The Spoonriver Cookbook

For nearly forty years, Brenda Langton has been one of the most recognizable guiding lights of Twin Cities organic dining, from the earliest days at the Commonplace Cooperative Restaurant to her award-winning establishments Cafe Kardamena and the beloved Cafe Brenda. Always ahead of the curve when it comes to serving local, organic, and vegetarian cuisine, in 2006 she opened the acclaimed Spoonriver restaurant in downtown Minneapolis while at the same time founding the Mill City Farmers Market, a unique urban market offering local, sustainable, and organic produce along with pasture-raised meats, eggs, and farmstead cheeses.

Spoonriver and the Mill City Farmers Market have from the very beginning been entwined—Brenda and her restaurants have always relied on the finest, freshest local produce as the foundation for her seasonal menus. The Spoonriver Cookbook is a tribute to these two landmark institutions as well as a presentation of the vision and philosophy behind Spoonriver’s delicious creations and their remarkable chef. With her longtime friend and coauthor Margaret Stuart, Brenda has compiled a flavorful variety of Spoonriver’s offerings from quick-cooking one-pot dishes to simple and scrumptious vegetable sides, legume recipes, and whole-grain preparations. Spoonriver appeals to a broad palate, and its cookbook includes tantalizing recipes for grass-fed beef, lamb, and naturally raised pork from area farms along with fresh seafood and organic free-range chicken. Connecting the table back to the market and ultimately to the land itself, The Spoonriver Cookbook provides unique recipes and fascinating short stories and profiles from the market’s farmers and vendors.

Brenda Langton’s philosophy is built on the simple premise that a healthy diet is one of the best paths toward a long and happy life. It just so happens that Brenda’s recipes are for some of the most delectable food that people in the Twin Cities have enjoyed for decades, and The Spoonriver Cookbook is a celebration of her rich legacy that is at once local, healthy, and yes, supremely delicious.

Brenda Langton has been a presence in Twin Cities dining since 1972. She started her first restaurant, Cafe Kardamena, in St. Paul in 1978, and then moved it to Minneapolis and renamed it Cafe Brenda in 1986. Cafe Brenda operated until 2009. In 2006, Brenda opened Spoonriver and founded the Mill City Farmers Market. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota and an educator and consultant on healthy eating. Margaret Stuart is a horticulturist, landscape designer, and personal chef who has been cooking natural foods since her late teens. Langton and Stuart are coauthors of The Cafe Brenda Cookbook, first published in 1992 and republished by the University of Minnesota Press in 2004.

Mette Nielsen is a Minneapolis-based food and farm photographer. She has created food images for more than twenty-five years and is an active supporter of year-round local foods in this northern climate.

Margaret Stuart is a horticulturist and owner of a garden design business. She is a chef and grows vegetables and herbs on her family farm in order to have varieties not always available in the market. She is also coauthor of The Cafe Brenda Cookbook (Minnesota, 2004).