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SPEAKER 1: Well, as you no doubt know there is a glorious array of food here at the Minnesota State Fair. The selection goes well beyond the usual fried cheese curds and pronto pups. In fact, this year, several new foods are being offered, including African spiced chicken, fried plantains, and fruit crepes. As you know, the fair celebrates a summer's worth of bounty, award-winning vegetables and fruits are on display here at the fairgrounds.

Some of them are grown organically, and some the traditional way. Well, joining us right now at the Minnesota Public Radio State Fair Booth to talk about the use of organically grown vegetables in cooking and how to whip up a cool summertime salad with such vegetables, is award-winning St. Paul cookbook author, Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Thank you.

SPEAKER 1: Lynn, it's been-- oh, you have a little audience here. You have some of your fans. I haven't seen you since Thanksgiving, when we did a call in show.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: I know, and I've been to Italy three times.

SPEAKER 1: Since that time.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Since that time. And I'm working on a new book, and I have been working for several years with the largest supplier of organic produce in the Twin Cities area, in fact, in Minnesota, called roots and fruits.

And I work a great deal with our co-ops. And one of the things that's exciting about being in Minnesota is we have more co-ops in the state of Minnesota than anywhere else in the United States. And the quality of the organic produce is phenomenal.

And one of the things that not to correct you but to just clarify something. A lot of people do think, that organics are something relatively new, and that working with pesticides et cetera, is a very traditional way of growing. Organics have been with us since, well, since people started growing.

And what is now called a conventional agriculture is really only since World War II, more or less. So really, the organics is the very traditional way of growing. I use organics. I'm a food person primarily. I'm not a farmer, and I'm not a nutritionist. But I look for the best taste. I look for the best I can use in primary material, because your food is only as good as what you start with.

So, I started using organics a long time ago because I tended to feel I had better taste, not always, but generally. With what's happened over the years now with our great concerns about ecology, I also use them now because I think they're good for the Earth. And then the third part of it is that organics tend to be, not always, but tend to be raised by smaller scale farmers.

And I'm very concerned about what's happening to the family farm in the United States. But I feel all of these things are three very positive reasons to seek out organics, and we've got such incredible stuff. And what I'm making today is a salad using all Minnesota products.

SPEAKER 1: Very good.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Some of them actually my Minnesota backyard. But it's from a recent trip to Italy. I was in the heel of the boot, the region called Apulia. Oh, it's an incredible place. And a place that celebrates vegetables. By tradition, people in Apulia, eat meat maybe three times a week.

And they live with legumes and grains. It's a great. Wheat growing area people actually cook the wheat and eat it like rice. Eat it sauced, eat it in salads. And also incredible vegetables.

So what we've got is a summer salad, a summer tomato salad, made with fresh herbs and goat cheese in the style of Apulia. And we're using a creamy goat cheese. And this is what it is, it's really tomato sandwiches. We're taking good tomatoes.

SPEAKER 1: Well, what's the definition of a good tomato?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: It's got to be something that when you put it in your mouth, you know that this is what you want to eat the rest of your life. If you put it in your mouth and your reaction is sort of gee, that's nice. It is not a good tomato. And vine ripened is no longer a big guarantee.

SPEAKER 1: Really?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Yeah, because there are so many strains of tomatoes that have been developed for shipping purposes, for a lot of other purposes other than great flavor. So I drive people crazy. When I go to the farmers markets, and that's either I buy at the co-ops or usually our farmers markets because they're great sources, I ask if I can buy one tomato to taste. Now this makes people crazy.

But you have to remember that we're the ones who are doing the buying, and you have to be polite. I go off into a corner and very quietly, eat my tomatoes. And I keep track of which stand I've got and what tomato. And then I go back and I buy lots of them.

And when if I don't have time to can my tomatoes, I freeze them. And it's a great technique to know because you just use ziploc bags, and you core the tomato. Don't bother peeling it. See the less heat you use in doing tomatoes, the more of that high wonderful, fresh flavor your gonna get.

SPEAKER 1: Even if you freeze your tomatoes, wouldn't they be very mushy?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: But they're going to end up, the skin will slip off instantly as soon as they come out of the freezer and defrost a little. And I'm usually using, frozen tomatoes the way I'm using canned tomatoes. I'm not going to slice them for a salad, I'm going to cook them into a soup or a stew.

SPEAKER 1: I see.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Yeah. So what we're doing for this salad is though fresh tomatoes, taste tested. And I thought it might be fun, why don't you take a taste? See what you think.

SPEAKER 2: God, I hope she likes it.

[LAUGHTER]

SPEAKER 1: I think I probably will. That really is good.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Yeah. It has to be worth eating. And if it isn't-- by the way, we are working with a farmer who grows a lot of things.

SPEAKER 1: It kind of sweet.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Yeah. And it should be a good sweet acid balance. But it's not a should thing. It should be what you like. There are some heirloom varieties that are really fascinating. We recently tasted a Brandywine tomato that had us almost in tears from joy. My husband said, I don't want--

SPEAKER 1: When you're so passionate about your food.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: There's a reason why I look like this.

[LAUGHTER]

We do several things in life constantly, and one of them is we have to eat. And if you can't get pleasure out of it, I don't think it's worth doing.

SPEAKER 1: So we're slicing some tomatoes here.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Slicing them thickly, and I slice them from top to bottom because they hold together better. I'm going to line them up on the plate, sort of overlapping--

SPEAKER 1: These are actually fairly thick slices that you have.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Yeah. They're about-- oh, almost 1/2 inch. This is much. This is a one dish meal. I've taken a fresh Minnesota goat cheese. This is from Poplar Hill. And why don't you take a little taste of this? This is a creamy fresh goat cheese. The goats, by the way, are right behind our booth.

SPEAKER 1: As a matter of fact, these same goats will be on our stage in a couple of days.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Oh, they are.

SPEAKER 1: I just want you to know that.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Isn't that nice? People sometimes dubious of goat cheese, but I think it's delicious.

SPEAKER 1: I've never had goat cheese.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: It has a tang to it?

SPEAKER 1: Oh, it has a tang to it.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: It has a tang. It does have a tang. But what we've done is--

SPEAKER 1: But it really tangy, though.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: We've taken fresh basil, and you should always smell herbs. They have an aroma to them. And I break them with my fingers. We've taken fresh basil, and we've taken lemon thyme. Now this is from my garden. If you don't have lemon thyme, you can use a fresh thyme, but please use fresh herbs. They are not the same as dried. Dried just doesn't have the vitality. Take a sniff of this. This is lemon thyme. Isn't it? Yeah.

And when this--

SPEAKER 1: Very lemonade.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Yeah. When this is in flower, it has a honey-like overtone to it. And then we have fresh oregano, which is now taken over my entire garden. Here take a sniff. See what you think.

SPEAKER 1: Oh.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Isn't that nice?

SPEAKER 1: Yeah.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: I love it.

SPEAKER 1: Lynne, in the region of Italy that we're talking about here, do they also use by and large fresh herbs?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Always.

SPEAKER 1: Always, OK.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: In the winter, they will use dried. But because Apulia is right down in the middle of the Mediterranean, they're generally having access to fresh herbs year round. Now we've spread some of that mixture on each slice of the thick tomato. We've sort of overlapped--

SPEAKER 1: The goat cheese is softened, you add the fresh herbs?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: The fresh herbs-- thyme, and basil, and fresh oregano, a little salt and pepper to taste, and now we're sprinkling those slices with a bit of chive, some minced red onion, and some salted toasted sunflower seeds, lots of protein. And then we take a few strands of chive and kind of tuck them in to give it a little height. And you continue doing this. And you can do this salad for 20 or you can do it for five or six.

And it's a complete meal on a dish. It doesn't take any heat. It uses what's now in season, which is the real key to great cooking. And you can do it with all organically produced produce, and you're doing a favor for the Earth. So this is summer tomato salad in the style of Apulia, and it's very, very simple to make. And maybe what we can do is maybe find some people in the audience.

SPEAKER 1: A taste test would be nice. Because we have a number of people here at our State Fair booth.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: I forgot one small detail.

SPEAKER 1: You did.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: A little tiny bit of salt, tiny bit of pepper, and then a dash of olive oil and vinegar. And--

SPEAKER 1: This looks wonderful, but I know we're talking about radio here. But if you could see this it's very colorful, a little bit of olive oil here?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: A little bit of olive oil and a little bit of vinegar. There we are. And now, what we're going to do, this is called the seven loaves and the seven fishes time of most cooking demonstrations. And as I said--

SPEAKER 1: The recipe is going to be available.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Right. The recipe is going to be available at our co-op's at the last two weeks of September.

SPEAKER 1: So folks want the recipe, they can go to their local co-op and get the recipe end of September.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Right. And I'm gonna just--

SPEAKER 1: Let's go over here, and now I'm going to go take my microphone with Lynne and Greta, our producer is going to find someone in the audience here let's go walk over.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Here you go. You're brave soul.

SPEAKER 1: Can I ask who you are? Your name please.

CRIS MIDELFORT: Cris Midelfort.

SPEAKER 1: Hi, Chris.

CRIS MIDELFORT: And my husband, George Wagner.

SPEAKER 1: Hi, George. There's a line up here behind us.

[LAUGHTER]

Cris.

CRIS MIDELFORT: It's not in small bits, so I--

SPEAKER 1: No.

CRIS MIDELFORT: It's wonderful.

SPEAKER 1: What do you think of the goat cheese?

CRIS MIDELFORT: How can, I mean, with-- what? Well, I like Norwegian goat cheese so I'm used to that tangy taste. But it's not-- It's usually sweet instead of salty.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: If goat cheese is a problem, if you think that perhaps that's not going to go over very big. But you could also use a low fat-- like a Neufchatel low fat cream cheese.

CRIS MIDELFORT: But this goat cheese isn't as some-- If you've never had it before, it might be strange, but it is not as tangy as you might expect. It's a very mild goat cheese.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: It's a very creamy cheese. I like it for that reason. I think it's a great cheese for people who think they may not want goat cheese.

CRIS MIDELFORT: It worth eating.

SPEAKER 1: George, what do you think?

GEORGE WAGNER: I didn't have any, my daughter had mine.

[LAUGHTER]

CRIS MIDELFORT: What do you think, Tim?

TIM: It's good.

SPEAKER 1: Well, there, an expert. That's wonderful.

GREG WAGNER: Wait, there's a little left. I'll try something.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: You've gotten the chives there too. We're eating out of cups, you have to know. This is a challenge.

GREG WAGNER: Really great.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Oh, thank you. That's great. It's a great example of using seasonal foods. And it's the time of year when all of these things are in prime shape and it's the time of year to celebrate it.

SPEAKER 1: Cris and George, where are you from?

CRIS MIDELFORT: St. Paul. In fact, the neighborhood here. We live right next door in St. Anthony Park.

SPEAKER 1: Well, thanks for stopping by, and being our guinea pigs here live on the air.

CRIS MIDELFORT: I don't think Guinea pigs would eat this.

SPEAKER 1: We have a lot of this leftovers so we're going to try to dole this out. Maybe we can to listeners? We should remind folks who we're talking to here on stage with us. This is Lynne Rossetto Kasper. She is a St.Paul-based award-winning cookbook author. Specifically, she has written the splendid table recipes from Emilia-Romagna. Emilia-Romagna.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Perfect.

SPEAKER 1: God, I try that. The heartland of Northern Italian food, and Lynne is an Italian food expert. And we appreciate her coming out here and talking about organically grown vegetables. She's made this lovely summertime tomato salad that we're all sampling here at the Minnesota Public Radio State Fair Booth. And we're going to try to dish this out here for some of our State Fair goers who've stopped by the booth.

Before Lynne, you had mentioned that Minnesota has one of the largest number of co-ops?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: We have 37 co-ops.

SPEAKER 1: Why is that? Do you know?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: I think because we're a great farming state, I think our social consciousness. We have a history of being a very liberal state and also a state with a great social conscience. And each co-op, because it's a co-op, has its own philosophy. So no two are exactly alike.

And what I responded to, because we moved here from Europe and we were living in an environment where food was very important and where we were getting a lot of food directly from the source. We were 50 miles from the farm or 20 miles from the farm.

And when I came here and found this incredible quality of organic produce, a readily available to me down the street, so to speak, and that I could be a member of a co-op at the same time. It was really a great revelation, and it was very rewarding.

SPEAKER 1: Now at the beginning of the conversation, you had mentioned that the last time you were on with me was around Thanksgiving or so, you were you've been to Italy now three times since that time. You're going to go back. And I want you to talk about-- your specifically going to go back and for the tomato harvest. Is that right?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Well, I'm going to be actually with my family in Lucca, which is Northern Tuscany, we're bringing in the tomato harvest in another two weeks. And then it's preserved in a very special way there. Every part of Italy has its own way of dealing with whatever is coming into season. But tomatoes are incredibly important.

We are going to do a sauce, called Pomarola. And it's a sauce that is canned for the winter in great quantity. It has no fat in it, which is great since everybody is so fat conscious these days. And it's done with celery, carrot, onion, garlic, basil, and parsley. And the tomatoes are simmered with that until it's thick, and then they're put into canning jars and they're processed about 20 minutes in a water bath. And that supplies you for the winter.

And a cup of that is enough for a whole pound of pasta because the flavor is so rich and so delicious. And then when people use it, they just heat the sauce, and they'll sprinkle a little olive oil on the pasta after it's been tossed with the sauce, and it goes right to the table. This is also olive oil country. I will be back there in November for the olive harvest and the making of the oil.

SPEAKER 1: How long does this tomato harvest take?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: It varies. It'll take a matter of a week in some areas, longer-- right now, if we could be transported by magic to Sicily, everywhere you would look, as we roamed the countryside, you would see great boards sitting out in the sunlight with streaks of red on them because people are drying the tomato paste. Tomato paste isn't cooked.

The tomatoes are very lightly cooked, and then they're strained to get seeds and skin out, and then they're dried. Because the sun is so intense and it's long, long, hot, very dry days. The dryness is another factor. And people are making their own homemade tomato paste.

SPEAKER 1: So this is a real deeply embedded cultural thing?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Oh, yeah. And remember, I mean, we're very far away from this sense. We talked about this, I think at one time, at one point during our conversations, that people survive on this food. We're so far away from the elements of if this harvest doesn't work, we don't eat this year. And people survive on this food. This is a mainstay for people.

SPEAKER 1: We are talking to Lynne Rossetto Kasper. And Lynne, I appreciate you coming out. Again, a reminder that the recipe, can you pronounce the name again for me?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: It is the Summer Tomato Salad in the Style of Apulia.

SPEAKER 1: Apulia. And the recipe itself will be made available at the end of September at local co-ops.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: At local co-ops, and it will be being demonstrated at local co-ops.

SPEAKER 1: Now, before you leave this stage, we have to tell folks that Lynne will be has already filmed a video with Julia Child.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: I'm part of the new MasterChef series.

SPEAKER 1: I feel so proud to stand next to you here.

[LAUGHTER]

If I touch you, will I be a good cook too?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: I don't know if it rubs off, but instinct is important, and you've got that. No. Standing next to Julia in front of a camera was really quite a thrill, I must say.

SPEAKER 1: What did you make?

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: I did a lamb, a wonderful roast leg of lamb that's flavored with garlic and basil, and of all things, orange zest. It's a very old recipe. And then a very simple pasta recipe, not too different from this, with fresh tomatoes, and fresh basil, and braised garlic, and balsamic vinegar.

SPEAKER 1: It sounds great. Lynne, thanks for coming to the Minnesota State Fair.

LYNNE ROSETTO KASPER: Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER 1: Appreciate it.