Field Trip to Cornocopia

Tess Ergen
May 1^st 2013
As a class we took a fieldtrip to the Student Organic Farm (Cornercopia) lead by Courtney.  I was surprised to learn there was an organic farming organization for students at the University of Minnesota. Courtney claimed the Cornercopia developed not too long ago in 2006, if I am to be exact which surprised me that there was not one sooner in the agriculture field.  The process of creating an organic farm with a variety of seeds (over a 100) was a hit and miss building strategy. As students and instructors that are both new to organic farming, a learning tool is making mistakes. Courtney agrees that she has been able to grow more efficiently from her past mistakes. For instance, Cornercopia plants seeds in a little square dirt that is sheltered inside for the plant to develop until it’s ready to be placed outside because the roots will stay in a confined area and the plant will be safer inside while it’s maturing. This technique was made after many errors of seeds dying in the fields when planted in the ground and the roots becoming tangled and broken when they needed to be transported. Farming is a process of trial and error and hit and miss- we learn best from our mistakes to exceed. An interesting part about Cornercopia was their clients. One of Courtney’s clients is a chef that works in the restaurant sitting on top of Coffman at the University Of Minnesota. Courtney will meet every winter to discuss with her client what they may need, for fresh produce and herbs, over the next year. During the year, her client may call her up to see if there are anything extra that Courtney needs to give away and or have too much. This is a great connection for each group since Courtney gets all her produces sold, including making profit enough for internships, and the chef gets to experiment with new ingredients. As we walked around the student organic farm, we noticed nothing was planted outside since the ground was still too cold from the late Minnesota winter. All the plants were displayed in the green house waiting to be transported outside, to the newer, bigger field given specially for organic farming at the University of Minnesota.  Ive really appreciated the experience of learning more about my university and the movement towards organic, hands-on agriculture training. Leaving Cornocopia, I hope to believe soon the Student Organic Farm will be the number one distributor for the food on campus including dorms.

Here are some snap shots of what they are growing this semester! 

Crostini

This week, I decided to make two types of Crostini: Bruschetta and Crostini with Tomato and Basil (p. 84) and Crostini with Herbed Goat Cheese (p. 91). Though this was a simple appetizer, it didn’t fall short on flavor! The tomato topping on the bruschetta was light and refreshing, while the herbed goat cheese was rich and tangy. I decided to add caramelized onions on top of the goat cheese crostini to add some more texture and sweetness. They were super yummy!

  

           

 

  

  

Last Field Trip!

As an employee of Cornercopia, I have gleaned from many conversations with Courtney Tchida that the Campus Club is AWESOME.  The relationship between Cornercopia and the best on campus restaurant is one of a nurturing and symbiotic nature.  We grow a ton of awesome food, they buy about half of it, easing the stress of trying to sell 2.34 acre's worth of produce at market stands.  They also happen to have an immaculately organized kitchen that produces killer food.

 

This is Chef Beth.  Her direct and blunt demeanor speckled with the flavorful use of curse words and honest assessments of people really reminded me of my days in various kitchens and the kind of character required to run the damn thing.  She seemed like the kind of person you could hang out with and swap stories of kitchen disasters and ordering fiascoes, which we like.

Did I mention how immaculately organized this place was?  In my days of dish dogging, the savages I worked with would render a well organized stack like this completely unrecognizable within minutes.

busy at work and wondering who the punks are getting in the way

 The field trip to the Campus Club offered a refreshing visitation to a kitchen that deserves the respect is has earned.  Beth is obviously doing wonderful things and the insanely low turnover rate of kitchen staff is a true testament to that.  The food is frustratingly awesome and the people working there are obviously in love with their jobs.  I've never lasted longer than 3 years at a given restaurant and it sounded like many of their employees have been around for 5 or longer.  Very impressive.

It was great to see the operation to which Cornercopia sells so much food and it was great to hear from a chef genuinely excited about quality food and quality cooking.

hampden park co-op, field trip deux

I'm pretty sure I brought up the fact that I have never been to this co-op about five times this semester, SO, I finally trekked down Raymond after class this week and checked it out. Good thing I had a field trip assignment to do, otherwise who knows when I would have made it over there!

As it's been described to me, Hampden Park Co-op is probably the most "throwback-y" cooperative grocery store that still exists in the Twin Cities, evoking the roots of the co-op movement that happened here in the 70s. It's small, but packed full of stuff, and they carry the full range of what you'd expect to see in a grocery store: Produce, dry boxed foods, bulk bins, frozen food, milk, eggs, cheese, bread, snacks.

Part of the bulk section... so much!

I wasn't one hundred percent sold on their produce. I suspect they don't have too high of a turnover because it's a little neighborhood store, and some of it didn't look very fresh. I did find a nice bunch of chard though (I ended up buying some things before I left!). I also found some Medjool dates in the produce coolers--and they were INCREDIBLE. Now I understand why people rave about these. The Medjools I've had were really tough and chewy--not so with these. They are soft, sticky, and intensely sweet. What.else.could.you.want. I might have to make a trip back just for more of those.

I was impressed with how many gluten-free flours they carried. I have never seen so many different types of non-wheat flour. I didn't even know some of these existed. Sorghum flour? Coconut flour? These are real things.

A few more shots of the store itself... their cheese case, next to which there were some deli foods and other prepared refrigerated things. They also had a goodly selection of cookies, which I had a really hard time not buying.

Hampden Park is staffed almost completely by volunteer-members, which is pretty much how co-ops originally used to work, from what I understand. As a member, you get a discount on everything in the store in exchange for several hours of work each month.

This is how they do their scheduling! People literally just sign up for the shifts they want. It must work itself out somehow. They do have a handful of paid managers who make sure things are running properly.

I wish there were a tiny, retro, volunteer-run co-op in my neighborhood. This was a fun place to visit. Hopefully I'll (probably will, let's be honest the dates won't last that long) be back some time!

Field trip 2 - Cornacopia

Field trip 2 Cornercopia

After hearing many times about the student organic farm, Cornercopia, I was actually pretty excited to see where we had gotten some of the ingredients we’d be cooking with in our cooking lab. Although the Fall section apparently had much more cornercopia produce, I’m pretty sure there were at least a couple of things which were frozen that we had the opportunity to cook with.

Cornercopia is a student-run organic farm on the St. Paul campus. The idea was brought to life in 2004, and today has over 2 acres of farmland where students have the opportunity to grow things on campus property, organically.

The tour actually started indoors, in a building owned by the U which Cornercopia was renting space from. I believe we started in the Plant Growth Facilities. During the morning, we learned that Cornercopia can really only afford to rent out space in these facilities during the spring semester (basically the winter and spring). In this facility, we got to see some of the spaces were the processing occurs. For Cornercopia, processing means the weighing, cleaning, packaging, etc. of the produce that they actually sell.

After seeing the “processing” areas, we were shown one of the of the indoor greenhouse areas, where seeds were being nurtured to take root. Now, not being much of a gardener myself and never having true nursery/gardening experience, this blew my mind. Why let a plant struggle trying to take seed out in the elements, when you can grow it in a safe, predictable environment, and give it a good start? Not only does this likely extend the time you can grow things, I speculate that it increases the rate of crops which actually make it to being harvested.

We saw another indoor greenhouse space where various plants where doing more growing than just sprouting and taking seed. We actually saw where some spinach plants were which had been harvested and eaten the day before. The spinach was the spinach we ate at the campus club, and it was delicious.

Finally, we went outside to see the actually land. Although it was cold, windy, and rainy, we saw the 2 + acres which are set aside. What I found really interesting was actually seeing the clovers they had planted as cover crops. Since we talked about cover crops quite a bit in class, it was particularly interesting because I had to yet to intentionally see an example of this.  

The 2+ acres seemed like quite a bit of space, especially with the number of people involved in growing with Cornercopia. Learning about their business model, selling much of their produce on campus, but always being able to sell it to the Campus Club, also really interested me. Cornercopia is in a unique situation with its campus partnerships to be able to grow so many things. Now knowing the bits of tender love and car which really are needed to run an organic farm, it’s apparent that it is by no means an easy operation to run, however it also seems from everybody who does it that it is incredibly rewarding when things work out.

Field to the Minneapolis Farmers Market

One of my field trips was to the Minneapolis Farmers Market. This is one of my favorite spots in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Farmers Market sells organic, local, non-local foods as well as flowers, crafts, meat, cheese, clothes, patio furniture, spices, and a whole host of other goodies. To me, the food is much cheaper than at a grocery store and tastes much better. This trip was a little disappointing because not all the vendors have come out yet given the prolonged winter we suffered through. But I stopped by one of my favorite vendors and picked up some Jumbo Garlic pickles!

Field Trip to Campus Club

One of my field trips was to the Campus Club for lab. I had never been or had heard of the Campus Club so the trip was an amazing surprise. Not only did we enjoy a wonderful meal outside on the patio, but I learned more about the relationship between the Campus Club and Cornucopia. I also learned about the transformation that the club has made from mostly pre-packaged food to freshly prepared food served daily. The trip also included a tour of the premises which involved the kitchen, the cafeteria line, banquet rooms, and the bar. Here are some photos: