A few years ago I was asked to serve on the Wellness Committee that was being formed by the Iowa City School District, under a federal mandate to improve the […]
Kurt Michael Friese
Morel Me, Please
A walk in the woods in the heartland’s early spring is intrinsically rewarding, but while you are enjoying those first few sunny days after a nourishing spring rain, why not […]
Hoagies & Grinders
Lunch-lady-land cafeterias in the U.S. public school system conjure dreams of Early Cuising Education. It’s early in the morning the day after a very busy Valentine’s weekend in the restaurant. […]
Growing Excitement
Just about everyone I know has been pouring over seed catalogs for the last month. Eagerness to plant supplants many other priorities and they begin rifling through each newly arrived […]
Spoils from the Soil
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, […]
Barack the Table
I have read a seemingly unending stream of open letters to the President-Elect, each doling out copious amounts of advice and admonition for the new administration. While I realize that […]
Three Days on One Chicken
The economy is in shambles. Prices of everything are going up. K-Mart has brought back layaway plans. KFC is advertising that you can’t make their seven-piece “meal deal” at home […]
Food: It's Not Just for Elites
It’s going to take me a long time to fully understand the effects and implications of the first Slow Food Nation, held in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend. The […]
The Real Food Supercenter
This is the time of year that we flatlanders pine for during the snows of January, when it’s a full 100 degrees colder than it is right now, and all […]
Food Without the Wrapper
Too many people in this country, I have learned, have been sold a bill of goods. They’ve been tricked. Flim-flammed. Conned. Hussled. Bamboozled into believing that food comes wrapped in […]
Fields of Sea
Iowa experienced the flood of the century 15 years ago. That, of course, was a different century. Last month Iowans saw floods unlike any in living memory. Fourteen hundred city […]