Follow the roots

The guidebooks for this year's Eat Local Farm Tour on July 20 are out and you may need all the time available to map out your best route among the 17 sustainable producers signed up. Organizers say the tour aims to provide "transparency, ethics and traceability in food production," along with the chance to get out of town. But wait! There are three urban farms this year: Growing Lots Urban Farm, Stone's Throw Urban Farm and the Beez Kneez Bicycle Delivered Honey. Eleven Twin Cities-area food cooperatives sponsor the tour and have guidebooks: They are Eastside Food Co-op, Harvest Moon Co-op, Just Food Co-op, Lakewinds Natural Foods, Linden Hills Co-op, Mississippi Market Natural Foods Co-op, River Market Community Co-op, Seward Community Co-op, St. Peter Food Co-op, the Wedge and Valley Natural Foods.

Planning is important because the hours of operation differ from farm to farm. The guidebook comes with maps, hours and tour activities, with suggested routes.

Follow updates on the Eat Local Farm Tour Facebook page, www.facebook.com/EatLocalFarmTour.coop.

Pedal power

Bill McAuliffe, a Star Tribune colleague and stellar bread baker, passed along an idea we think bears watching — and emulating. While in Burlington, Vt., he saw the August First Bakery Bread Bike tooling around neighborhoods. The idea began several years ago when folks from the bakery, August First, made a custom trailer for a Worksman Cycles bike, filled it with fresh bread and began pedaling while occasionally bellowing, "Fresh bread!" Now the bikes are part of the community on weekdays. Curious about the details? Visit http://augustfirstvt.com.

Weird? Or wondrous?

Among the cookbooks that crossed our desk recently is "The IceCreamists" by Matt O'Connor (Octopus, $19.99). It's the first from a super-hip ice cream parlor in London that also likes to court controversy. No kidding. Among the recipes that vary from sounding delicious to merely curious is one called Baby GooGoo, which is made from breast milk. As they say, "free-roaming, organic and freshly-squeezed breast milk." With sugar, heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla, it probably tastes like vanilla ice cream. But we'll never know. Never.

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