Maywood, Mangos, Midwest Organic and Mado to Boot

This is Loretta Brown. My wife and her are on the Board of West Suburban PADS. She makes dolls, which you can kinda see in the background. She has also organized a brand new farmer's market for Maywood, Illinois. I am always happy to see and support new markets. As they say in Maywood, this one's farmtastic.




Maywood is lucky enough to also have in its residence the hardest working women in winter markets, who's slumming it this summer on behalf of the good people of the Midwest Organic Farmer's Cooperative, Robin Schimmer.



Robin's stocking the Maywood market with all range of good stuff, from local grain, to fruit and veg (local strawberries not pictured) to meats, even locally raised, sustainably farmed tilapia. If you can get one person to show up at your market, you can do no worse than have Robin and her variety of organic products from our own home state.




On this last weekend, Maywood offered two stands selling fruit. This farmer brought produce from Michigan.



Still, the world of local has not fully set in, and a man selling flats of mangos sold out his inventory first.

Mmm, our farmtastic day did not end at Maywood. We took the kidz for lunch at Mado, where Rob offers up sandwiches made with the same high quality farm-fresh ingredients as he does at dinner. While pork and lamb sammys tasted great, it pained me to look at the chalk board of dinner options and know that I could not have one. There was not a single dish on the menu that I did not want to eat. Rob had already driven my wife to buy duck eggs that day from the Wettsteins at the Oak Park Farmer's Market (yes, I confess we eat that market too, finding our first cherries!).
After lunch, I was counting all of the dishes I would attempt to re-create at home. Sugar snaps with pecorino and tagliatelli with garlic scapes, lemon and hot peppers are two that I have to try.

The Maywood Farmer's Market is on the first and third Saturdays until October, 7 AM until 1 PM. It's located at St. Eulalia Church, 1851 S. 9th Avenue, 9th and the Eisenhower.

Mado is at 1647 N. Milwaukee, Chicago. (773) 342-2340