minneapolis: local food

by Stacy



Friendly, originally uploaded by RTCInterns.

A coffee shop near our old apartment (it opened not long after we moved! Boo!) is the Common Roots Cafe. Though it does have problems with the occasional hipster infestation, they serve fair trade coffee, an array of teas, local beer, wine, and really great food with delicious vegetarian and vegan choices. They even compost. They also have a community room which we have used for book club.

Even better, they recently took over two vacant lots across the alley to make their own garden. Awesome and delicious.

Very nearby is the Wedge Co-op, a great shop with groceries, a good deli and bakery, and natural personal care products. Their receipts, instead of totaling your “amount saved,” give you a percentage of local products purchased on your bill. They have a wonderful arrangement with a local farm, Gardens of Eagan, where the farmers wanted to retire but didn’t have heirs, so the Wedge bought them out to continue having a supply of local organic produce.

The Minneapolis Farmer’s Market has local meat and dairy products, honey, salsas and jams, fruits and veggies, flowers (even for weddings), plants, and food stands with brats, coffee, mini-doughnuts, and more. There are a lot of small family farms, but also a number of non-local resellers. The bananas are not local, so make sure you ask where the food was grown. My favorite stands are Sleeping Cat Organic Farm for eggs, and Petersen Flowers for small plants in the spring and cut flowers the rest of the year.

Mere blocks from our apartment is the Mill City Farmer’s Market. While they have lots of events and big names, they are fairly new and tend to have a lot of products as opposed to produce. I haven’t been recently, so I should go back and see if it gets better later in the growing season.

Across the river (my husband may disown me for even posting this) is the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. Run by the St. Paul Grower’s Association, they allow “only fresh, locally grown produce to be sold–directly from the grower to the consumer.” I’ve never been, and would like to go, but it’s not that often we get to St. Paul. Maybe we will have to schedule brunch over there as an excuse.

Now to regulate my sleep schedule so that I’m awake when the markets are open…

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

husband July 17, 2009 at 3:44 pm

St. Paul is not local nor should it be encouraged.

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stacy July 17, 2009 at 5:07 pm

It’s local for some people, honey.

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