It should be noted that both of these coworkers are my elders, and both eat beets regularly at lunch. Being the young, tactless coworker that I somehow manage to be all too often, I chimed in that I also associated beets with old people, specifically with nursing homes.

Flash forward a few days…

Great friends, great beets. @ Local Harvest Cafe, photo my MilliGFunk

Yesterday I took two of my very close San Franciscan friends to lunch at Local Harvest Cafe in South City, St. Louis. Having recently developed a fascination with borscht, my friends ordered a bowl of it with their sandwich. I ordered the Farmer’s Market salad, which came loaded with beets.

Farmers Market Salad from Local Harvest Cafe, photo by MilliGFunk

If you love beets, or if you’re old…or if you’re not old and you don’t like beets…or if you’re vegetarian, vegan, a fan of local foods…and/or if you’re looking for fantastic soups, salads, coffees and deserts in St. Louis, I highly recommend Local Harvest Cafe.

Across the street from Local Harvest Cafe is the Local Harvest Grocery, which carries – among other things – my favorite Missouri brie, made by Baetje Farms in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. I wrote about Baetje Farms last fall.

Local Harvest Cafe is located at 3137 Morgan Ford Road, just south of Tower Grove Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Local Harvest Grocery is located diagonally across the street at 3148 Morgan Ford Road.

***

I dedicate this post and my beet-filled salad yesterday to my two fantastic, beet-eating coworkers. Judy and Cat, beets aren’t just for old people. Thanks for opening my eyes to the beauty of the vividly-colored root vegetables. And to my coworker Julianne, thank you for teaching me about Local Harvest last year when I’d just moved back to this area.

Vintage Vinyl, photo by smalltowngirl

In the days before the internet, when a small town girl was forced to drive 70 miles to buy any album that wasn’t mainstream, Vintage Vinyl was where I went.

In 2009, when a small town girl who’s heart is a Brooklynite is aching for a sense of connection to St. Louis and is longing for some new music, Vintage Vinyl is still where I go.

Listening Station CD Stack, photo by smalltowngirl

I sat at a listening station in Vintage Vinyl, and an employee brought me stacks of CDs to listen to. I came away with a long list of bands to remember on my next trip to a record store. I also left with two new CDs; one by the Fleet Foxes and one by The Felice Brothers.

Vintage Vinyl is proof that you don’t have to be in New York or San Francisco to find great, locally owned independent businesses staffed with people who truly know and love what it is that they sell. I love Vintage Vinyl.

Baetje Farms Brie, photo by smalltowngirl

I met one of the owners on Saturday at the Apple Butter Festival in Kimmswick, Missouri, and was able to taste several flavors of Baetje brie before deciding to take home dark chocolate brie and brie with cranberry and oranges.

Tasting Baetje Farms Brie, photo by smalltowngirl

The owner of the farm suggested that the cranberry and orange brie would be great used in stuffed pork or chicken, and that the dark chocolate brie would be great with brownies. I spent my Sunday afternoon and evening experimenting on my parents with both suggestions.

The verdict: even my dad, who was raised on a cattle farm and is a good old steak and potato man raved about the chicken. Unfortunately, I was so anxious to eat the chicken that I forgot to photograph it. I’ll definitely be using the recipe again.

Dark Chocolate Brie brownies, photo (and brownies) by smalltowngirl

My mom, who didn’t care for the dark chocolate cheese on crackers, LOVED it in the brownies. I will, without a doubt, purchase more Baetje Farms brie, and it’s my recommendation that you do, too.

***

For more information about Baetjie Farms, visit their website at www.baetjefarms.com.

You can find Baetje Farms cheeses at the Soulard Farmers Market, the Clayton Farmers Market, and the Kirkwood Farmers Market. Baetje Farms can also be found at many of Ste. Genevieve’s wineries and restaurants. See their website for a full list of vendors.

Dear FTC: Baetje Farms gives samples to everyone when they’re out at events like the Apple Butter Festival, so I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count as a freebie to get me to blog about them.

Baetje Farms, photo by smalltowngirl

Mocha, photo by smalltowngirl

I support local businesses where possible, and I also work remotely from locations around St. Louis regularly. I’m always watching for locally owned wi-fi hotpots where I’m welcome to sit with my laptop for 3-4 hours at a time, working.

I’ve fallen into the St. Louis Bread Company habit, and frankly, that depresses me. I don’t like their coffee that much, and the place just takes a little from my soul each time I work there, not unlike the way shopping in Wal-Mart kills my brain cells.

Exposed Brick, photo by smalltowngirl

Though it may at first seem unrelated, it was the Atomic Cowboy’s exposed brick walls last night at the #SeattleCatTweetup that made me realize just how much I hate working from Bread Company.

Not one to sit in discontent for long, I asked some St. Louis twitter friends today to make their suggestions for great wi-fi/work hotspots in and around St. Louis. As far as I know, all of these businesses are locally owned and have wi-fi. If you see a mistake here or you have additional suggestions, please leave a comment for me.

If you like this list, you should check out the list of St. Louis restaurants and bars twitter friends helped me generate in July.

***

Kayak’s Coffee (on Skinker near Washington University)

Park Ave Coffee (Lafayette Square; open fairly late with great patio)

Bauhaus Kaffee (Farmington; serving Kaldi’s coffee)

Mississippi Mud (Cape Girardeau and St. Louis on Cherokee Street)

The Royale (South City)

Hartford Coffee (South of Tower Grove Park on Hartford Street)

Coffee Cartel (Central West End, Open 24 hours!)

Provisions (on Olive – This one was suggested, but I wouldn’t have thought of it as a work/wifi spot. Can anyone confirm or deny this is a potential laptop-friendly wifi spot?)

Murdoch Perk (closed Mondays; on Murdoch btwn S. Kingshighway and Hampton in Southampton)

La Dolce Via (closed Mondays and Tuesdays; on Taylor in the Grove/Forest Park Southeast)

Northwest Coffee (two locations; Central West End and Clayton)

Companion (Central West End, Clayton and Ladue)

Wired Coffee (Sunset Hills)

Foundation Grounds (Maplewood)

***

(Thanks to @michaeltomko, @poppymom, @Lisa_S_47, @threefourteen, @meporter, @cjonescgp, @elsicomoro, @jrobmartin, @allabuzz and @theroyale for recommendations and more information about these businesses)

May Garden, photo by smalltowngirl

The garden now bears little resemblance to that tiny garden I started with in May. The tomato plants and berry bushes are as tall as I am, which isn’t saying much, of course.

The trellice you see in the photo is for the zuccini, squash and cucmber, all of which grew very quickly at first, before falling victim to an unidentified bug infestation.

Harvest, photo by smalltowngirl

I’m harvesting 5-6 good-sized tomatoes each day, and have made both homemade salsa and homemade tomatoe sauce this weekend as a result. This bowl of tomatoes is two days’ harvest:

Harvest, photo by smalltowngirl

My salsa was lovely, and my pizza wasn’t bad, either. I used a pre-made whole wheat crust, with garden tomatoes, mushrooms, seasonings, and cheese (I didn’t have mozerella, so this I used what I had, which was cheddar jack).

Homemade Pizza, photo by smalltowngirl

I can say with all honesty that planting a garden was one of the best things I did for myself all summer. I’ve loved watching the garden grow throughout the summer, from several tiny plants to huge plants standing taller than my 5’4″ head.

Harvesting vegetables from the garden brings such satisfaction, and eating what I harvest is the best part! There’s nothing like cooking a meal based on what my garden gives me each day. Life is good, friendly readers. Life is good.

On Thursday evening, a LinkedIn networking event will be held at Bar Louie’s in the Central West End from 5:30-8:30 p.m. The event is hosted by www.therisetothe top.com, and $5 will be charged at the door. This one looks like a substantial event, with 468 people on LinkedIn giving “yes” RSVPs and an another 222 showing interest in the event.

@RiaSharon has been promoting an #stl #tweetup this Friday at 5 pm at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood. You can’t go wrong with Schlafly’s. This place is the real St. Louis brewery now that A-B isn’t locally owned. Schlafly’s has a large weekly farmers market, and even purchases some of its ingredients locally. If you order the Bison Nachos, your bison meat is actually coming from my area of small town, Missouri, from a ranch called Sayersbrook.

There’s another event on Friday that’s being marketed towards McCleur High School grads, as well as Twitter and Facebook friends of the organizer. I’m not sure how open or closed this event is to new people (St. Louis people can be funny about inviting new friends into their old-friend  mix), but here’s the link in case you’re interested.

On Friday, July 3rd, @rex7 and @prebynski hosted “The World’s Largest Tweetup” at McGurk’s in Soulard. Here’s what @Tojosan had to say about the event.

The coffee shop is lovely, with refreshingly happy and down to earth staff (no snobbish yuppy baristas here). There is a quirky turquoise mural of a tree with white flowers blossoming on the wall, and mismatched (but coordinated) upholstery covers high-backed chairs.

The pear and brie sandwich I had for lunch was lovely (fair warning though – it was onion heavy, though the onions were raw and easily removable). The iced mocha wasn’t bad either. Foundation Grounds gets brownie points for using biodegradable plastic cups, made from corn.

In the cold case, I found Kambucha, organic juices, Honest Tea, and Stonyfield Farm yogurt – a fairly forward-thinking collection of foods and drinks for this part of the country.

To top off my visit to Foundation Grounds, I overheard someone speaking Mandarin Chinese, and turned to find a husband and wife speaking Chinese to one another. The husband, a St. Louis-born acupuncturist and his wife had just moved back to St. Louis three days ago from years in Seattle and Asia.

His Chinese was far more fluent than my own (embarrassingly rusty) Chinese is, but it was so uplifting to meet another person who has moved back “home” to this part of the country after seeing the world in hopes of contributing something to the communities we grew up in.

Today’s coffee shop encounter is a reminder that when things happen (like servers crashing), there’s often something better in store. It’s been a rough last week for me, but with my hope and optimism restored, I’m looking forward to what the rest of this week holds.

Much to my delight, there are already green peppers the size of my thumbs and tomatoes the size of golf balls. The berries have me the most excited, though. My “golden raspberries” are looking suspiciously like blackberries, and my blueberries are growing, though they’re still green.

At the close of a week that’s been peppered with questions and concern, watching my little berries grow renews my belief that all things do grow and change. My hope is restored by these little green miracle plants that are becoming fruits and vegetables right before my eyes.

The thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that I have a very un-green thumb. It’s true. I’m notorious for not being able to keep plants alive. That said, maybe my little growing garden helps build your faith a little bit, too.

Farmington Recycling Center, photo by smalltowngirl

When I moved back to Missouri three months ago, it was a shock to my system to not sort my trash for recyling at home. In the last three cities I’ve called home, recycling was mandatory, so I’m excited to see that this small town now has five large recyling bins conveniently located in the middle of town. 

Recyling, photo by smalltowngirl

Each of the bins is intended for collection of either cardboard or “paper and containers”.  Containers can be plastic, glass, steel, or aluminum, among other materials. Paper and cardboard are self explanatory, I think. If you chose to recycle cardboard, be sure to break it down first though.

Kudos to small town Missouri for getting on board with greening up the community. 

photo by smalltowngirl

Plants, photo by smalltowngirl

I’m a big fan of local produce and homemade foods, so I was excited when the Farmington Farmers Market opened this spring. The market has grown over the past few years, and this spring, there are 10-12 vendors who regularly come out to sell plants, eggs, jellies, soaps, and more. 

Always outgoing, and a curious girl to boot, I chatted up several of the farmers at the market on Saturday, April 25th. Carl Pruetzel and his wife, Sue, were selling baked goods, jellies and jams, and a variety of plants (cabbage, etc.) from their own C&C Farms. Over the several minutes that I talked with Carl, I heard about he and Sue’s travels abroad during his career, and about their retirement and farm in Southeast Missouri.

If you stop by the market, try Sue’s strawberry jelly. It’s sweetened the whole wheat bread I’ve been buying at Olde Tyme Pantry for morning toast on most weekend mornings this May.

Carl & Sue Pruetzel of C&C Farms, photo by smalltowngirl

Mickey & Betty Caughron, who farm in Valles Mines, Missouri make home made soaps for sale at the market. Mickey & Betty and I found common ground over their daughter’s experiences living and working in Asia. 

Mickey & Betty Caughron, photo by smalltowngirl

Another vendor was selling fresh eggs. I’m a huge fan of the brown eggs at Olde Tyme Pantry, so while I haven’t bought any at the Farmers Market, I’m tempted to pick up a dozen duck eggs sometime. The woman sellling the eggs claims that duck eggs are superior to chicken eggs for baking. As often as I bake, I’ll have to do a blind taste test sometime using duck eggs.

Duck Eggs, photo by smalltowngirl

The Farmington Farmers Market is open on Saturdays from 7-11 a.m. and Wednesdays from 2-5 p.m and is located on Karsh Boulevard in the parking lot of the Farmington VFW Hall. 

Farmington Farmers Market, photo by smalltowngirl