Arborio Rice Croquettes

Photo by Todd Buchanan

Summertime at downtown Minneapolis’s Spoonriver means one thing: veggies, and lots of them. This particular croquette of the day, for instance, was made with Arborio rice, wheat berries, and fresh herbs, and paired with a sweet-corn salad in a lime-juice vinaigrette beside grilled young onions and gai lan (Chinese flowering broccoli). “You can make a whole meal out of vegetables and a nice grain, and it can be sensuous, fabulous, and healing,” says Spoonriver’s chef and owner Brenda Langton, who should know—she’s also a senior fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing. “Eating whole grains has a calming effect on our bodies. They are just so incredibly nutritious, full of phytochemicals, and wonderful. I tell everyone: You can also have whatever you want. Have steak. Have ice cream. But put whole grains and vegetables in your diet, too. You’ll feel so good. You won’t regret it.”

Spoonriver, 750 S. Second St., Mpls., 612-436-2236, spoonriverrestaurant.com