Category Archives: Chicago Farm Market Events

Read about upcoming farm market evens, culinary happenings, and shin-digs you shouldn’t miss!

Let The Outdoor Farmers Market Season Begin

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FarmFreshEggs6x24Today is April 27th here in Chicago land and for the first time this year I am sitting on my balcony wearing shorts while I write this. Granted I have on a long sleeve shirt and a hooded sweatshirt but I am in shorts! As every Chicagoan knows, this has been a long, cold and wet spring that has had only 8 days above 60 degrees this year. I sip a cup of coffee (Sumatra) from the Coffee and Tea Exchange in Lakeview knowing that this is sweater weather for most of the country.  I also sit here knowing that starting next week, May 4th, my Saturday routine will change for the better. That is because the Green City farmers market goes out doors into Lincoln Park.

Almost every Saturday in the late spring through the early fall, my dog and I walk to the bank and withdraw $40 and then head over to that stretch of Lincoln Park between North Ave and the Lincoln Park Zoo entrance. That is where local farmers have sprawled out onto a couple acres with just picked fruits, vegetables and herbs. It is where you can get specialty and artisanal Wisconsin cheese. Last year I bought a 4lb slab of pork belly from a 400 acre farm in Dubuque Iowa where the pigs roam free all day and eat organic corn, hay and grain. I was able to do this because Becker Lane farm is there every Saturday. Each week I buy at least 1 dozen farm fresh eggs and a baguette from Bennison’s Bakery for my breakfast when I get back home. I walk around and look, feel and smell the products. I plan out a couple of meals for the week based on what looks especially good and fresh.

After a few weeks of the outdoor season, familiar faces go from pleasant nods to spoken “hi’s”, “hello’s” and “how are you’s”. There is a Sesame Street “Who are the people in your neighborhood” vibe that brings a genuine sense of community to the market. Folks are smiling, kids are running around, dogs checking out other dogs. Even a few of the Florida snow birds are back and catch up with one another. This seasonal outdoor market is one of the things I love about my neighborhood and this great city of Chicago.

Intellectual Property and Food

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Kent School of Law

Close-up of the poster promoting the Gastro-Intellectual” panel.

About two weeks ago, we were given tickets by Ground Up Chicago to attend a panel at the Kent School of Law, hosted by the school’s intellectual property law society. Not sure what to expect (what, us have time to read?) We knew it was going to be a quality event when we checked in — lovely name badges, a bar and a really interesting gnoshing table.

Entering the lecture hall and taking a closer look at the program, it was such a wonderful surprise to see who was on the bill: Nick Kokonas of Alinea fame, Kevin Boehm of Boka, Thomas and Lori Leavitt from Ground Up Chicago, and Sendil Devadas from DuPont Pioneer. The moderator was Chris Buccafusco (a dead ringer for Joe Mantenga, if you ask me.) Buccafusco led a truly interesting discussion.

What we want to know about food

If the expectation was that the law students and lawyers in the room would jump on the poor fellow from Dow, the poor fellow from Dow was disappointed. When it comes to intellectual property and the food we eat, there are no more fascinating questions in our society today than who has the rights to seeds, and the moral and ethical questions that genetic engineering evoke, but the audience focused their sights on Kokonas and Boehm, asking quite a few questions about restaurants and recipes — and who can blame them? Kokonas and Boehm have amazing stories to tell.

Kokonas was asked a number of times about how he and Chef Grant Achatz react to people who steal Achatz’s recipes and techniques, and weather or not he felt the recipes should be copyrighted. “Good luck copying our recipes” remarked Kokonas, explaining that development cycles for Alinea recipes can sometimes take as long as two years. He explained that the restaurant has always had an “open source approach” and that, while they are sometimes imitated, they don’t often get litigious about it unless the infraction is completely overt.

Boehm was asked about Boka recipes being stolen, to which he replied, “as long as you attribute a recipe, it’s OK.” Later in the evening, someone asked, “when does a recipe become public domain,” and the rejoinder was mumbled, “when it hits Des Moines?”

Tip your hat to your local farmer

Farmers, it turns out, love the attention that attribution brings to their products, and the Ground Up team agreed that the idea of attributing local products on menus heightens awareness about the idea of “local”.

Consensus for the evening seemed to be that while a restaurant or a recipe could be “often imitated” it could rarely be duplicated — at least not to the extent that it would impact the bottom line for businesses like Alinea or Boka. “Being at our restaurants is an experience,” says Kokonas, who backed that up by noting, “I could give you an Alinea recipe and all the equipment you’d need to reproduce it in your kitchen, but it could never be quite the same as in our dining room.”

 

 

 

Get Experimental this Valentines Day

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Flowers for the living experimental station

Flowers for the Living takes place February 14th — check it out now!

Looking for something different to do this Valentine’s Day? Attend a party and support the organization that brings you the 61st Street Farmers Market all summer. Experimental Station is planning quite a bash — Flowers for the Living features Chicago duo H.N.I.C. and special guests.

The evening begins at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 14th, and costs $15 per person or $25 per couple, so grab a date and get to Experimental Station at 6100 S. Blackstone Ave.

Experimental Station is a place you can go to get involved — from the farmers market in the summer to the bike shop where you can buy a bike and learn how o fix it — to arts and culture, this is the kind of neighborhood “station” every neighborhood should have.

Enjoy Valentine’s Day with them and give a little love.

 

Chicago Chocolate

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bannana cream truffles

These truffles at Katherine Anne Confections had — if memory serves — a bannana creme pie flavor.

We’ve written about Katherine Anne’s Chocolate before, not just because her freshly-made chocolates, caramels, and marshmallows are inspired deliciousness, but because she embodies the small business entrepreneurship that this big town needs.

Catherine hosts what I like to call “chocolate release parties” and welcomes people to her shop to create confections with her. You really get the idea very quickly that she loves what she does and that she is passionate about sharing what she does with other people. And since what she loves is chocolate, it’s not very hard for others to love it, too.

Whatever you’re doing over the next week, consider participating in one of these activities with Katherine Anne:

  • SATURDAY 2/9, 12-6PM: handmade cards from a local artist will be for sale: a calligrapher will be writing complimentary love notes.
  • SUNDAY 2/10, 12-3PM: Illinois Sparkling will be pouring their delightful bubbly for you to sip while you hang with us.
  • WEDNESDAY 2/13, 6:30-9PM: Valentine’s truffle-making party! You know the drill on how awesome these are. We’re providing extra champagne for this one ;)
  • THURSDAY 2/14, all day! We’ll be pouring even MORE bubbly (we have a problem, we know) and adorning all boxes with a pretty floral sprig.