Food

cooking

North Liberty elementary school PTOs produce cookbook

Organizers hope the partnership between the three schools will extend to the communities overall

NORTH LIBERTY — In North Liberty five elementary schools can be found within a four-mile radius. Three — Garner, Penn and Van Allen — are all part of the Iowa City school district. Despite their geographical closeness, until this year the three school communities had never worked together on a project benefiting all of their [...]

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Lily Herrmeyer, a student at West Cedar Elementary School in Waverly, is the Iowa winner of the Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program. Herrmeyer received a $1,000 scholarship for her oversized vegetable. (Photo submitted)

Iowa winner of Bonnie Plants cabbage program

Waverly student received a $1,000 scholarship for her over-sized vegetable

  It was almost a year ago that Lily Herrmeyer came home from school with some atypical homework — a cabbage plant. Carol Young, Lily’s third grade teacher at West Cedar Elementary in Waverly, and West Cedar’s other third grade teacher have distributed the cabbage plants to their students for years as part of the [...]

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Katie O'Connor of the Lincoln #2 Hy-Vee pulls back a gingham curtain while putting the finishing touches on her cake decorating themed entry in the Hy-Vee Cake Designer Challenge at Jordan Creek Mall on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in West Des Moines. Eighteen cake designers from Hy-Vee's 480 designers company-wide competed in the eighth annual contest, in which they had four hours to decorate a tiered cake, a half sheet and a quarter sheet cake, a dozen cookies and a dozen cupcakes. O'Connor won first prize, a three-day trip to Ace of Cakes Bakery in Baltimore, Maryland. (Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

Designers take the cake at annual Hy-Vee decorating finals

18 particpants from six regional events faced off in Des Moines

  DES MOINES – Kassie Mather wasn’t anxious at the finals of the 2013 Hy-Vee Cake Designer Challenge Wednesday. The same couldn’t be said of her family. Standing near Mather’s work table, watching as she transformed cupcakes, sheet cakes and sugar cookies into popcorn, hot dogs and a rotating carousel, they whispered amongst themselves about her [...]

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Still-life with wine and matzoh (jewish passover bread)

From yogurt to bagels

On the eve of Passover, a look at foods made popular by Jewish Americans

  Eastern Iowa doughnut lovers had recent cause to celebrate when Dunkin’ Donuts announced plans to open stores in Cedar Rapids and Coralville. Did you know, though, that the company owes its signature menu item — the doughnut — to the son of Jewish immigrants? The concept for mass-produced doughnuts, too, can be traced to [...]

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Irish soda bread (Photo: Lara Ferroni)

Top o’ the morning

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a traditional Irish breakfast

  We’ve all heard it before: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And if there’s a country that does breakfast right, it’s Ireland. The traditional Irish breakfast — sausage, eggs and potatoes served with Irish soda bread or brown bread — was customarily made to fortify individuals for a busy and active [...]

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meatless

Meatless Mondays

Part-time vegetarian diet yields full-time health benefits

  Steve Pernetti didn’t intend to be a vegetarian. The owner of Iowa City’s Fair Ground Café and Howling Dogs Bakery, Pernetti was a follower of the Atkins diet, which traditionally includes a lot of protein and few carbohydrates. “I was on the other end of the spectrum,” he says. Eventually, he reduced the amount [...]

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sauerkraut Cooper Norton

Cedar Rapids preschooler makes sauerkraut label

Cooper like parades, LEGOS and Franks' sauerkraut

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Norton family — Mark, Josie and their two boys, Cooper, 5, and Jackson — love a good parade. “We go to parades all summer long, it’s our thing,” Josie Norton says. “I love parades. The boys love the fire trucks and the candy doesn’t hurt, either.” It was at the Great [...]

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Food waits to be purchased in the Melrose Dining Room at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 in Iowa City.  (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

Bill would require healthy food choices in state-owned buildings’ cafeterias

Nutritional information would also be posted for diners

Take a whiff of the Iowa Capitol cafeteria, and it’s clear plenty of people are ignoring the salad bar and opting for cheeseburgers. Des Moines Sen. Janet Petersen said she’s got nothing against burgers, but wants diners in the state buildings, public universities and community colleges to have healthier choices, as well as have nutritional [...]

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Waterloo West High School junior Noelle Larson makes loaded potato croquettes during the 2012 Iowa ProStart Invitational Monday, Feb. 25, 2013 at the Hotel Kirkwood on the Kirkwood Community College campus in Cedar Rapids. The winner of the Iowa competition advances to the National ProStart Invitational in Baltimore in April.  (Brian Ray/The Gazette-KCRG)

Student chefs compete for state glory

Nine Iowa high schools participated in the 2013 Iowa ProStart Invitational on Monday

“Did you do the vinaigrette?” Shedrie Smith asks one of her teammates, as an adult woman reminds the ladies that they have four minutes left. Smith then bangs a bottle of the dressing on a table, in complete contrast to the quick but delicate way she dispenses the liquid onto beds of leafy greens. It’s [...]

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Kathleen Stewart (left) and Emma Hornsby, both of Iowa City, choose organic potatoes at New Pioneer Food Co-op in Coralville on Wednesday. From 2008 through 2012, New Pioneer’s purchases from local producers increased 39.86 percent to nearly $1.7 million last year, New Pioneer marketing manager Jenifer Angerer said.  (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette)

Organic, locally grown food gaining ground in Iowa

Businesses seeing more producers, more demand from customers

Though few hard statistics are available, Iowans’ appetite for organic food and locally raised fruits and vegetables appears to be growing. “We don’t have real current and accurate data, but my sense is that, yes, we are getting more organic growers and more people raising food for local consumption,” said Maury Wills, bureau chief of [...]

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