COMMUNITY VOICES | Sweet Corn Chowder – Savor every last morsel of summer

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With Minnesota’s short growing season, it’s best to savor corn at its peak, and instead of corn-on-the-cob, why not try making some soup out of the summer staple? Chowder is perfect for a cold, wintry evening, but the delicious sweet corn that has been tempting you from the road-side stands this summer calls for a session of turning up the stove one summer evening.The original recipe has curry in it,  but I am not a huge curry fan (it has to be cooked right to find favor with me), so I substituted with thyme to make sure it had enough flavor. It was a great swap! When I first started cooking with recipes, I always followed instructions to the very last measurement, but have since learned to experiment. Feel free to take out, add in whatever ingredients you desire. Continue Reading

NEIGHBORHOOD NOTES | Venture North: A favorite Harrison destination for bikers and coffee lovers

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Looking for a great destination within a short bike ride of downtown Minneapolis? Head down Glenwood Avenue and in about 10 minutes you will find a bright red building with a mural on the side. As you walk into the cozy shop you will hear the beats coming from vintage records; then your eye drifts over to the left and you find the coffee bar, where among your options are a cold smoothie, hot tea, or the pour over, which is a cup of coffee made one cup at a time just for you. Then you see the bikes for sale, and now you know you are in one cool place.Venture North has a unique position in North Minneapolis; it is one of the few coffee shops on this side of the city, where bike repair and sale businesses are even more rare and they tie it all together with a youth empowerment service. The youth programs are the heart of Venture North: the staff take in youth and train them as bicycle mechanics and toss in some sales and customer relation skills as well.The empowerment programs and classes include the following: All About Bikes is the bike mechanic apprenticeship program for youth ages 15-23; Pedal Power is a special program for girls ages 10-12; Earn a Bike is a safety and basic repair school for ages 6-12, and upon completion of the program the youth get to keep the bike they fixed. Continue Reading

Peninsula Malaysian Cuisine: A taste of the multicultural mecca in Minneapolis

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This month, the United Foodies of Minnesota traveled to Peninsula Malaysian Cuisine on Eat Street in Minneapolis. For many of them, it was their first time trying Malaysian food and the menu at Peninsula is quite extensive because of the multicultural and multiethnic nature of the country—from Malay to Chinese, Indian, and Thai.“What should we get?”The waiter steered us away from the dishes that were drizzled with belacan, or a dark sauce made from fermented shrimp paste. Of course, our curiosities were piqued, so he brought out small sampling of jicama with the shrimp paste for us to try. The belacan certainly had the smell of fermented shrimp, and let’s just say that many of us decided that it was for someone with more of an acquired taste.We started off with the popular Malaysian favorite, roti canai, an Indian-influenced flatbread that is light and flaky. It was served with spicy curry chicken and potato dipping sauce that we wanted to pour over everything.Although I usually enjoy the nyonya laksa spicy coconut noodle soup at Peninsula, I decided to go with my other favorite, the Buddhist Yam Pot. Continue Reading

Community residents want to be heard, not ‘saved’ by new Seward Co-op in South Minneapolis

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UPDATED August 12, 2013 – Seward Co-op released a pdf document with questions and answers from the meeting. That document is now attached to this article. Click on the pdf at the bottom of the article to read the full list of questions and answers. The Bancroft-Bryant-Central-Powderhorn Park neighborhoods of South Minneapolis exist in a “food desert” according to the United States Department of Agriculture. A food desert is a geographic area that experiences both high poverty rates and low access to large grocery stores.  In a June 9 listening session, community members responded to a proposal by Seward Co-op to locate a store right inthe middle of the neighborhoods. Residents made it clear that they were not going to allow the Seward Co-op to just “parachute in,” as one resident put it, and save the day.Longtime residents of this area can tell the history of food access in their neighborhood: a long list of corner stores and small supermarkets that did not last long. Continue Reading

Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis: Somali cuisine from traditional to contemporary

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Growing up back home in the Horn of Africa, Safari Restaurant & Event Center co-owner Abdirahman Ahmed thought that pasta was traditional Somali food. In a sense, it was. Given the large amount of trade and influence from Italy, India, the Middle East, Far East Asia, and many other regions within Somalia, the cuisine represents a cultural blending of sorts. As the United Foodies of Minnesota sat down for dinner at Safari, we not only enjoyed pasta in the form of Safari’s unique creation of homemade noodles, ke’key, but also delighted in the sambusas (the Somali version of samosas) and basbaas sauce, a green hot sauce made of lime, chile, and coriander. As a spice lover, I ended up adding a little basbaas sauce to pretty much everything.“There are three variables for what makes things tick when it comes to food,” Ahmed said. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Festivities Begin At Stone Arch Art Festival 2013

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The Stone Arch Bridge Art Festival 2013 started off with a large turnout of fest-goers under mostly pleasant skies.  People flooded St. Anthony Main to take in the sights and sounds of the art fair; Classic car displays, food-stands, music, and of course arts and crafts.  Local musicians played on stages and in the streets as pedestrians mused.  The Stone Arch Bridge was packed with people walking, biking, and taking in the majestic beauty of St. Anthony Falls and The Mississippi River below.   Dogs, renaissance characters, artists, sightseers, bicyclists, and musicians, were ubiquitous throughout the crowd.  Adults and children alike took in the riverfront streets, historical redbrick roads, games, music, and art. Continue Reading

Hidden in plain sight: Indian cuisine at Malabari Kitchen, Winner, and Hot Indian Foods

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A tiny storefront without a sign. A food truck. A gas station. Indian cuisine is showing up in unexpected places.The Malabari Kitchen has been in operation since last December, in the tiny storefront previously occupied, in quick succession, by Korean, Thai, and multi-ethnic Southeast Asian restaurants. There’s no sign above the door, just an awning that says Asia Kitchen, left behind by the previous tenant. Continue Reading

Fasika: Ethiopian food worth celebrating in St. Paul

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Earlier this month, when many people were welcoming spring by celebrating Cinco de Mayo, others in Minnesota were celebrating Fasika, or the Ethiopian Easter. For this month’s stop on the tour Around the World in the Twin Cities, we headed across the Atlantic to Africa by visiting the Ethiopian restaurant Fasika at 510 North Snelling Avenue in St. Paul.United Foodies of Minnesota group member Nick Maryns carved a passport stamp of the Ethiopian flag for the outing. The star in the center of the flag symbolizes diversity and unity. It was an appropriate sentiment for Stop #4 on the tour. Continue Reading

Shabelle Grocery’s secret Ethiopian restaurant now offers a lunch buffet

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The little Ethiopian restaurant hidden away inside the Shabelle Grocery used to be one of the best-kept secrets in the Seward neighborhood—until recently, there was no sign outside to indicate that Shabelle was more than just a grocery store. Finally, last week, they put a sign in the window announcing their new $8.99 lunch buffet, served Monday to Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.This is not one of those 100-item strip mall mega-buffets. When I visited, there were only about half a dozen items to choose from, mostly vegetarian: red lentils, yellow split peas and stewed black-eyed peas, collard greens, linguine in a beefy tomato sauce, seasoned rice, a Greek salad and injera, the traditional spongy sourdough flat bread. What struck me was how fresh and flavorful everything tasted.There’s lots more on the a la carte menu, ranging from kitfo (Ethiopia’s version of steak tartare) and rice with goat meat (both $10); Middle Eastern dishes like felafel, gyros, and chicken kabobs; and even a Buffalo chicken wrap and a hamburger (most items $5.99). The breakfast menu includes foule (refried seasoned fava beans, $6), scrambled eggs ($4.99), sambousas (stuffed pastry triangles, 50 cents apiece), and fatira (pita bread cooked with eggs, green peppers, onions in olive oil, $5).Also read Ethiopian flavors spice up Shabelle Grocery and restaurant in Minneapolis (Stephanie Fox) Continue Reading