The Good Earth

The Good Earth takes advantage of the plentiful natural and organic ingredients that mother earth provides. Menu items harmonize with the seasons and ingredients are always fresh and organic.

Citysearch writes, “so good, so natural, so close to the earth,” writes Citysearch.com, “that it doesn’t need much augmentation.”

Service at the Good Earth is very attentive and the many choices on the menu make it easy to find something you’ll love on your lunch or dinner date.
Set in the Galleria in Edina, the Good Earth has some outside dining during the summer months.

Blackbird Cafe

Blackbird is a casual restaurant, serving lunch and dinner, plus breakfast on the weekends. All of the dishes are prepared from scratch in their tiny kitchen. No frozen fries, no pre-fab desserts.

The Blackbird chefs use high quality ingredients and transform them into their versions of homespun classics. The menu changes monthly to showcase the best ingredients in their seasons, and to accommodate the fickleness of Mother Nature. But, they also have offer some of the old standby favorites.

Handcrafted draft beers and food friendly wines are sensibly priced and their coffee, home brewed and strong.
The Blackbird reopened fairly recently and moved to a new location after the fire burned down Patina and the other businesses on the corner of Bryant and 50th.  It’s good to have them back!

Fuji Ya

Fuji Ya is located in the heart of Uptown at Lake and Lyndale.  It offers a full sushi bar, extensive sake menu, private zashiki rooms and over 50 years of authentic Japanese food experience.  My favorite is the crunchy roll, tempura shrimp inside a roll of rice and crispy and spicy on the outside.  You can get service at the tables or go to the sushi bar or the drink bar.  This is a popular place, always buzzing with activity and the food is very fresh.  The menu has other items if you are not into sushi.  The teriyaki chicken is stellar.

French Meadow

French Meadow Bakery and Cafe opened in 1985 and is committed to serving organic and natural foods grown locally from farmers.  Their fare changes based on availability during the seasons so the food is always fresh and delicious.

You order at the counter during lunch and breakfast but they have wait service starting at 5:00 for dinner.  The busy cafe turns into a romantic more quiet place during dinner time.
The bakery creates a variety of delicious, innovative breads and sweets goods, including yeast-free, vegan, sprouted grain and Kosher Parve options.

Birchwood Cafe

The Birchwood Cafe has been around a long time.  It was established in 1926 by the Bursch family and was originally a dairy and then a neighborhood store.. In 1995 it became the Birchwood Cafe.  The Birchwood  is a friendly place full of good food and good people.

The food is unique with a down-home appeal. They use local, sustainable, organic ingredients with a variety of dishes.

Some of the menu favorites are the Vegan Sweet Potato Millet Cakes  and Wild Acres Smoked Chicken Spanakopita with Kiwi Orvieto Sauce.  Nothing is ordinary about the food at the Birchwood Cafe.

Go up to the counter to order and feel right at home at this cozy neighborhood cafe.

How to Be Safe and Smart About Meeting Online

It is likely that you will find someone you would like to get to know as a result of your membership on CafeConnect.  We monitor all accounts for accuracy and investigate complaints of unusual behavior.  We do not do a background check so it is your responsibility to proceed with caution and use the tips outlined below to enhance your experience within these safety guidelines.Use your intuition1. First of all be sure to use your intuition as you proceed.  If you encounter someone whose profile does not add up or there are inconsistencies in their story, then the chances are they are not worth pursuing. If someone is pressuring you for personal information too early or moves too fast, take this as a warning sign.  If for any reason, you get a bad feeling, listen to it and delete the connection.

• Proceed slowly

Read the Blueprint and use the message board to learn more about your match.  Spend an adequate amount of time communicating until you feel very interested and comfortable with this person. Always do this before sharing any personal identifying information.

•  Meet in a Public Place

When you feel it is time to meet each other, choose a public place with a lot of people around. Check out the list of top ten cafes on our blog.  Meeting for coffee or lunch is a good idea because the time can be short for the initial meeting.  Don’t get a ride with your date until you have met and have reached a level of comfort.

• Use a Paid Online Dating Service

It is more likely that the person who is serious about finding a lifetime partner will be willing to pay for the service.   If someone is merely looking for a fling or has a propensity for criminal activity, they won’t be willing to give credit card information or their identity.  There is some degree of assurance that the person you find is serious about a real relationship if they are willing to pay for the service.

• Be Truthful

If you determine that the match is not what you are looking for, it is time to delete the match.  You can offer a kind word to indicate that the match is not working for you.  It is often nicer to cut things off than to leave someone stringing along when you have already decided it isn’t going anywhere.  You usually end up hurting a person more deeply if you are afraid to say what is really on your mind.

• Report Suspicious Activity

If someone presents inconsistent Blueprint information or if you meet and find that they have falsely presented themselves, please send an email to staff at cafeconnect.com so that we can investigate and discontinue membership, if needed.  You can help us to keep cafeconnect the place where honest people meet by reporting suspicious activity.

How to Have A Successful Date: Why Listening Works -by Brenda Ueland

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force.  Think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultraviolet rays.

This is the reason:  When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.  Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.  You know how if a person laughs at your jokes you become funnier and funnier, and if he does not, every tiny little joke in you weakens up and dies?  Well, that is the principle of it.  It makes people happy and free when they are listened to.  And if you are a listener, it is the secret of having a good time in society (because everybody around you becomes lively and interesting), of comforting people, of doing them good.

Who are the people, for example, to whom you go for advice?  Not to the hard, practical ones who can tell you exactly what to do, but to the listeners; that is, the kindest, least censorious, least bossy people you know.  It is because by pouring out your problem to them; you then know what to do about it yourself.

When we listen to people, there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other.  We are constantly being re-created.  Now there are brilliant people who cannot listen much.  They have no ingoing wires on their apparatus.  They are entertaining, but exhausting, too.  I think it is because these lecturers, these brilliant performers, by not giving us a chance to talk, do not let us express our thoughts and expand, and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom.  That is why, when someone has listened to you, you go home rested and lighthearted.

Now, this little creative fountain is in us all.  It is the spirit, or the intelligence, or the imagination-whatever you want to call it.  If you are very tired, strained, have no solitude, run too many errands, talk to too many people, drink too many cocktails, this little fountain is muddied over and covered with a lot of debris.  The result is you stop living from the center, the creative fountain, and you live from the periphery, from externals.  That is, you go along on mere will power without imagination.

It is when people really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention,  that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.

I discovered all this about three years ago, and truly it made a revolutionary change in my life.  Before that, when I went to a party I would think anxiously, “Now try hard.  Be lively.  Say bright things.  Talk.  Don’t let down.”  And when tired, I would have to drink a lot of coffee to keep this up.

Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection to anyone who talks to me, to be in their shoes when they talk, to try to know them without my mind pressing against theirs, or arguing, or changing the subject.  No.  My attitude is: “Tell me more.  This person is showing me his soul.  It is a little dry and meager and full of grinding talk just now, but presently he will begin to think, not just automatically talk.  He will show his true self.  Then he will be wonderfully alive.”

Sometimes, of course, I cannot listen as well as others.  But when I have this listening power, people crowd around and their heads keep turning to me as though irresistibly pulled.  It is not because people are conceited and want to show off that they are drawn to me, the listener.  It is because by listening, I have started up their creative fountain.  I do them good.

Now why does it do them good?  I have a kind of mystical notion about this.  I think it is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come.  It is so in writing.  You are taught in school to put down on paper only the bright things.  Wrong.  Pour out the dull things on paper too-you can tear them up afterward- for only then do the bright ones come.  If you hold back the dull things, you are certain to hold back what is clear and beautiful and true and lively.  So it is with people who have not been listened to in the right way: with affection and a kind of jolly excitement.  Their creative fountain has been blocked.  Only superficial talk comes out:  what is prissy or gushing or merely nervous.  No one has called out of them, by wonderful listening, what is true and alive.

From the booklet by Brenda Ueland, “Tell Me More on the Fine Art of Listening”

Why I Started Cafe Connect by Judy Liautaud

I never expected I’d have to tell my kids I was getting divorced. When I got married 28 years earlier, it was forever.  My mom let it be known that divorce was not an option for her.  When I was little she’d say, “I would NEVER get divorced –no matter what. It is too hard on the children.” She knew because her parents divorced and she had to go live on her grandparents farm.  I used to think that people got divorced because they didn’t try hard enough. They were the uncommitted ones, finding it easier to split up than to work through their problems.

When it happened to me, I was humbled. I hadn’t given up easily. Yet, I knew if I stayed in the marriage I would get some deadly disease from all the stress that vibrated between us. So, to save my health and sanity I felt forced to leap into the unknown.  That was in 1998.

The hardest part was telling my two daughters. I felt like I failed them. My youngest was going to be married in a month. At first I thought I could just carry on and tell people later, but my heart was aching too much to put on a good show, so one by one, I told my daughters, my brothers and sister and my friends. I cried every time. It was a horrible time in my life. I felt like I was on a hot tin roof and had to leap to ease the pain but I had no idea where I was jumping….off into the unknown.

The pain and hurt simmered for months until I realized that this might be an opportunity for a better life.  I dreamed of the day when I met someone new and could fill my days with harmony and sweet passion. But how do I find him.  I wasn’t meeting any eligible men.

It had been over 30 years since I was out on a date. I rambled around in my oversized house, all alone. I began to dread coming home to the hollow emptiness. I hit bottom one Saturday night when I went to the movies and ran into a tennis friend and her husband in the lobby. She asked me, “Who are you here with?” “Myself,” I said. She looked embarrassed for asking. I could see the neon sign on my forehead throbbing the letter ‘L” for loser. The next Saturday night, I was at home pacing the floor, wringing my hands, what should I do? All my friends were married; I felt out of place and unsure of everything. My daughter Tessie was in her freshman year at the Univ. of Minnesota. “Mom,” she said, “Move to Minneapolis. All the cool people live here.” I began to give it some thought.

Within two years I had sold most of the furniture and household items and found a renter for the Utah house. I signed a lease for a flat on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis with a view of the sunrise from the east windows. I could hop on my bike and ride around the lakes and parks without ever having to smell the exhaust of cars. Minneapolis had character, lots of old beautiful 1920′s bungalows and Victorian homes. The trees and lush greenery were a refreshing alternative to the Utah desert. The downside of the move was that I only knew a handful of people. I think the real reason I moved to Minneapolis was to meet Joe. I believe that on some spiritual level we all know what is best for us and if we are open we make the right decisions.

Long before I met Joe, my brother Jim suggested I join a dating service .“That’s dumb,” I said. I just want it to be a natural thing. “Well, what do you think is going to happen,” he said.  “A hot guy in a red Ferrari will come crashing into your house and you will say, oh geez, this is the man?” He had a point. He offered to pay a couple thousand dollars for me to sign up for a service. I accepted.  Once in Minneapolis, I used all the ways I could think of to meet my true love.  I did online dating, speed dating, the dating service, singles clubs, singles dances, cooking clubs, wine clubs. I became an expert at “looking.” I experienced the tedious ups and downs of sifting through profiles on match.com – finding a hopeful one and then never getting a response, or else getting too many responses from the wrong ones. I spent many a night going out to dance clubs or bars with my cute ten-year-younger girlfriend. She was good bait but when the fish were biting, they nibbled on her and swam right past me.    I went to singles clubs events and found the same 20 people who had been single “forever” show up at each event. The expensive dating service prided themselves on an extensive interview to find me a compatible man and then I waited months for a  measly date.  Their promises were hollow and the dates lacked luster.

At first, I thought I would find Mr. Perfect around every corner. I dreamed of long walks around Lake Calhoun on a summer evening, holding hands and talking heart-to-heart -soul cracking stuff, stopping for a lingering kiss. By year five, I was still single and becoming weary of the search. Although I had a few relationships that started out hopeful, they only lasted a few months. I couldn’t seem to gloss over the problems that would uncover themselves once I got to know him better. I wondered if I was too picky. I wondered if I could handle the compromise of a relationship. Each time I felt jealousy or some of the haunting baggage from my marriage, I wanted to throw up my hands and say forget it, it just was not worth it.

Then as the years ticked by, I came to realize that although I desperately wanted a man in my life, I could accept my single status. I didn’t like thinking about getting old alone, but I had my kids and my grand kids and my friends that brought me joy.  I might just be ok single. On a Friday or Saturday night, I began staying home, content to snuggle by the fire and read a good book. One of my friends said, “Are you ok?” You used to always go out. Are you feeling alright? “Yes,” I said. “I couldn’t be better.”

As I look back I see that I made some important changes in myself through these dating years. It was like I was plowing the field, turning over the dirt and throwing seeds, in preparation for the right man. If I had met Joe in year one or two I probably wouldn’t have noticed what a gem he was. My man template was superficial; a bad boy type with long hair, an earring, a Harley, white teeth, a studly body. After I found a few of those, I realized that wasn’t everything. Then I relaxed the template, opened my heart, and became content. Then he stepped into my life.

It was an ironic meeting. The phone rang, it was my friend who owned a speed dating business. “Judy,” he said. “I’m looking for a few extra women for the event tonight.” Speed dating gets its name from the 12 mini meetings that are held. After 5 minutes of chit chat- one on one, a bell rings and your date rotates to the next table. When he leaves you both mark yes or no on the report card. At the end of the night the facilitator pairs the yes’s and notifies the participants by email the next morning.  I got the message, “You matched with Joe.” Keep in mind that I had marked 4 yes’s that evening but only one of those four said Yes to me. I was a little hurt, but no duh, you only need one if they are the right one.  I found out later that all Joe’s Yes’s said Yes back to him, which just goes to show that my Joe was a good catch.

My relationship with Joe, six years after we have married,  is exactly what I dreamed of and a little more.  It’s all possible when you find your true love.

Spending ten years as a middle aged single person, I became an expert on “looking.”  I had tried online dating, matchmaking services, and clubs.  After I met Joe, I started to think there must be an easier way to meet someone.  I loved the excitement of online dating and the numbers of readily available people.  Yet, I found the process of looking tedious and extremely time consuming.  That is when I thought about the 35 questions that are in the Café Connect Blueprint.  I thought, why couldn’t a person input exactly what they were looking for and then devise a software program that would actually do the match making for you.  You know, just press the button and sift through all the people until the ones that matched each other’s blueprint could be connected.  And so, five years ago, Café Connect was invented and now today finally on January 1, 2012 it is launched in it’s final version.

In hindsight, I see that even though my search took many years, it was time well spent because I was learning and changing. The struggles made me more ready to know a good man when I found him. I am dedicated to helping others find their true love and I do hope that Café Connect will be the vehicle for you to find love everlasting.  All I can say is, don’t give up. My story can be your story. He or she is out there. When the time is right.  I hope your time is now and your new love is already in our matching pool.  Give it a try.