40s in a while) the ride to the market on the Greenway was a little lonely and the market seemed a bit quiet compared to previous weeks. Still, we were able to find some […]

And sometimes you don’t. An idea for dinner, that is. It sounds odd, coming when the fields of the midwest are at their most bountiful, producing innumerable varieties of colorful, ripe produce. Mother Nature is providing to her fullest. But Mother Nature threw us a curveball this week, in the form of 90ºF+ day after […]

In mid-nineteenth century Italy, as power passed from one faction to another fighting to control the unification of the country, many lower-class people – ever ignored by political elites – resorted to brigantaggio, or brigandage, both as a means of securing a living and a form of resistance against occupiers foreign and domestic. In the […]

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 […]

Having waited all summer for a sale on this set of bowls, I scooped them up on Tuesday night at the Edina store. They’re graphic, bold, red, and have lids… there’s the lot to like here.You can buy one, two, or all three in a set. At $3.95 to $6.95 and $15.85 for the set, […]

Another weekend at the Midtown Farmers’ Market brought an impressive, but dwindling, bounty of vegetables. The late summer fruits – bell peppers and tomatoes – are clinging on to life even as the impending frost threatens to cut them off without warning. Their bright reds, oranges and yellows are starting to be crowded out by the […]

The worst part about living an apartment is that we can’t garden (the best part is never having to mow a lawn or shovel a driveway). Sure, we can put a box or pot in the window that will yield a pepper or a little bundle of herbs, but it’s nothing compared to what even the smallest yard will produce […]

Eighty degree weather notwithstanding, I can’t shake the feeling that summer is soon to end and that a short fall will in no time at all be heralding in dark, cold winter. But as far as the farmers’ market is concerned, these fears are unfounded: fall might be around the corner, but there is still […]