No-mayo potato salad, grass-fed mini burgers, crunchy swai with basil-goat cheese potato puree, curried pea soup, pickled rhubarb (etc.), white bean ragout, Italian sausage grill with gnocchi, leftover oatmeal pancakes, and cheddar chive buttermilk biscuits with extra creamy scrambled eggs.
by sponsored on May 18, 2012
Owners Natalie and Josh Kelly; My Minnesota Farmer peppers & cucumbers; Bossy Acres Sunflower Shoots
An online farmers market makes access to local foods easier for Twin Cities’ customers
Serious locavores make a lot of effort to buy from their favorite farmers and discover those uniquely regional specialties that make eating locally so enjoyable. While it is easier to procure your weekly farm rations in Minnesota compared to many parts of the country, Minnesotans endure long winter months without fresh local vegetables. The limited number of winter markets, however, doesn’t mean farmers in the area aren’t working. There are still cows, sheep, and goats to milk, and chickens that lay eggs.
Natalie and Josh Kelly started Twin Cities Local Food to help make sourcing food from local farms a little bit easier. Twin Cities Local Food is in an online farmer’s market that lets local farms using sustainable agricultural practices market their products directly to customers in the Twin Cities, all year. The business was born out of the couple’s desire for access to more local food in the winter months and the challenge of coordinating on-farm purchases. Even though locally grown foods are becoming more abundant in markets and coops, there’s a growing segment of the community that gets a lot of satisfaction in buying directly from the farm.
While the internet limits personal connection of buying at a market, the Twin Cities Local Food web site allows farmers to describe their farm and explain their practices, so conscientious customers can make informed decisions about the food they purchase. The web site offers a variety of fresh, seasonal produce, grass fed meats, dairy, eggs, honey and some unique Minnesota finds like camelina and sunflower oils. Twin Cities Local Food even has fresh milled, whole grains that are grown and milled on the same organic farm. Try figuring out what farm grew your flour in a bag at the supermarket.
Twin Cities Local Food offers the convenience of shopping online. Customers are able to shop from Friday through Wednesday morning, and pick up purchases on Thursday afternoon. There are currently pickup locations in South Minneapolis and in Savage. Twin Cities Local Food plans to serve areas throughout the Twin Cities as the business grows.
According to Natalie Kelly, co-owner of Twin Cities Local Food, “We think Minnesota farmers are doing some great things for the local food community, and we’re excited to be able to offer them another venue to show off.” Natalie and her business partner / husband, Josh, also think the service can benefit the community by providing more economic sustainability for local farms, and giving customers access to healthier, tastier, and minimally processed foods.
For more information, visit the web site at www.twincitieslocalfood.com.
DWITT / Heavy Table
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
A tasty nut is a fuel for all things. Like a loyal pet, this small but satisfying portion of protein tucks neatly into our pockets while we adventure outdoors, stays piled at our elbow while we work, and provides a natural complement — and ballast — to our beer while we relax. Lately, our nut of choice has been Barsy’s Almonds “Smokies,” a combination of soy sauce, hickory, and brewers yeast on a roasted almond so addictive that, although we buy them in bulk, they have to be hidden around the house in small quantities so that certain people do not consume the entirety in one sitting.
Barsy’s Almonds are produced by Minneapolis locals Barbara Spenader and Jason Hendrycks. Like many a small-batch food project, Smokies were originally created to be given out as Christmas gifts. “I found a recipe for smoked almonds,” says Spenader, “and I thought, ‘Well, I can do that — and do it better.’ So I started tinkering. The Smokies recipe doesn’t bear any relation to the original, but that was what made me want to see if I could do it.”
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
Needless to say, friends and relatives went nuts for the savory holiday treat. At that time, Spenader and Hendrycks, good friends as well as business partners, were both working in the creative department of a mail order company. They spent their lunch breaks walking around the neighborhood, talking about how great it would be to start their own company. When people started telling them to sell the nuts, they took it as a sign.
In 2008, they introduced Smokies at the Midtown Farmers Market, where they were warmly received. Soon, the kind people of Corcoran neighborhood were offering up suggestions for new flavors. “They’d say, ‘How about something with cinnamon?’ and we’d try to come up with something familiar, but a little more exotic,” says Spenader.
Recipe development at Barsy’s is a slow and painstaking process, sometimes months of trial and error. Neither Spenader nor Hendryks have any professional cooking experience to draw upon, almonds can be a challenging medium — and then there are the parameters they’ve set for themselves: “We never add preservatives or fats,” Spenader says, “we cook them lighter than you’d find in something at the drugstore, and they have to be dry enough to store, but we also have to find ways to keep the ingredients on because we don’t have fat to deliver that flavor.”
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
So far, in addition to the Smokies, they’ve successfully created two more savories — Hotties and Stuffies — and a couple of sweets aptly named Sweeties and Naughties. The team is currently working on a cumin and garlic almond and something Spenader calls the “double almond,” an intense combination of vanilla and almond flavors. And there’s a honey mustard project that has them both completely stymied: “It’s so easy for it to turn bitter — we can’t seem to stop it from tasting like a like a vitamin capsule came open, which is not the effect we’re looking for!” Spenader says. “The stuff you buy in the store is made with a creepy powder. We don’t want to do that — we want to use real mustard and horseradish.”
Spenader and Hendryks are experimenting with other nut varieties that can be grown locally. Sunflower seeds are easy to source from Minnesota or the Dakotas, but roast so quickly they present a whole new set of challenges. “We’re also looking at hazelnuts,” says Spenader, “but the hazelnut industry is just beginning here. We would need for it to mature to the point where we could get consistent availability and size. But we’re watching it closely — I think we’re going to plant hazelnuts in the yard and see how it goes.”
In the meantime, there are the existing five flavors, which are a fine snack on their own or paired with beer, hard cider, and root beer, as we have done here.
Susan Pagani / Heavy Table
Hotties
Hotties taste of really good barbecue, spicy hot with plenty of smoke, a flash of vinegar, and a lingering sweetness. We like a handful with the fresh, lightly sweet, and peppery Saison Nourrice from Harriet Brewing — though the two do seem to bring out the hot in one another. If you prefer to downplay the spice, you might like the Crispin Cider Lansdowne, which smooths down the heat with mellow fruit and a subtle sweetness that reminds us of graham crackers (in a good way). Continue reading Barsy’s Almonds: A Local Nut for Your Local Beer »
Eve Daniels recently went behind the scenes at Patisserie 46, Minneapolis’ Kingfield neighborhood’s European-style gem.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
Anyone who knows a bit about gardening or can find their way around a farmer’s market knows that a tomato is not a tomato is not a tomato — they vary in terms of size, flavor, lifespan, and so forth. Bushel Boy Farms, the Owatonna-based grower that puts fresh tomatoes on local shelves on a year-round basis, have begun marketing a new variety of tomato: bigger, supposedly more “fresh-from-the-garden”-tasting Bubba tomatoes.
Becca Dilley / Heavy Table
The first thing we noticed upon approaching our Bubba samples were that they had the fragrance of garden tomatoes — they were redolent with the volatile compounds that makes tomatoes smell, well, so tomato-y. It was a welcome change from the standard-issue store tomato, and a sign of what was to come: Bubbas pack moderate but noticeable flavor, and are not merely crispy and wet, nor hard and fibrous as some durable but unpleasant store tomatoes tend to be. In terms of their innards, Bubbas are a deep, consistent red with evenly distributed seeds.
According to Bushel Boy, the tomatoes vary from $2-3 a pound this time of year, priced similarly to other Bushel Boy vine-ons. They also last about as long on the shelf.
Katie Cannon / Heavy Table
Chef Jon Hunt’s Rinata topped our list of five overlooked Minneapolis restaurants last summer, and though Sparks, his latest venture with business partner Amor Hantous, launched with a similar lack of fanfare earlier this spring, it’s unlikely to stay a secret for long. Blending seamlessly into the leafy, family-oriented Bryn Mawr neighborhood in Minneapolis, Sparks is wide open — literally, with its garage-door-like front windows raised in the warm weather — to welcome customers of all ages with its simple yet satisfying wood-fired dishes. While the wide-ranging menu, spanning Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Mexico, isn’t without its flaws, its strongest dishes will leave you thinking about them long after you leave.
Small plates comprise a good third of Sparks’ menu, and the best is the least obvious starter. The bulgogi tacos ($8 for two) marry the fermented fire of kimchi with tender beef, crunchy vegetables, zesty salsa, and a cool drizzle of sour cream. Each order comes with two extra tortillas, but you’re not going to share, so order multiples if numerous taco fans are seated at your table. Equally strong is the Greek salad ($7), a substantial platter of crisp cucumber spears, salty feta, briny olives, and ripe tomatoes. Fresh, filling and properly dressed, the salad practically dances across your tastebuds, though cilantro-phobes may shy away from its generous sprinkle.
Katie Cannon / Heavy Table
The hummus ($5) and tzatziki ($5) arrive with bowls of warm, hearty pita that are easy to swallow without the dips, but it would be a shame to ignore them. The thick, red-tinged hummus is made from cannellini beans, so while it lacks some of the nuttiness of a chickpea-based spread, the smokiness of the paprika adds another welcome dimension. The creamy tzatziki puts its garlicky-ness in the driver’s seat — awesome if you’re a garlic fan, not so much if you find its flavor to be overwhelming. But even though we’re huge fans of garlic, the Catalan garlic soup ($3 / cup, $6 / bowl) left us wanting more. The buttery crouton and soft poached egg couldn’t make up for the mild-mannered broth.
A weak broth also marred an otherwise successful mussels dish ($9), with its Spanish-inspired sofrito seasoning, but the vegan and gluten-free mushroom avocado enchiladas ($9) left no heat behind. The spice of the vegetable mixture tucked inside soft corn tortillas quickly builds up inside the mouth, but the meaty flavor of the mushrooms and the soothing avocado make it hard to stop eating. Just keep your water glass full if you order them or the chicken pocket sandwich ($9), which combines the roasted chicken from the entree list with the crunchy vegetables from the Greek salad and the kimchi from the bulgogi tacos. Stuffed inside one of those thick pitas, the messy sandwich offers a kick that would be even stronger if it were served hot rather than lukewarm.
Katie Cannon / Heavy Table
If you have room for more meat after those tacos, ask for the thinly sliced tenderloin steak with Bernaise and crispy potatoes ($19). Ordered medium rare, the meat arrives a perfect reddish-pink hue and toothsome texture. You don’t even need the creamy Bernaise for the beef, but you’ll want to dip the salty french-fry-cut potatoes in it. But if you’ve reached your meat maximum for the night, go for the addicting truffle asparagus pizza ($12) instead. With its almost flatbread-like crust, the pie offers a luxurious bite of fragrant truffles and fresh, lightly cooked asparagus spears. One pizza is the ideal size for two if sharing a few dishes, but if this is your only order, be selfish and savor all those slices yourself. The chicken pesto pizza ($9) seems equally promising on the menu but the lackluster sauce left us underwhelmed.
Katie Cannon / Heavy Table
An apple crisp ($7) tempts you from the dessert section of the menu — give into it. The warm apples, so often reduced to mush in these types of dishes, retain much of their firmness, which makes them a satisfying foil to the soft scoop of gelato. Just enough sugary topping gives it the requisite caramel coating, and the subtle cinnamon flavor of the ice cream ties the dessert together. If you’d rather imbibe your calories, the beverage menu presents everything from sake and local brews on tap to a wine list from around the world.
Like the menu, the service at Sparks has its highlights and lowlights, too. Friendly waitstaff become less so when they disappear for a good part of the meal. On one occasion, our small-plate dishes remained on the table 10 minutes after we finished our starters — the bussing staff had to remove them when the entrees arrived at the table — and a long wait for the check is never welcome when you’re ready to hit to the road. But we always appreciate an open attitude toward children at the table, and with its indoor and outdoor seating, it’s easy to find a comfortable spot for families at Sparks. Come winter, though, it will be quite the squeeze.
For now, though, the bulgogi tacos and truffle pizza will continue to draw me to Sparks’ leafy patio, and if word spreads, the rest of Minneapolis may join along. Hope they made enough kimchi.
Sparks
Bistro in Bryn Mawr, Minneapolis
(Good)
230 S Cedar Lake Rd
Minneapolis, MN 55405
612.259.8943
HOURS:
Mon-Sat 11am-10pm
Sun 10am-9pm
CHEF / OWNERS: Jonathan Hunt and Amor Hantous
RESERVATIONS / RECOMMENDED: No, but you can call up to 30 minutes in advance to put your name on the waiting list.
BAR: Full
VEGETARIAN / VEGAN: Yes / Yes
ENTREE PRICE: $3-14 for small plates; $8-17 for pizza, sandwiches and large plates
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