A spoon can start a revolution

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Our work as organizers is many things. It is the sum of our experiences, personal, professional, communal, reflecting, analytical. More than anything though, our organizing is stories. Food justice organizing is no different. It is many stories, it’s why we came to care about food, our earliest memories, maybe it was dinner last night or a lack thereof. When you think about food or food justice or food justice organizing, what do you think about? What’s your food justice revolution look like? Continue Reading

Pizza dough revelation

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If you’ve hung around me or my blog much you are likely aware that I am a total pizza fascist. It isn’t a trait that I wear proudly (Obviously I have some deep inner pie issues. Perhaps I suffered pizza trauma in my youth. Perhaps I’m just really bossy in the kitchen.) Continue Reading

Don’t offer farmers and citizens to multinationals, stop TTIP and CETA

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From France, which gave us the Rights of Man, we hear the call for the Rights of Citizens from French farmers who yesterday staged a sit-in at Cargill’s headquarters in Paris protesting proposed new free trade agreements. The second largest farmers’ union in France, Confédération Paysanne, unfurled a banner that read, “Holland, Juncker, Obama: Don’t offer farmers and citizens to multinationals, Stop TTIP and CETA.” They occupied the Cargill trading floor all day, until they received an appointment with the Secretary of State for French Foreign Trade, Mr. Matthias Fekl. Continue Reading

Aebleskiver: Lost in translation

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Aebleskiver are pancake balls that are popular, especially during Christmas, as a snack or dessert in Denmark. Traditionally they are sweet, served with fruit preserves or filled with apples (the name is translated “apple slices”), although modern aebleskiver also skew savory. A well made aebleskiver is crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Continue Reading

Brotherhood Inc: Between troubled pasts and brighter future, a little coffee

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Sidiq Abdullah has been involved in Brotherhood Inc. since it first opened its doors on Dec. 15, 2011. He is now the sales manager for the organization’s coffee business, but he remembers his days of making cold calls without much fondness.“‘How many times have I told you guys I don’t want it!’” he mimicked an angry voice on the other end of a phone line.Brotherhood Inc. is a nonprofit organization that employs 15 African American men between the ages of 16 and 24. Members of the program have criminal pasts or come from poverty and gangs.Brotherhood provides them with classes, employment and a safe place to spend their time. The heart of the program is inside a University Avenue storefront, where sparsely furnished rooms are painted striking red and the air is laced with the rich scent of Brotherhood Brew coffee.Located in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Continue Reading

South Minneapolis Somali community asks for ethnic, healthy food shelf

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When it comes to food shelves in Minneapolis, halal food is hard to come by. But a group of Somali women want to change that. Isuroon, a local nonprofit that works to develop the health and empowerment of Somali women, is asking the city to help develop a new food shelf that provides healthy, ethnic food to the Muslim community living in South Minneapolis. The nonprofit, along with dozens of community members, are asking the city to allocate $150,000 to fund the new food shelf as a start-up. “As a Somali community, we cannot use some food shelves,” said Isuroon member Waris Mohamud. Continue Reading

Freeway roofs and wine

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Following up on a couple recent posts, with the definition of “recent” being arguable in one case:

In a recent post on the two charter amendments on the ballot in Minneapolis, I spent most of the post on the increase in election filing fees because I understood that issue, but had to leave readers with just the text of the food requirements for wine licenses because it was Greek to me. Or French or Californian, I don’t know what kind of wine it was. Minnpost has an article explaining it. Essentially, the city council and the charter commission felt that the rules for restaurants that serve wine or beer don’t make any sense given changes in the restaurant industry, especially as regards craft beers. The council passed a replacement ordinance unanimously, and removed an archaic ordinance, but some rules are in the city charter and thus the need for a charter amendment. It probably seems ironic if you’re a conservative that this liberal city coucil is acting to simplify and modernize regulations to encourage business development. I’m going to vote “yes” just to watch some conservative heads explode. Feel free to drown your sorrows in a craft beer at a Minneapolis neighborhood restaurant. Continue Reading

Babe’s new diet: Nanomaterials in animal feed

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How much would you pay for a pork chop that was two percent leaner? Would you eat such a pork chop if nanoscale minerals were mixed into the hog feed to achieve that two percent reduction? Such questions are before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as it considers what to advise the animal feed and mineral supplement industry about their efforts to incorporate atomic- to molecular-sized materials into feed. Continue Reading