Results tagged “greencitymarket”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced this year's recipients of the USDA Farmers Market Initiative Program. Green City Market was awarded a grant for $76,300. The grant money will help fund GCM's Farmer Scholarship Program, which helps facilitate participating farms in obtaining 3rd Party Organic and/or Sustainable Certification by 2012; staff salaries; the Edible Gardens program; and marketing materials for the market's electronic benefits transfer (EBT) program. [Inbox]

Heirloom tomatoes are finally starting to roll into farmers markets throughout the city. With that comes some pretty outstanding cocktail recipes. First, there's the always busy Adam Seger of Nacional 27. Seger's monthly cocktail class was the subject of a cover story in the New York Times style section yesterday. The Paper of Record also published Seger's Heirloom Tomato Mojitonico recipe for Anthony and Rob to try at home.

           

Bonjour. We were invited to attend a cooking class at the Alliance Française de Chicago, which before Saturday we knew only as, “that pretty building on Dearborn where French people hang out and that we are slightly intimidated by.” Having the choice of romance languages to study, we chose Italian and Spanish over French (the “bonjour” at the beginning of this post is really the extent of our language skills.) Silly American. However, we decided there is no better way to begin our relationship with the Alliance and the French language than through food, so we gave it a shot. Kinda like Julie Powell but without all the whining and self-pity. And we never cried over beef stew.

     

When you walk into the Spice House in Old Town with 10 pounds of pork belly strapped to your back, you're telegraphing to the employees what you need. What we were looking for was four ounces of sodium nitrate, aka "pink salt."

• WTF is Homaro Cantu up to now? "Disruptive food?" [Homaro Cantu's Twitter]
• Chicken McNuggets confit [Fancy Fast Food]
• Ice Cream from one single ingredient [the Kitchn]

         

So yesterday was the annual chef's BBQ at Green City Market, which a few folks on twitter have called "the real Taste of Chicago." No arguments there. Not even a passing thunderstorm could keep people away from indulging in pure unadulterated gluttony.

Green City Market will be packed this evening on a picture perfect night for grilling and BBQ as they host their annual chef's BBQ. The BBQ brings together a Justice League of chefs making dishes using food procured directly at the market. Food tends to go fast and furious here; they've actually run out of some dishes at previous incarnations. Get there early.

        

Summer's bounty is finally upon us! This was the first week where we could do ALL of our grocery shopping at the Farmer's Market, rather than using it to enhance our regular meals. The first root vegetables of the year have come in, and the market was stuffed with carrots, onions and the first small potatoes. Lettuces, Chard and other greens continue to come on strong, but the real stars of the show were berries. Cherries, Raspberries, Blackberries - even currants were for sale at this Saturday's Green City Market.

  

Our Saturday visit to Green City Market resulted in a pirate's booty of fresh produce, planters, milk and meats. The highlight of our visit was the purchase of French breakfast radishes and white carrots from Green Acres Farm in North Judson, IN. June is when radishes just begin to make their way to farmers markets and Green Acres's French breakfast radishes have a crispness when you bite into them and taste best raw with a little bit of butter and salt. Wanting to use all of the purchase, we made a pesto from the radish greens. (Incidentally, radishes will be the subject of a future "Ingredient in Focus" post.) The white carrots were a revelation, with a taste to their greens similar to cilantro. We dehydrated some and used them on tacos last night.

        

This past Saturday, we visited the outdoor Green City Market for the first time this season. It's open on Saturdays and Wednesdays,and, being lazy, we ignored the usual wisdom of "arrive early or everything will be gone." We got there at 11 and found plenty left to buy - maybe it was the threat of bad weather that kept people away.

Home-made, fresh pasta is certainly the best kind. Unfortunately, we don’t have a pasta machine, or a ton of spare time, so we usually settle for dried. While shopping for produce, we ran into Pasta Puttana (translation: Pasta Whore) at the indoor version of the Green City Market, back in April. Owner Jessica Volpe was standing behind her entirely empty table and, when we went up to beg for scraps, she had nothing left. It was only 11 AM and the market had only been open for a couple of hours - we probably should have known better. Clearly, we aren’t the only people who love her products.

         

The weather Saturday was more akin to late March than early May, but it didn't keep people from venturing to the southern tip of Lincoln Park for the first outdoor weekend of Green City Market. We loaded up on microgreens, Piedmontese beef tri-tip roasts from Heartland Meats and ground elk from Hawks Hill Elk Ranch, and ate a cheeseburger worthy of Kevin Pang's attention from the fine folks at Sunday Dinner.

After spending Winter in the confines of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Green City Market spread its elbows today with its first day outdoor. To some, this is the first day of summer in Chicago.

This week in the Chicagoist Podcast Series, we continue to welcome the slow rollout of spring. It's taking its sweet-assed time, and it'll be summer in just a couple weeks, but for right now, let's close our eyes and pretend that it's a constant 67 degrees with sun, shall we?

         

In the gray days of March, when the produce at the store is looking its most tired and our spirits really need an infusion of chlorophyll, we start to crave farmer’s markets. Fresh vegetables, flowers, being outside, and getting as much produce as we can eat for whatever cash happens to be in our wallets; farmer’s markets help revive us after the long, hard winter. Daley Plaza (our usual haunt) doesn’t open for another month and a half, so that’s clearly out. Luckily, Green City Market has come to the rescue.

Realizing a long-held goal, the folks at Green City Market are set to have the market open year-round. Starting January 17 and running every first and third Saturday until April 18, vendors and farmers will hawk their wares at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (2430 N. Cannon) from 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

       

So Marcus and yours truly attended last night's opening reception for Chicago Gourmet on a picture perfect night atop the Harris Theatre at Millennium Park. the evening featured opening remarks from Mayor Daley, Illinois Restaurant Association President Sheila O'Grady and sponsors, an auction benefiting Green City Market, and an open buffet featuring chefs from Chicago's sister cities.

I think the title of this post says it all, don't you?

So I'm a week into the Green City Market Localvore Challenge and doing well. I've been able to find really good, in-season fruits and vegetables without spending a small fortune and the meats I stockpiled over the summer in the freezer are coming into good use. I've also been surprisingly creative with my daily menus. For example, yesterday I was hard-pressed for a breakfast idea and didn't want to resort to the standard bacon-and-eggs.

Truth be told, I agree somewhat with what Michael Morowitz wrote about the Green City Market Localvore Challenge. Morowitz wrote:

Leading off with some localvore challenge items while taking inventory of the fridge and pantry for what we need to buy:

Tomorrow is the start of the annual Green City Market Localvore Challenge, where market regulars who partake in the challenge must commit to eating only locally produced food.

A couple weeks back we attended the Green City Market farmer's dinner at Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub. That was the one that featured dishes from a host of chefs including Dean Zanella of 312 Chicago; Brian Huston of Paul Kahan's the Publican (opening in mid-autumn); Elissa Narow of Custom House and Paul Virant of Vie in Western Springs. Virant's dish was easily the most ambitious of the courses, utilizing lamb in unexpected ways. Virant sourced the lamb from Mint Creek Farm in downstate Stelle.

The Tribune's Stew blog reports that Green City Market founder Abby Mandel passed away this morning. After 11 years of running the annual Best of the Midwest Market at Navy Pier, Ms. Mandel founded Green City Market in 1999 as a way to bring locally farmed foods to people and raise awareness of sustainable food practices. Her work at Green City Market made Ms. Mandel one of the leaders of the local farm-to-table movement.

There are a couple of really interesting beer dinners of note in the coming weeks that could wind up being hard reservations, if you're the type to wait until the last minute to get reservations.

It's mid-July which means that many tastings and fixed price dinner events have a Bastille Day theme. Here are a few of note

One of the great things about shopping at farmers markets is having the luxury to grab a quick bite while looking for deals. Green City Market has Hoosier Mama pies, fresh crepes, organic baked goods from Bleeding Heart Bakery, fresh juices and smoothies, among noshables.