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Hosting a Visitor at Chicago's SOAR Market as Summer Practices Its Own Extension
I often go early when I visit downtown Chicago's SOAR Farmers Market on Tuesday mornings... but not quite as early as I did today (Tuesday, October 8). I was meeting a friend who was visiting Chicago for an event in which I'm participating, and he asked to connect at the 7 a.m. opening time.
Given that we're more than a week into October, 7 a.m. was really the crack of dawn.
The length of the Chicago region's peak summer crop season varies from year to year because of the vagaries of our weather conditions. With extended warm (but not too warm) temperatures and just enough rain in most areas, this has been an especially long season for some of our favorite produce.
Sweet corn has tapped out at most of the farms that serve our farmers markets, but Smits Farm (Chicago Heights, Illinois) had a surprisingly big pile.
It's called summer squash for a reason, yet Smits Farm had plenty of zucchini and yellow squash.
This photo pretty much defines this transitional season, with a bounty of tomatoes sharing space with pumpkins at the Nichols Farm and Orchard stand (Marengo, Illinois).
These little orange-fleshed melons grown by Nichols have been super-sweet. Grab some while you still can.
You could eat most of the rainbow with these Nichols bell peppers.
Nichols, the biggest diversified produce farm in the region, also has the biggest selection of apple varieties, including some artisan and heirloom varieties.
Spence Medford, the fellow on the left in the above photo, is vice president and chief advancement officer at The Henry Ford, a non-profit organization based in Dearborn, Michigan. The Henry Ford has taken a strong interest in improving the quality of food served in schools, and this month (National School Food Month) is piloting a program called Farm to School Lunch in America.
The program's Community Event Impact Experience kicked off last week at the Henry Ford Academy, a school located at the non-profit's home base, the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Greenfield Village. After a second local event in Lincoln Park, Michigan, they are taking the show on the road starting in Chicago with an event today (Tuesday) at Academy for Global Citizenship on the southwest side and tomorrow (Wednesday) at William Ray Elementary in Hyde Park.
The tour continues in Minneapolis on Thursday, then resumes in Berkeley, California on October 28 and Richmond, California on October 29.
When Spence and I met at SOAR Market this morning, I took him right over to meet my friend Steve Freeman (aka Steve the Market Guy) at the Nichols stand (he's on the right in the photo). I quickly found out that Nichols is participating in both of The Henry Ford events in Chicago.
My relatively modest market haul, all from Nichols: tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, eggplants and melons.
For the record, the market is located in the Streeterville neighborhood just east of Michigan Ave.'s Magnificent Mile, and SOAR stands for Streeterville Organization of Active Residents.
I'll wrap up with a bonus photo of Chicago's historic Water Tower, located a couple of blocks from the market's location on the plaza in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art.
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