Last-minute Valentines

Cookie Cart, the nonprofit urban bakery in north Minneapolis where the bakers are teenagers, is offering a Valentine's special for orders placed by Feb. 13. The youth bakers are selling their popular sugar cookies decorated with icing depicting a Valentine's theme for $2 each or $16 per dozen — then will deliver them anywhere in the Twin Cities metro area for a $10 fee. The cookies also may be purchased in the bakery's retail space (along with other flavors) or customers can order online at cookiecart.org. Cookie Cart is located at 1119 W. Broadway; hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Cookies can also be ordered by phone: 612-521-0855.

Cookie Cart seeks to provide urban teens with lasting and meaningful work and life and leadership skills through experience and training in an urban nonprofit bakery. The bakery was founded in 1988 by Sister Jean Thuerauf, who years earlier had begun baking cookies with the neighborhood teens and helping them with their homework in her north Minneapolis kitchen.

Winter produce class

Year-round produce seems impossible in Minnesota, but it depends on how it's presented — and preserved. Joan Mathison is a pastry chef, history geek and sustainability professional who has founded Adventures with a Locavore. She's teaching a class, "In Search of Local Food in Winter," through South Washington County Community Education from 10-11:30 a.m. Feb. 21 at the Pioneer Endicott, 141 E. 4th St., St. Paul. Attendees will taste wild indigenous traditional foods prepared for winter by chef Sean Sherman, the Sioux Chef, and sample food harvested last summer and preserved, as well as what urban farmers grow in high-tech aquaponic systems. The cost of $25 includes food samples. Space is limited; register at www.cecool.com.

Of sonatas and risottos

Zeitgeist, a new-music quartet based in St. Paul, is collaborating with composer Ben Houge to create the St. Paul Food Opera, a winning project of the St. Paul Knight Arts Challenge. Houge will collaborate with five St. Paul chefs to create five musical works for the quartet, each piece of music designed to partner with a course or dish prepared by each chef. Zeitgeist is asking people to nominate their favorite St. Paul chefs to participate in the Food Opera. Fourteen choices are listed on its website, but they're encouraging write-ins. (Also, donations.) The musical works and partnering dishes will be served to diners at Studio Z in downtown St. Paul on three evenings in the spring of 2016, then will be made available to each restaurant. To nominate a chef or learn more about the project, visit www.zeitgeistnewmusic.org.

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