Day 7 – The road to Colorado.... by Diane

Today we woke up just outside of St. Louis, Missouri, and started our trek across the state and through Kansas. Keeping to our plan to not overplan and to take things as they came, we got in the car and headed west. One of the many people who emailed us suggestions on where to go and what to do during our drive was Melinda Hemmelgarn, a writer, speaker, columnist and change agent in Columbia, Missouri.

And before I go any further, I have to thank all of you wonderful Sustainable Table subscribers for giving us so many suggestions for our trip – unfortunately, we had such little time that we were only able to go to a couple places that were literally right off the road we were traveling on, but we’re so grateful for all the offers of snacks, tours and bathroom breaks – we only wish we could have done them all! And we’re especially grateful for all the suggestions of places to visit – Local Burger in Lawrence, Kansas, and Blue Bird Bistro in Kansas City were suggested by quite a few of you, but the most suggested place to visit was Columbia, Missouri.

I’ve personally never been to Columbia and was extremely interested in why this town was better than any of the other towns along our way. And Melinda Hemmelgran, who lives in Columbia, was very keen on us visiting and even offered to meet up with us while we were here. So, this morning, Dawn and I called Melinda and were tickled silly when she invited us over for brunch at her house. Not having had a home-cooked meal in a week, we jumped at the chance and drove several hours to meet Melinda.

Turns out we all knew people in common, and we even found out that Melinda had spoken at a recent Baum Forum conference, and Dawn and I were in the audience! It really is a small world.

Melinda writes a column called Food Sleuth (R) for the Columbia Daily Tribune , has her own public access television show, and writes about food, diet and agriculture. She was also a Kellogg Foundation Food & Society Fellow (along with Anna Lappe, who we’ve supported for years now). She’s written a book called Treasure Hunt with the Munch Crunch Bunch – it’s a story/activity book created and designed to entertain, educate, and empower young children to make healthy food choices.
And she has an amazing house in Columbia, with a huge garden, full of food and native plants, which is where we ate brunch. Melinda toured us through the garden, and snipped off oregano, rosemary, basil and thyme and added them to our fresh, pastured, local eggs, local potatoes, and local broccoli. We accompanied that with whole wheat raisin bread made by a young woman at the local farmers market, and we topped that with organic butter melted with rosemary and honey. Eating that delicious meal out under the shade of a lovely tree, on a beautiful sunny day, was simply perfect. Melinda’s husband, Dan, joined us, as well as Mary Hendrickson from the University of Missouri. Melinda called her 15 minutes before we arrived, and Mary was able to join us for the meal.

Melinda and Dan are working on a book called Farm Hands – a collection of photos of farmers’ hands. It’s being done to help raise money for a permanent structure in which to house the local farmers market in Columbia. How brilliant is that? Farmers work with their hands, our food is produced with their hands, and the land we live on is cared for by their hands – oh, the stories I’m sure they can tell…. We’ll let you know when the project is done – the photos I was fortunate enough to see were simply beautiful.

Mary very kindly gave us a copy of “The Guide to Eating Well and Doing Good around Columbia, Missouri”, and excellent local guide of farmers markets, grocery stores, specialty shops, bakeries, restaurants, farms, farm stands, U-pick operations (where you can pick your own food) and “other fun things”. It’s a printed guided produced by the Food Circles Networking Project – an excellent resource for anyone in the Columbia, Missouri, area. And if you live in the area and would like a copy, please call Sharon at 573-882-3776 for more information.

After a couple hours of wonderful conversation over delicious food, we had to say goodbye. But we left satiated and knowing we now have more friends in Missouri.

From Melinda's house, we made a quick stop at Sparky's Ice Cream store, where the ice creams is made in small batches in the store. The owners wanted to go organic but couldn't because the ice cream would end up costing around $8 a portion.

This ice cream was delicious! It was suggested by a Sustainable Table reader that we try the red wine and chocolate flavor, which we did. It was good, but I felt like the red wine put a kind of fizz into the ice cream, so it wasn't quite the culinary delight I thought it would be.

But the lavendar honey ice cream - now that was some of the best ice cream I've ever had! The honey was even local.

After Sparky's, we headed out to Lawrence, Kansas. I'll write tomorrow on our trip to Lawrence and what we did there.

Article Tag(s): sustainable table, road trip, from bonnaroo to boulder

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