The Seward neighborhood will come alive with festivities this weekend. Join neighbors and friends for a celebration of local arts and businesses Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 1-2.

There will be artists showing their work throughout Seward, businesses will have specials all day and live arts events will be going on all over the neighborhood. All events are FREE unless otherwise noted.

Seward Co-op will be sampling bakery treats and hot beverages. Stop in to grab a Winter Frolic map, warm up and sugar up all weekend.

Enjoy a hot drink and a hot meal at Seward Co-op Creamery Café. The new winter menu includes comfort food for everyone, including vegan, vegetarian and made-without-gluten options.

Schedule of Events
The Lighting Ceremony at Triangle Park will cap off the day on Saturday, 5-6 p.m., with a bonfire, the lighting of park trees, hay rides around the park and finally a visit from Santa at 5:15 p.m. The City/County Chorus will perform at 5:30 p.m.

Once again there will be a big show at Seward Montessori School with youth art and 16 neighborhood artists showing their work and a South High Jazz Combo will perform at Bethany Lutheran Church on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. Returning activities at the Seward Winter Frolic hot soup for sale at Bethany Lutheran Church, music and interactive arts activities at the Ivy Building, card making at ArtiCulture and the Community Sing at 2 p.m. on Sunday at Faith Mennonite Church.

There will be specials and activities in most of the Seward businesses and over 100 artists showing their work around the neighborhood.

Maps
Maps can be found Dec. 1-2 at Seward Co-op, Welna II, The Ivy Building 2637 27th Ave. S, Faith Mennonite 2720 E.22nd St., Bethany Lutheran Church 2511 Franklin Ave. and Seward Montessori School 2309 28th Ave. S. (Saturday only). Learn more at sewardarts.org.

Click here to RSVP to the Facebook event and receive updates.

Come meet the farmers who grow our food! Wisconsin Growers Co-op will be providing samples of their sweet potatoes Saturday, Oct. 6, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. at the Franklin store as part of our Know Our Grower series.

About Wisconsin Growers Co-op
Wisconsin Growers Co-op was founded in 2006 to help 20 families maintain ownership of their farms. Its members are dedicated to the idea that if farmers take “good care of the soil, the soil will pay back with high-quality produce.”

This mindset has proven effective; Wisconsin Growers often brings us produce all year long, from greenhouse radishes at the first sight of spring clear around the calendar to over-wintered parsnips.

The key to the longevity of their growing season are labor-intensive, fossil fuel-free farming methods. On nearly 40 acres of the co-op’s land, these farmers plant, tend, and harvest crops exclusively using horses, horse machinery, and hand tools.

This soup features the ingredients of a Three Sisters Garden, a Native American tradition of growing corn, beans and squash together. Cooked together they make a great soup that is popular with vegetarians and vegans.

Three Sisters Soup is a soothing first course for a holiday meal or an everyday comfort food using the gorgeous local produce available in our Produce department. Omnivores: The soup pairs well with our new seasonal Seward-made sausage, available in the Meat department.

Ingredients
2 pounds of your favorite winter squash (butternut, acorn, kabocha)
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
1/4 cup garlic, chopped
2 quarts vegetable stock or water
1/2 cup white wine
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 large bay leaf
1 pound fresh or frozen corn kernels
2 15.5-ounce cans cannellini beans, drained
1/2 bunch green onions, sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Halve the squash and scoop out the seeds. Place the squash halves skin-side down on a lightly oiled baking sheet, and then roast until cooked through and soft, anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes (see tips below for cooking times depending on your squash). Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Scoop the flesh of the squash into a large bowl (save any liquid!). Puree the cooled squash with a blender or food processor, adding some of the reserved liquid if needed.

In a large stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat and sauté the onions until they begin to brown. Add the garlic and cook, stirring often, until the garlic turns light brown in color.
Add the stock or water, wine, thyme, bay leaf and pureed squash and bring to a simmer. Stir in the remaining ingredients and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Tips & Notes
Squash cooking times will vary depending on the type and size of squash. At 350°F you can expect these approximate cooking times:

Acorn squash: 30-45 minutes
Kabocha squash: 40-50 minutes
Butternut squash: 60-90 minutes

Credit: National Co-op Grocers

Classes return to Seward Community Co-op on Sept. 4. Enjoy opportunities—some free—to learn a new skill or dig into an interesting topic with an instructor from the community.

Sign up now, as some classes are selling out fast. Click the links below to register.

Nourish 101: Cauliflower Curry Soup – SOLD OUT
Tuesday, Sep. 4, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Friendship store
Nourish 101 classes feature basic scratch-cooking techniques and recipes that feed a family of four for under $10.
Jessica Brown, Jess Delicious
FREE

Develop and Maintain a Levain Culture: Flour, Water and Time – SOLD OUT
Wednesday, Sep. 5, 6-7 p.m.
Franklin store
Learn how to develop and maintain a levain culture (a type of sourdough starter). Starter will be available for students to take home.
Steve Horton, Baker’s Field Flour & Bread Head Miller and Baker
$6/$5 co-op owners

Intro to Soap Making – SOLD OUT
Wednesday, Sep. 12, 6–8 p.m.
Franklin store
Learn soap making from one of Seward Co-op’s most popular soap vendors! Each student receives an instruction manual and takes home five bars of soap ($25 retail).
John Hanson, Seward Soap
$30/$25 co-op owners

Okonomiyaki: A Savory Japanese Pancake
Thursday Sep. 13, 6-8 p.m.
Franklin store
When life gives you cabbage, make Okonomiyaki— a delicious pancake filled with cabbage, meat and seafood.
Koshiki Yonemura and Benjamin Smith, Tanpopo Studio
$35/$30 co-op owners

Co-op Kids: Pizza Party! – SOLD OUT
Saturday, Sep. 15, 11 a.m.-noon
Friendship store
Kids will learn about the plants, flavors and uses of herbs and spices common in Minnesota. Ages 5-12.
Instructors from Midwest Food Connection
FREE

Ayurveda for Healthy Digestion
Thursday, Sep. 20, 6-7:30 p.m.
Friendship store
Many diseases originate from our gut. This class will focus on the concept of Agni, Ayurvedic diet and Ayurvedic home remedies for digestive issues and more.
Vanashree Belgamwar
$12/$10 co-op owners

The Skinny on Fat
Tuesday, Sep. 25, 6-8 p.m.
Friendship store
Confused about fat? Culinary nutritionists Jenny Breen and Jesse Haas are teaming up to tackle this controversial topic. We’ll also prepare and enjoy recipes featuring cooking oils, nuts, seeds and other fat-rich foods.
Jenny Breen and Jesse Haas
$30/$25 co-op owners

Honest In Trade: A Conversation about Supply Chain Sustainability
Wednesday, Oct. 3, 6-7:30 p.m.
Franklin store
Learn about Once Again Nut Butter’s social justice programs, employee ownership model, supply chain transparency and their dedication to the planet.
Gael B. Orr, Once Again Nut Butter
FREE

A Perfect Bowl of Autumn Soba Noodles
Thursday, Oct. 4, 6–8 p.m.
Franklin store
Have you made Japanese Dashi stock before? This tried and tested recipe is from Tanpopo Noodle Shop, a Japanese restaurant that was once located in Lowertown St. Paul.
Koshiki Yonemura and Benjamin Smith, Tanpopo Studio
$35/$30 co-op owners

Intro to Soap Making
Wednesday, Oct. 10, 6–8 p.m.
Franklin store
Learn to make soap from a Seward Co-op vendor. Each student receives an instruction manual and takes home five bars of soap ($25 retail).
John Hanson, Seward Soap
$30/$25 co-op owners

Nourish 101: Farro with Tomato and Feta
Tuesday, Oct. 16, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Friendship store
We’ll learn how to cook with farro, one of many delicious and affordable ingredients you can purchase at the bulk sale Oct. 25.
Jessica Brown, Jess Delicious
FREE

Nourish 101: Fermenting Veggies with Pickle Witch
Thursday, Oct. 25, 6–8 p.m.
Friendship store
Learn the basics of fermenting in a hands-on workshop that will teach you to turn almost any vegetable into a nutritious and delicious fermented pickle. Bring your own container to take your ferment home!
L. Kling, Pickle Witch
FREE

Festive Fermented Beverages
Thursday, Nov. 1, 6–8 p.m.
Franklin store
Learn the basics of making live, fermented beverages. By capturing and propagating the ginger bug, participants can make fizzy juice, soda, alcohol and vinegar.
Monarda Thrasher, Tea for the People, LLC
$15/$12 co-op owners

Intro to Soap Making
Wednesday, Nov. 7, 6–8 p.m.
Franklin store
Learn soap making using the cold process method. Each student receives an instruction manual and takes home five bars of soap ($25 retail).
John Hanson, Seward Soap
$30/$25 co-op owners

Nourish 101: Thanksgiving Sides
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
Friendship store
Nourish 101 classes feature basic scratch-cooking techniques and recipes that feed a family of four for under $10 ($15 with meat). Learn how to feed your family economically and still have leftovers!
Jessica Brown, Jess Delicious
FREE

Important Class Information
Walk-ins are welcome as space allows, but Seward Co-op may cancel classes if there are fewer than three preregistered attendees. In this case, participants will be notified and given a full refund. Payment must be made at time of registration. To ensure a refund, cancellations must be made 48 hours before the class date.

Seward Co-op Creamery Café welcomed more than 30 guests July 17 for a Farm Table dinner featuring our July SEED recipient, Tamales y Bicicletas, an organization dedicated to strengthening Latino and immigrant communities through bike projects, green farming, cultural empowerment and environmental justice.

We enjoyed a three-course meal—including tamales and churros—featuring produce from Tamales y Bicicletas’ urban farm and heard about the nonprofit’s food-based work in Latino and immigrant communities in the Twin Cities.

Thank you to all who attended our Farm Table! Keep rounding up at co-op registers throughout the month of July to support Tamales y Bicicletas’ programming.

Seward Community Co-op’s Board of Directors is seeking candidates for the 2018 board election. If you feel committed to the cooperative business model and want to ensure the long-term success of our co-op, please consider being a candidate. The election will be held in October, ending at the Annual Meeting on Oct. 30. In order to receive a Board Candidate Application, attendance was required at a board meeting and a candidate information session this summer. Applications are due Wednesday, Aug. 29.

Prior to each of the summer meetings, the board held a Candidate Information Session beginning at 5:30 p.m. Board meetings officially call to order at 6:15 p.m. The last opportunity to attend and receive an application was Tuesday, Aug. 28.

Aug. 28: Sabathani Community Center, Target Banquet Center, 2nd floor

Click here for more information about the board of directors generally. Please email board@seward.coop for further information about the upcoming meetings and this year’s election.

Small farms and producers throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin welcomed visitors on Saturday, July 14, during the Eat Local Co-op Farm Tour.

Thank you to all who participated! We look forward to more food, activities and exploration next year.

Follow us on social media to check out photos and videos from the tour. We’ll also continue to feature the producers we work with year-round.

This year, there were more than 30 urban and rural farms with exciting new activities like yoga on the farm, blueberry picking contests, farm disc golf, beer tasting and pick-your-own flower bouquets.

This annual event is FREE and brought to you by your local community food co-ops, including Seward Community Co-op.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed a rule for nationwide labeling on genetically engineered foods — but we need something better.

Public comments, from food eaters like you, will be extremely important. Comments were due to the USDA by July 3, 2018.

We’ve been telling the USDA to:

• Use common, well-established labeling terms. The USDA proposes using a new term — “bioengineering” — not the terms “genetic engineering” or “GMO,” despite their acceptance for over 30 years by consumers, companies and regulators.
• Require neutral symbols. The symbols proposed by the USDA appear to be biased toward genetic engineering, or “bioengineering.”

  
  Symbols should be content-neutral and easy to understand, like a circle with “GE” or “GMO” inside it.

• Reject QR codes and other discriminatory options for on-package labels. These methods are discriminatory against 100 million consumers who do not have smartphones or reliable internet connections. Other label claims are required to be printed on packages.
• Include all processed foods produced with genetic engineering. Many foods are so highly refined that some tests may not detect GE material in the final product, even though they undisputedly were produced with GE.
• Ensure future foods made with newer forms of genetic engineering are covered. The USDA must ensure any foods made with new forms of genetic engineering — such as synthetic biology, gene-editing and RNAI — are required to be labeled.
• Harmonize with the European Union standard. Required labeling of foods with a 0.9 percent threshold of GE content aligns with accepted global standards, has been adopted by many U.S. companies, and would encourage, not hinder, global trade.
• Demand disclosure now, not postponed until 2022. Waiting four more years would be an unreasonable delay. Many companies already are labeling without disruption or burdensome costs.

How to comment:

Formal comments were due July 3 on the Regulations.gov website.

An easy way to get involved is to visit the Just Label It website and sign the petition to the USDA calling for consumer-friendly GMO labeling regulations.

Thank you for standing up for fair and transparent labeling!

We love Farm Bill season—everyone is buzzing about a few of our favorite topics: farmers, organic food and access to healthy, nutritious food for everyone. It’s also a fertile opportunity to roll up our sleeves and dig into democracy by contacting our elected officials.

Weeding through this densely packed legislation is no small feat (for us or for Congress), so we’re highlighting a few of the things we are most happy about in the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Farm Bill. In short, this is a big moment for organic agriculture. The grassroots agricultural movement farmers and organic fans started decades ago is coming into its own. Some of the key organic programs we have advocated for many years are set to achieve baseline funding this year! Baseline funding means the programs are much more likely to be included in the annual budget cycle.

Read on for the details—and if you’re as excited as we are—take a moment to call your lawmakers in Washington D.C. and ask them to support the Senate’s version of the Farm Bill that champions organic! It’s easy to call, just dial the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and provide information about where you live, they’ll transfer your call accordingly. Your call will be routed to an actual phone inside your lawmaker’s actual office—and their offices are pretty tiny. Everyone in there knows when a constituent is calling and they want to hear from you!

Organic agricultural research fully funded to support farmers

The demand for organic food has experienced off-the-charts growth, which is great news for U.S. farmers. Organic is a bright spot in agriculture right now—it is one area that is bringing new people into farming careers and it is making small-scale family farming possible again.

But organic farming is not just as easy as making a decision to stop using pesticides—it takes training and access to resources and education. Farmers have to learn new methods of soil management, pest control and animal care, just to name a few. The Organic Agriculture Research Extension Initiative (OREI) in the Farm Bill helps to ensure that best practices and current technology gets shared with farmers through university agriculture extension offices across the country.

The Senate’s version of the bill would establish stable baseline funding for OREI by increasing funding from $20 million to $50 million per year by 2022. We are asking Congress to support this goal in the final bill.

Organic Certification Cost Share Program fully funded to help farmers go organic

The USDA Certified Organic seal is the gold standard of food labels and reflects hard work and careful adherence to agreed-upon standards for what makes something “organically grown.” Farmers are responsible for getting their farms certified each year by a third-party inspector and certifying agent, and for a small farmer, it can be expensive or even cost-prohibitive.

The Organic Certification Cost Share Program offsets some of the costs of organic certification for farmers that qualify. This assistance can be enough to encourage small and beginning farmers to transition to organic, which in turn boosts our country’s homegrown supply of organic food.

The Senate’s version of the bill fully funds the Organic Certification Cost Share Program! Join us in asking Congress to support this in the final bill.

Bonus: Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) Grant Program boosts access to fresh, healthy food

Not necessarily an organic program—but one that is close to food co-ops’ hearts, the USDA FINI grant program funds projects that make fresh fruits and vegetables affordable to people who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), with a priority on projects that focus on locally grown produce.

Not only does this make the freshest, most delicious produce more accessible to more people, it has the added benefits of supporting local farmers and supporting local business. And if you shop at a food co-op, a lot of that local produce is likely to be organic.

Many farmers markets and food co-ops have made great use of FINI grants to establish programs that double SNAP shoppers’ dollars when they are spent on fresh fruits and vegetables (see Willy Street Co-op’s Double Dollars Program), and many more co-ops are eager to get these programs started.

Although the FINI grant gets the ball rolling, co-ops have demonstrated that these programs can be successfully self-sustained once implemented, making the grant money an excellent investment towards making healthy food affordable for all.

The Senate’s version of the bill would fully fund the FINI grant program at $50 million annually. We love fresh fruits and veggies and want more people to have the same opportunity. We are asking Congress to support this funding in the final bill.

What’s most important to you?

We’ve highlighted just a few of the things food co-ops are excited to see in the Senate’s version of the 2018 Farm Bill, but there are many other important programs and ideas in this bill that are worthy of support. Explore some of the links below and find out what inspires you to act. Just like farming, what we care for and attend to grows—adding your voice helps cultivate a stronger democracy.

• Support the National Organic Standards Board and transparency in organic rulemaking
• Homegrown Organic Act (in the Senate and House)
• Local FARMS Act (in the Senate and House)
• Organic Farmer and Consumer Protection Act (in the Senate and House)
• Organic Farmers Access Act
• Seeds for the Future Act (in the Senate and House)

Find out what bills about food and other issues Congress is considering by visiting www.govtrack.us.

Article by National Co-op Grocers (Co+op, stronger together).