One of our senior members told me about how the co-op was a life line for her when she had a very serious illness. She would walk every day to the co-op and shop for healthful foods, which were harder to find at that time, and she told me that the co-op literally saved her life.
Another volunteer is embarking on a new career path as a health coach. She shared with me about her transformation to healthful eating and lifestyle choices that were made possible by the learnings that she experienced as a volunteer and shopper at the co-op. As part of her business she will be sharing the co-op experience with her clients.
The Hampden Park Co-op and new GM Kari Neathery recently earned some ink in the TC Daily Planet:
Kari Neathery brings to the co-op her leadership experience at Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and the West Broadway Area Coalition, along with master’s degrees in hospital administration and urban planning.
“The opportunity is great now for co-op groceries,” Neathery said, “because of the interest in local foods, neighborhood shopping, people using their bikes. I think people look to co-ops for that leadership.”
Please join the Hampden Park Co-op Board of Directors and staff in welcoming Kari Neathery as our new General Manager. Kari comes to us with 23 years of experience in the non-profit industry; most recently Kari was Executive Director of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association. Kari possesses the skills in finance, marketing, human resources, and building management we were looking for in order to lead HPC into profitability while preserving the culture we all love and enjoy at HPC.
We have some excellent volunteer opportunities coming up in the next few months. For the Mayfest Plant Sale (May 11–13), we will need experienced gardeners and friendly hospitality and kitchen help. On May 19, we'll have a work day to clean up inside and outside, and plant our garden areas. For the June 2 St. Anthony Park Arts Festival, we'll need volunteers to staff our booth.
All of these volunteer opportunities will be posted on the calendar bulletin board in the entryway.
I am here today to share some good news and some bad news about peanut butter—that sometimes crunchy, sometimes smooth, always delectable protein-packed favorite of kids and grownups alike.
First the good news—June 12 is National Peanut Butter Cookie day! To help you celebrate, there is an outstanding Peanut Butter Blossom recipe at the end of this article.
Now the bad news—the high price of the recipe’s star ingredient may leave you scratching your head. It may, as one customer joked, stick to the roof of your mouth.
Commodity crops are any crops that are traded. Generally they are relatively nonperishable, storable, transportable, and undifferentiated: one corn kernel looks like any other corn kernel. But in our national discussion about food and agriculture policy, “commodity crop” refers to those that are regulated by federal programs under the commodity title of the U.S. Farm Bill. There have been 20 of them (listed in the box below), but the major five (in bold) that take the lion’s share of taxpayer money are cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans, and rice.
All the decisions involved in ethical eating can boggle the mind. Which is more important, that a food be organic, or that it be local? What about packaging? And we can’t ignore cost, nutrition, flavor, and other aspects of palatability. After all, if you can’t afford a food, or if you can’t get your family to swallow it, there’s no point in buying it, no matter how ethical; and if it doesn’t promote good health, what’s the point?
The Huron Indians tell this story about the origin of corn:
“In ancient times, when the land was barren and the people were starving, the Great Spirit sent forth a woman to save humanity. As she travelled over the world, everywhere her right hand touched the soil, there grew potatoes. And everywhere her left hand touched the soil, there grew corn. And in the place where she had sat, there grew tobacco.”1
This is how I imagine the headlines would have run a hundred years ago. Today, however, what happens is that I get contacted by a friend on Facebook, who asks if I’ve heard the news; and then, when I’m volunteering at the cash register, everyone is sympathetic and supportive.
One of our senior members told me about how the co-op was a life line for her when she had a very serious illness. She would walk every day to the co-op and shop for healthful foods, which were harder to find at that time, and she told me that the co-op literally saved her life.
Another volunteer is embarking on a new career path as a health coach. She shared with me about her transformation to healthful eating and lifestyle choices that were made possible by the learnings that she experienced as a volunteer and shopper at the co-op. As part of her business she will be sharing the co-op experience with her clients.
Robin Asbell is a veteran of the Twin Cities vegetarian and vegan scene. New Vegetarian and The New Whole Grains Cookbook led her foray into cookbook writing, and she has written for a number of local and national publications. Big Vegan: More than 350 Recipes, No Meat/No Dairy All Delicious (2011,Chronicle Books) is her latest attempt to show us that eating vegan is a healthy, delicious choice.
In the introduction, Robin elaborates on her vegan philosophy, vegan nutrition, tricks for replacing the umami element of meat to make satisfying main dishes, as well as special ingredients and techniques used in vegan cooking.
It was only because I was cashiering unexpectedly that I had the good luck to meet Peter Leach, a local potter and photographer who also happens to be an HPC member. His name rang a bell with me because I have a mug he made, a fact I was made aware of only when a friend pointed out his logo on its base.
—by Lois Braun, HPC Member (October/November 2006)
About 45% of all land in this country is used for agriculture, more than for any other single activity. Thus agricultural policy is everybody’s business, not just that of farmers. Farm policy affects you even though you live in a city, and even though you might not have any family left on the farm. It affects you because, not only do you eat food, but you drink water, breathe air, and pay taxes. It affects you if you like to fish, canoe, or swim in natural bodies of water.
As a human being, you deserve safe nourishing food, clean air, and clean water. The farm bill should deliver these, but it doesn’t; and thus it is wasting taxpayers’ money—YOUR money. In the farm bill we are not getting what we pay for. Discussions are starting now about the next farm bill, which will come out in 2007. It is time for city people to get involved.
Origins of the Farm Program
The original idea of the farm program was good. It started at a time when the majority of our nation’s population were farmers, and a majority of farmers were poor due in part to wildly fluctuating crop prices. So price support systems were enacted that made up the difference to farmers when prices of “commodity crops” (corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, cotton) fell below a baseline.
Mayfest Plant sale
All the decisions involved in ethical eating can boggle the mind. Which is more important, that a food be organic, or that it be local? What about packaging? And we can’t ignore cost, nutrition, flavor, and other aspects of palatability. After all, if you can’t afford a food, or if you can’t get your family to swallow it, there’s no point in buying it, no matter how ethical; and if it doesn’t promote good health, what’s the point?
The Huron Indians tell this story about the origin of corn:
This is how I imagine the headlines would have run a hundred years ago. Today, however, what happens is that I get contacted by a friend on Facebook, who asks if I’ve heard the news; and then, when I’m volunteering at the cash register, everyone is sympathetic and supportive.