If Beating the Rain Were an Olympic Sport...

Despite unplanned stops, I dodged raindrops on my Green City West Loop market run

He’s Got the Beets, Yeah

I got out early Saturday morning because I was racing the rain on my first 2024 trip to the Green City satellite market in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. And despite two unplanned stops on the way home — one unsuccessful and one successful — it was just lightly sprinkling when I got to our apartment building. I was high and dry by the time the serious rain set in.

I’m going to start with today’s market haul, then — after a promo for our awesome webinar about sustainable seafood this coming Monday — a photo essay about the West Loop market and what’s in season.

Starting from the left, there are cremini mushrooms from River Valley Ranch (Burlington, Wisconsin — if you’re a regular reader you’ve probably figured out that mushrooms are a constant in our weekly diet); strawberries and asparagus from Ellis Family Farms (Benton Harbor, Michigan); hothouse tomatoes and sugar snap peas from Nichols Farm & Orchard (Marengo, Illinois); my first-of-the-year beets and massive hakurei turnips from Kajers Greens (North Judson, Indiana); and a loaf of bread made from the ancient grain einkorn from Nourish bakery, which I purchased during a stop at The Lincoln Park Farmers Market on the way home.

Here’s how that happened. There is a bakery from which I’ve been buying excellent sourdough breads at Green City’s flagship Lincoln Park market. But their stand at West Loop wasn’t selling breads (not naming them because this isn’t intended as a criticism).

So, I decided that this was an opportunity to get some steps and walk up to Publican Quality Meats in the Fulton Market District and buy a marvelous loaf of Publican Quality Bread. Except, I should have checked their website, because I arrived a little after 9… and they weren’t opening until 10.

So I dashed to catch the 8 bus and made a quick jaunt to The Lincoln Park Farmers Market, where I bought this loaf from Nourish. I’d been meaning to patronize them more because a) they are lovely people and b) their breads, all sourdough in several varieties, are made with organic, regeneratively produced flours from my friends at Janie’s Mill in Danforth, Illinois. I cut off a heel when I got home and the bread is dense and delicious. It will be perfect for my breakfast open-faced sandwiches.

Also, please note those bountiful greens on the beets and turnips. I recentIly wrote about how you can stretch your dollars at the farmers market. This is another important one… buy root vegetables with their greens attached, and you are essentially getting two veggies for the price of one. I’ll be cooking up those greens and I’ll share what I did with them.

That market tour is coming up, after this important message.

Please join me and co-host Chef Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe as we discuss the important topic of sustainable seafood with Chef Hajime Sato of suburban Detroit’s Sozai restaurant — a pioneer in sustainable sushi — and Niaz Dorry of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, a recognized leader in protecting our oceans and fisheries.

Click below for all details and to register for free.

REGISTER!

Green City’s Cozy Saturday Side

While Green City Market’s flagship location in Lincoln Park draws thousands of visitors each Saturday, its satellite market is focused on serving the needs of a smaller clientele made up mostly of its West Loop neighbors, though it makes a nice diversion for those who like farmers markets on a smaller scale.

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, the market turns the block of S. Sangamon St. between Monroe and Adams into a pedestrian mall.

This is the first full season of this arrangement. The market was formerly held in the adjacent Mary Bartelme Park, which you can see in the background of the above photo. But repairs being done to the park required the market to move into the street at the end of last season. The change proved popular enough for the market to dance in the street on an ongoing basis.

Here are some of the in-season crops on display at Saturday’s market:

We are enjoying a long asparagus season thanks to our mainly moderate spring temperatures. Asparagus hates heat, but it has kept producing into July in some of our peculiarly cool springs.

I was also pleased to run into Chef Paul Virant, a local farm-to-table pioneer, whose Japanese-themed Gaijin restaurant in West Loop is selling its dessert treats at the West Loop market. Local Food Forum congratulations Paul on his French-inflected Petite Vie brasserie that just opened in the west Chicago suburb of Western Springs.