.png)
Plus, reminders about our Monday webinar and the Chicago Chefs Cookbook
Green City Turns Neighborhood-y on Wednesday
For most of its history, Green City Market’s Saturday markets in Lincoln Park have drawn big crowds of local food lovers. Those crowds have turned into throngs over the past few years, driven by the general rise in consumers’ interest in better-for-you foods and by the COVID-era surge in response to grocery store shortages.
But if you are a fan of smaller-scale neighborhood markets, you should still go to Green City… but on Wednesdays instead. The photo above, taken this past Wednesday (May 8), shows plenty of strolling room.
It will undoubtedly get a bit more crowded when the peak summer season makes the market a land of plenty, and there are more vendors than during this early part of the season. But it will still be an alternative for fans of a more laid-back market experience.
I have a few more photos below, but first, these reminders of a pair of great events over the next three days that we hope you will want to attend.
The stand of Mick Klug Farms (St. Joseph, Michigan) had plenty of asparagus and, from the end of last year’s growing season, an ample supply of beautiful storage apples. Photo by Bob Benenson.
Our Webinar is a Better Way to Monday
Please join me and co-host Chef Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe for our next Local Food Forum “Better” Dialogues webinar, Food Education and Its Impact, which takes place on Monday (May 13) at 7 p.m. central.
We and our amazing panel of guest experts will discuss two ways in which educators and advocates are working to instill good food values in our youngest eaters.
Two of our guests are executive directors of leading Chicago non-profits that are focused on food education: Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn of Pilot Light and Sebastian White of The Evolved Network.
Talking about the importance of making more fresh, locally farmed food available to school food programs are Spence Medford and Christy Sherding of The Henry Ford organization in Dearborn, Michigan, just outside Detroit. They will discuss their event planned for October that will highlight farm-to-school activities in five cities across the nation, including Chicago.
And thanks to Christy and Spence, we will also be joined by Melvin Parson, founder and executive director of We the People Opportunity Farm in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which provides food education, training and opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals. Melvin received the 2023 Carver Prize from the Henry Ford’s Carver-Carson Society.
Join us and you’ll learn so much about food education and its importance to the future of our food system. It will be an enlightening and engaging conversation.
Click the button below to register for free.
And tomorrow (that’s Saturday), don’t miss the release party for the Chicago Chefs Cookbook, a collaboration between the Chicago Chefs Cook humanitarian fundraising non-profit and the Mariano’s supermarkets. Proceeds from the book will benefit Chi-Care, a local 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to providing meals, water and basic human needs for people experiencing homelessness throughout Chicagoland.
The book is ready, just in time for Mother’s Day.
You can pick it up at a special pre-sale event this Saturday (May 11), 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Mariano’s store at 3030 N. Broadway in Chicago’s Lakeview community (that’s my neighborhood Mariano’s!). And many of the chefs who contributed recipes for the book will be there to sign your copies.
The cookbook will then be available at all Mariano’s stores beginning Monday (May 13). I’ll be there tomorrow… see you there?
More From the Market
That’s the inimitable Elsa Jacobson. On Saturdays, Elsa is the engine behind the remarkable success of The Lincoln Park Farmers Market, a neigborhood institution located about three-quarters of a mile west of Green City’s flagship location. The rest of the week, she helps sell the delicious tofu products from Phoenix Bean (Chicago).
Kiddie conga line? As you can tell from the above blurb about our webinar coming up on Monday, we are all about food education at Local Food Forum. And these lucky tots are getting a very early taste for what it’s all about.
This week has been at least a week and a half long, which is why it took me this long to recap Wednesday’s market. Nonetheless, here is what my market haul looked like. From left, apples from Ellis Family Farms (Benton Harbor, Michigan); a whole pasture-raised chicken from Finn’s Ranch (Buchanan, Michigan); spearmint from Smits Farm (Chicago Heights, Illinois); my first hothouse heirloom tomato purchase of 2024, from Nichols Farm and Orchard (Marengo, Illinois); and green and purple asparagus from Mick Klug Farms (St. Joseph, Michigan).
Comments