Events

Brenda Langton will discuss her mission within the industry of educating people on the importance of eating a healthy diet and supporting sustainably raised food. Through her restaurants she served delicious balanced meals that nourish our bodies and protect us from serious illnesses. Brenda remains committed to help change our American diet to a much healthier one. The Mill City Farmers Market inspires and nurtures a healthy community by building a local, sustainable and organic food economy in a vibrant, educational marketplace.

Brenda Langton has been a presence in Twin Cities dining since 1972. She started the natural foods restaurant, Cafe Kardamena, at age 21 in St. Paul, and then moved it to Minneapolis and renamed it Cafe Brenda in 1986. Cafe Brenda operated until 2009. In 2006, Brenda opened Spoonriver and founded the Mill City Farmers Market. After 14 years, she sold Spoonriver to a collaboration between the Minnesota Farmers Union and Birchwood Cafe in 2019. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota and an educator and consultant on healthy eating.

Nachito Herrera is one of the world’s greatest Cuban pianists. Combining Western classical music with traditional Cuban rhythms, he is in high demand in the US and abroad. Last year, Nachito was a featured guest artist with the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra for the 2019-2020 season, working closely with Marlene Pauley WSO Music Director. Marlene Pauley will join the Zoom meeting for Q & A with Nachito to discuss his immigration to the US, music education and playing with the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra. 

In 2012 a committee of experts chose the ten plants that most changed Minnesota from nearly five hundred citizen nominations, hosted by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The idea that plants, as few as ten, could shape a state and how it developed economically, culturally, and historically, is at the core of the Ten Plants that Changed Minnesota project, which also includes a companion website and a popular freshman seminar at the University of Minnesota. With careful review by more than thirty experts and scientists and with research drawn from newspaper and journal reports, historical photos, diaries, and interviews, Mary Hockenberry Meyer and Susan Davis Price highlight the importance of the selected plants and their impact—both positive and negative—in the development and future of our state. The plants are the apple, alfalfa, the American elm, corn, lawn or turfgrass, purple loosestrife, soybeans, wheat, wild rice, and white pine.