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Register for our May 13 webinar, view a webinar video, and enjoy more market photos.
5/13 Webinar on Sharing Good Food Values with Kids
Our next webinar — a week from Monday (May 13) at 7 p.m. central — is on topics of major importance to the future of a better food system: food education and improving the quality of food served to children in our nation’s schools.
Co-host Chef Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass Cafe and I will discuss these topics with executive directors of leading Chicago non-profits in the food education space — Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn of Pilot Light and Sebastian White of The Evolved Network — and Spence Medford and Christy Sherding of The Henry Ford outside Detroit, which is asserting a national leadership role on getting more locally produced, farm-fresh food into schools.
Learn more about our amazing guest panelists:
Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn has been executive director of Pilot Light since 2014. Created four years earlier by a group of leading Chicago chefs, Pilot Light was working to integrate food education into the curriculum at just one Chicago public school at the time that Alex became head of the organization. In the decade since, she has led Pilot Light to enormous growth and influence.
The organization now works directly in many schools across Chicago and in more than two dozen school districts across the nation; has published Food Education Standards that are available for all schools to employ; and created the SnackTime Explorers program, a series of adaptable mini-lessons designed to supplement educators across the U.S. who participate in the USDA’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable (FFVP) program.
Sebastian White is a clinical psychologist turned chef who was working to divert children from gangs in an underserved community when he started The Evolved Network in 2020. The Evolved Network is a Chicago non-profit that works with young people from under-resourced communities to provide education and support through farm-to-table experiences. Sebastian currently provides cooking lessons for students in several Chicago schools. He is also raising money to achieve his ultimate goal: to build out a restaurant and urban farm that will provide young participants with job, business and food growing skills while providing therapeutic assistance for those who need it.
Also joining the webinar panel are Spence Medford and Christy Sherding of The Henry Ford, located in Dearborn, Michigan just outside Detroit. The organization has four working farms on its properties and has been very engaged in farm to school programs in its local area. Spence and Christy are spearheading a major national outreach as The Henry Ford is planning to hold events in five cities in October to highlight National Farm to School Month. The event series is a pilot for an ongoing national presence for The Henry Ford's farm to school advocacy.
About the co-hosts:
Sarah Stegner, a two-time James Beard Foundation Award winner, is one of the strongest voices for positive food systems change in Chicago and the nation as a whole. Click on the link to learn more about Prairie Grass Cafe, which she has co-owned for 20 years.
And for those of you who may just be getting to know me, I launched Local Food Forum in April 2021, after I worked for several years at a food systems non-profit. The goal of Local Food Forum is to provide a uniquely focused media platform about and for everyday heroes working across the spectrum of local food ecosystems.
Sarah and I thank our webinar series supporters: Mariano's, Landmark Pest Management, Chicago Chefs Cook, and Community Food Navigator.
Ready, set, go. You’ll enjoy the insightful and engaging conversation.
View Our Regenerative Agriculture Webinar
To give you a taste of our “Better” Dialogues webinar conversations — and an opportunity to dig deep on the important topic of regenerative farming — Local Food Forum is happy to present the recording of “The Pros of Regenerative Agriculture.” This premiere episode of the “Better” Dialogues series took place on Monday, April 15, and you can access the recording by clicking the link below. Please share with anyone you think would be interested in this conversation.
The farming practices embodied in the term "regenerative agriculture" are rebuilding and improving the health of our vital soils that have incurred significant damage and erosion during the conventional agriculture era. Advocates of regenerative agriculture believe it increases the sustainability of our food system, produces healthier and more resilient crops, and even combats global climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil.
The debut of Local Food Forum's online "Better" Dialogues series — titled The Pros of Regenerative Agriculture — was moderated by publisher Bob Benenson and Chef Sarah Stegner, chef-owner of Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook, Illinois and an outspoken advocate for a better food system.
Their guests, who are deeply engaged in regenerative agriculture, were Paul Lightfoot, general manager of Patagonia Provisions and Board chair for the Regenerative Organic Alliance, which administers the Regenerative Organic Certified® standard; Marty Travis, owner of Spence Farm and leader of the Down at the Farms farming collaborative in Fairbury, Illinois; Greg Wade, head baker at Chicago's Publican Quality Bread, who is a longtime customer of Spence Farm's flours; and Tim Brown of Broadview Farm & Gardens in Marengo, Illinois, who left behind a tech career 10 years ago to raise produce and chickens organically.
"Better" Dialogues is supported by Mariano's, Landmark Pest Management, Chicago Chefs Cook, and Community Food Navigator.
The "Better" in the series' title is deliberate, and these conversations are on a range of topics that are all related to our goal of a better-for-people, better-for-the-planet food system. And the presentations are designed to engage with attendees, who have an opportunity to pose questions to the presenters.
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As for the next recording… we’re going to cut back sharply on the turnaround time. Read Local Food Forum this week and look for the link to our April 29 webinar, “Outdoor Farmers Market Season Outlook: Why You Should Go.”
Fun and Friends at the Farmers Market
In the previous issue of Local Food Forum, I shared about how much I enjoyed food, friends and fun at a couple of farmers markets in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood on Saturday (May 4), as the outdoor farmers market season is kicking into gear. I am happy today to share some more photos (and some news) from my morning out.
In the pic above is Elsa Jacobson, a dear friend and market manager extraordinaire, at The Lincoln Park Farmers Market’s season opener. This is one of the oldest farmers markets in Chicago, one of a small handful that date back to the early 1980s. But it appeared to be on its last legs, with low attendance and few vendors, when Elsa took charge just a few years ago. Today, The Lincoln Park Farmers Market — a neighborhood-scale location — serves a steady stream of customers and has more than two dozen vendors (and growing).
You rock, Elsa! The market is open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday at 2100 N. Orchard, near the corner of Armitage and Halsted until just before Thanksgiving.
The Pickled Prince is a four-year-old Chicago startup created by the married chef couple of Alex Skrzypczyk and Brian Greene, in the photo above. They make delicious fermented products (I hadn’t tried their kimchi, so I came home with that), hot sauces and preserves.
They also shared some big news: Alex has taken on another role as executive chef at Granor Farm in Three Oaks, Michigan, a regenerative grower of produce and grain that also has a renowned farm dinner series orchestrated by Chef Abra Berens.
Abra is a longtime friend from her time in the Chicago culinary community. She is the author of three popular cookbooks focused on preparing and serving locally produced food: Ruffage, about vegetables; Grist, on cooking with grains; and Pulp, all about using fruit.
Click below to view the schedule of the Granor Farm dinners that are open for you to buy tickets, including their just-posted July events. And congratulations to Alex!
That’s Conor Daly, selling delicious (and healthier) baked doughnuts created by his fiancée Alejandra Peña at the Daly’s Donuts stand. I was happy to hear from Conor that the couple will be vending at a growing list of Chicago farmers markets, so keep an eye out for them. You can also order their doughnuts for pickup at their Lincoln Park production facility/home, and they do catering.
Tim Magner (left) and his team are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Nature’s Farm Camp, and shoppers at The Lincoln Park Farmers Market and Downtown Evanston Farmers Market were able to take home free tree saplings. Nature’s Farm Camp will be back at it next Saturday (May 11) at 61st Street Farmers Market on the border of the South Side’s Woodlawn and Hyde Park communities.
Nature’s Farm Camp has opened registration for its two five-day/four-night overnight camp sessions that will take place from July 21 to 25 and July 28 to August 1 at the farm/headquarters of the Farmers Rising non-profit in Caledonia, Illinois (just east of Rockford and about 90 miles northwest of downtown Chicago).
Click below for more information and to register.
I don’t actually know these folks at Fook Hing Hot Chili Oil, but feel I need to give a hat tip for their double entendre name (if you don’t immediately get it, say it out loud).
Finally, just a couple of photos of the Saturday scene at Green City Market, whose high profile continues to draw in enormous crowds — even though we’re still several weeks out from the peak growing season. I’m told that the market drew 76,000 visitors for the four weeks of its early April opening. It appears they are well on their way to topping that in May.
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