In the Fruit Belt

"Finally, there is the daily market. Here small farmers from the region sell produce ripened to a peak of sweetness on the plant, often picked just hours earlier. It is the kind of summer produce many people pine for. And yet it is not what most of them will end up eating."

The New York Times discovers that things grow outside of California (registration required). Sadly, as the article notes, so much of this food will not end up on your plate. But...as one of the farmer's pictured, Walt Skibbe, can be found weekly at the Saturday Oak Park Farmer's Market, you can partake if you shop right.

How To Eat Local

5 Servings of Fruits and Vegetables

I assume you have signed up for the Green City Market Eat Local Challenge. I bet you are still noodling over what you can eat that long hard week.

Chicago is smack dab in the middle of one of the richest farm zones of the world. Most of the land around us, in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana is given over to agriculture. We grow tons of corn and tons of soy. Hardly any of that goes directly into our mouths. Indirectly, of course via high fructose corn syrup and cattle feed and thousands of other products, it feeds us. (And thousands of things we don't eat like plastics and inks and brooms and what not.) Can the budding localvore, the non-Atkins localvore, meet his daily requirement of fruits and vegetables? It depends on where you shop.

Here's what nearly anyone can find, around now, if you wanted to eat local: apples, tomatoes, cucumbers (often in two sizes), green peppers, cabbage, sweet corn, zucchini and eggplant, oh and if you are lucky some melons. I spotted local peaches and blueberries at stores in the last weeks but these seem diminishing. Oddly, potatoes and onions, two stalwarts of our climate have not really shown in their local variants. These are the items that can be found at produce stores like Caputo's, local farm stands and grocery stores making the effort. With little effort this is what you can eat.

On the other hand, if you had already committed to a farm's CSA, your box last week would have looked something like this: lettuce head, baby lettuce, sweet corn, peaches, watermelon, green beans, cantaloupe, cucumber, pickles, onion, sweet chocolate peppers, mustard greens, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and carrots. A little more full your diet would be.

To get the full range of the season, you really need to visit a farmer's market. Now, you would find several types of peppers in all ranges of colors and Scovilles, fresh beans like limas, okra, beets, a wide range of potatoes, not quite as wide of range, but a range of onions; things to make your vegetables taste better, garlic and herbs; beyond apples and peaches there would still be raspberries and blueberries, all the colors of plums coming into season now and the first grapes as well. It is a great time of year to eat local.

Your eat local week can be narrow or it can be wide. It's up to you.

Drink Local Milk

Good Options Here!

Over at the Localvore.org site, someone mentioned that they liked the quasi-organic milk owned by Dean Food's called Horizon. I'm not a fan at all of Horizon. See how they rank against other organic milk companies here. Not only are there much better dairy companies, but there are great companies local to us in the Chicago area. Note, while I'm still too nervous to try raw milk, I could surely find many sources for raw milk in Wisconsin. Me, I'm happy with the non-raw but local sources available to me. Mostly, I use the ones described below.

Our default milk is Farmers' All Natural Creamery from Amish and Mennonite farmers in Iowa. It's organic, low temperature (VAT) pasteurized and non-homogenized, about all you want in non-raw milk. More importantly, it is widely available at Whole Foods and other places in the Chicago area. If you don't shake well, you will use all the cream (fat) in the first pour. Sweet.

Three other dairies of the same (or even better) quality are Crystal Ball Farms from Wisconsin, Trader's Point Creamery from Indiana and Oak Grove Organics from Illinois. The last sells a cream that is, well to be trite, to die for. Crystal Ball and Trader's Creamery can at times be found at Whole Foods (Trader's Creamery's yogurt is there). Both sell in small bottles. I like that as I can buy fresher milk. I'm a believer that newness matters with dairy. Fox and Obel is another sources for these milks and creams.

Organic Valley is based out of Wisconsin. It's a cooperative. In general, they have great practices (see link above). It's likely that the products sold around here would come from local farms, but there's no guarantee as they sell nationally/they use farms from around the US. What I especially don't like is that Organic Valley's milks and creams are all ultra-pasteurized. I will buy other stuff from them like cottage cheese and cheddar cheese.

For reasons having nothing to do with taste, farming practices, hormones, localness, etc., we do not buy Oberweiss stuff.

How to Eat Local

Tell Me Already


If you have not signed up for Chicago's Eat Local Challenge, you can do it tomorrow at the Green City Market. You can draw your foodshed wide. Make exceptions wily-nily. Maybe you are just waiting to hear what you can really eat when you eat local. Fruits, vegetables, meat, chicken, bacon, eggs, herbs, peppers, honey, syrup, beer, wine; does that not sound like dinner. You can spend the whole week eating local cheese (start here). What exactly you eat depends on three things: the markets, shops, stands, CSAs and gardens you can get to; what's in season at these markets, shops, gardens, etc., and what do you have stored away in your freezer, fridge, cellar. When it comes time to eat local for a week in September, what will you eat?

Let's start with the storage possibility. If you trying to Eat Local all the time, you think a lot about storing your food. You want local food in the many months without farmer's markets. In those months, your local food has to come from your stores, from canning, drying, putting away in a cold room, and especially, freezing. I'm guessing that the planners of this Eat Local Challenge wanted abundant food for this Eat Local Challenge. They probably did not expect you to have to dip into stores at the height of our growing season. Still, you have to ask yourself, will I be able to do all the shopping I need during that week of local. Maybe. Maybe not. It may make lots of sense for you to put some things aside starting now for your Eat Local week in September.

Where can you get local food. Farmer's markets fer sure. Chicago has many and many good ones. There are several downtown, including decent ones at Federal Plaza on Tuesday and Daley Plaza on Thursday. Drake at the Localvore.org site has a good calender for finding farmer's markets. The Illinois Department of Agriculture produces another good farmer's market directory/calender. The Local Harvest site is a great way for finding not only farmers markets but farm stands and other sources for local food. The problem is, not every farmer's market has everything you need to Eat Local. Do you want to be a vegetarian for the week? Now, both the bi-weekly Green City Market (Wednesday and Saturdays) and Oak Park Farmer's Market have vendors selling meat and eggs to keep your inner Atkin's happy. I know other markets have protein as well, but I cannot necessarily speak to them. Do your due diligence before the challenge starts.

No farmer's market near you or your hours don't match theirs? It has become more possible than ever to buy local at your grocery. (If fact, NPR notes it as a trend--hat tip to Jen at the Eatlocalchallenge.com site. Jewel and Sunset Foods are advertising their local food in their weekly fliers. Whole Food's has promised local, but 1/2 the time I'm there it never seems beyond burdock root. I was in the Caputo's on Harlem, in Elmwood Park this morning. One could eat decently enough on what they had local: cucumbers, zucchini, corn, two types of Michigan apples, two types of Wisconsin potatoes, Indiana onions, peaches, muskmelons, blueberries, milk.

Milk, that's the thing, until this year Green City had local milk. Now they do not. I'm not aware of any one stop for all your Eat Local needs. Caputo's may have got you as far as your weekly chicken dinner, but did they give you a chicken. You could go down the street to Kolatek's, one of my favorite Polish stores. They had Amish chickens from Indiana. Eating local means you can't slow down.

It also means you have to know what's in season. When you eat local you either eat what's in the ground now or what's in your storage now. Early September, when the Eat Local Challenge starts, you will have plenty to choose. Here's a small shapshot of what you may find. Here's another. You should be awash in apples. About the only major local food that may not have arrived for your challenge are the local papples.

A lot of the fun, the challenge in the challenge is the search and the creation. I don't know what exactly you will find local in September. You probably will not either. Tomatoes, eggplants, peaches, plums, bell peppers for sure, but what else? How long has it been since you tried local grapes. Do you remember grapes with seeds? Follow the lead of David "Hat" Hammond who has documented some of his Eat Local discoveries on LTHForum.com. Try new foods, new dishes. However you define your local, whatever exceptions you grant yourself, you will find plenty of things to eat during the Eat Local Challenge. I look forward to hearing how you do. Let me know what else I need to tell you.

How To Eat Local

Don't!

Did you sign up yesterday at the Green City Market for the Eat Local Challenge? This Eat Local lesson is for all those on the fence, but for all those who have dived in too. My message to you, don't eat local.

Nah, I'm kidding. I want you to take up the Eat Local Challenge. Reduce the huge amount of miles required to get food to your table. Partake in food grown by farmers you can meet. Reveal in freshness, forgot the noted heirloom tomatoes; can a cucumber really taste like that. Who knew you could enjoy okra. And yes I do like rutabagas (a wrongly maligned vegetable if there ever was one). The last two lessons covered picking your local, defining where your food could come from to be local. It could be your city, your state, 100 miles from where you lived, or your broad region. I'm sorry but, "from the USA", is a bit expansive even for me. Now, before figuring out what you can eat local, figure out what you can eat non-local.

You cannot eat exclusively from the Chicago area, even for a week. There is no local salt, no local pepper, no local chocolate, hell no local coffee. Many people attempting Eat Local Challenges just give up certain favorites, it's like Lent to them--"damn the headaches, no lattes for me this week." That's fine but, to me, somewhat unnecessary. To me, eating local is about making choices, replacing. Replacing corn so far from the stalk in tastes like ethanol with corn picked nearby; forsaking big-big California peaches for juicy Michigan Red Havens; not having asparagus anymore (unless it's from your freezer) and instead having Blue Lake green beans. Get your eggs from a farmer instead of a multinational entity. Try pastured pork instead of industrial pork. Drink beer brewed in your backyard. That's eating local.

Will eating local drive you nuts. In Plenty, the couple seeking to eat from only 100 miles commented about how obsessive they had to become. How they drove mile after mile in an effort to reduce their food miles. I'll cover in another lesson sources for eating local, but it is obvious that eating local takes work. The food may not be at your grocery, your meat may be frozen when you want to eat it. Moreover, there may be things local out there that you just cannot get too, like grains. Grains, whoa, even if you have a cache of local wheat, do you have time to bake your own bread? Some of your exceptions are just gonna be the practical.

Do you want to do all your cooking with lard or butter, more power to ya. I'd still like to use some olive oil. Should you only try the blossoming Midwest wine business. Perhaps, but you may not have a lot to drink. Use fresh herbs. My friend Farmer Vicki at Genesis Growers sells many. She also has an array of hot peppers. Your food will not be bland on local, do you need to forsake the rest of your spice cabinet. I don't. You may be the type that wants a nice piece of halibut. Me, I don't go there, preferring to buy only freshwater fish. Or I do. I have purchased the Whole Foods marinated shrimp skewers. I eat canned tuna, anchovies. I don't fret that every morsel that goes in my mouth does not come from the states around me.

You should not either. Don't be afraid to be non-local during your Eat Local Challenge. Just think about it. Make mindful choices. Realize the items that matter to you. Then, with the other stuff, go for it. Be like my kidz, never let a whittled away "baby" carrot touch your lips again.

How to Eat Local

What's For Dinner

Have you signed up for the Green City Market Eat Local Challenge?

Good. You want to know what you will be eating while you are eating local. As I noted in this post, what you can eat depends on how you draw your circle of local. On the other hand, maybe you wanted to know what was there before drawing your circle. Chicago sits in the middle of prime farm country. Thick black prairie soil brought people here. Wet springs and hot dry summers make for good fruits and vegetables. Except for those plants that cannot take a freeze, it nearly all grows around here. From varying distances from where you live, you will find farmers that milk cows (and goats), raise goats, pigs, lamb, cows, turkeys, chickens, trout; sell eggs, make cheese, smoke fish. Grains grow abundantly (for sure), but usable grains are a bit trickier. The Great Lakes are still fished. You can find whitefish, trout (now out of season), pike in stores. No almonds but hickory nuts and butternuts can still be tracked down, and walnuts, no English but the much more exquisite if so burdensome black are here. Cook with available lard or butter if you are a zealot. You will not starve.

There are vegetable farms inside the Chicago city limits. You will find mostly greens (including lettuce) and tomatoes from these farms. If you are a Chicagovore, however, I think that's about all you can eat unless you have a fishing pole. The 100 mile diet brings in most of the area farmers who show at local markets. You can get a huge array of vegetables from Nicholl's Farm in Marengo, Illinois; Genesis Growers in St. Anne, Illinois; and Green Acres Farm in North Judson, Indiana, but you will miss out on Henry's Farm in Congerville, Illinois. Some of these farms also sell fruit including apples, berries and melons. More fruit comes from the farms in Southwest Michigan: cherries, peaches and other stone fruit especially. Meats, cheese, dairy may be found with this limitation, Heartland Meats, available at many farmers markets fits within the 100 mile barrier, but many others do not such as Wettstein's Organic Farms. If you choose to go 100 miles, your options are limited.

You could do pretty well on an Illinois only diet. You can even look downstate for peaches. You have some cheese, including the outstanding Prairie Fruits Farm, and other dairy including Oberweiss (if politics allow). Better milk (in more ways) comes from Oak Grove Dairy (available at Fox & Obel). There's some wine but better beer, even vodka and gin. Still, to really take advantage of local, do like me and take an expansive view. I love-love Prairie Fruits Farm, but no goat cheese I have ever tried is as good as Fantome Farm in Ridgeway, Wisconsin. We are blessed with quality products all over our place. Stone ground grains in Indiana, Minnesota wild rice, outstanding hams both the raw and the cooked, farm raised trout. Maple syrup and sorghum is widely produced. The Indiana persimmon, on our far fringe is a truly special fruit, something only a localvore can eat. There will be many good things to eat on your Eat Local diet.

Next: Good things to eat now!

What's Local in NW Indiana

A Lot

The pies may be made with shortening and whipped topping, but good ingredients abound in NW Indiana.

That's Ms. Pavolka. She sells fruit near Michigan City. She is famous for her banana apples, a particular heirloom native to her yard. These, however, need at least another month of ripening. She did sell us tartly-delicious yellow transparents as well as some very ripe peaches. Right now she also has blueberries. She'll have her apples through March.

I appreciate that the South Bend Farmer's Market is open more than one day even if 4/5th of the stands were closed on Friday. Lotsa cukes and summer squash, some home made candy and two meat vendors--the woman at Hiatt's Meat told me that her chickens and rabbits had been processed the day before. Not that I'm strange or anything, but the raw rabbits were gorgeous; if I was not still traveling.

Another meat option could have been Old Hoosier Meats in Middlebury where they put a lot of garlic (a lot) in their ring bologna. They also dry their own beef and smoke their own hams. We were driving to a cheese factory in Middlebury, but changed course when we saw a parking lot full of buggies. Forks County Line Store (508 E. Warren Street Middlebury) is the closest thing to an Amish Costco that I know, the real thing. A dim warehouse, not nearly as huge as Costco, actually organized a bit like a normal supermarket with shelves not pallets, but most of the products came in large, large quantities. The better to feed a family of 10, no?

A mix of surplus foods from who knows (I saw material with the Texas H E B chain logo) as well as products of the area. Forks does reveal many Amish secrets: raspberry pie filling and gravy mix and a lot more food science than I would not expect. We still found much to buy, at bargain prices: hand made noodles, locally ground flour, jellies and pickles, candies, popcorn (pick from 3 colors), honey, more if I'd go down stairs to check. There are other Amish stores. We found more honey, more noodles, more jam at Dutch Country Market (11401 CR 16 between Middlebury and Shipshewana), but Forks is more worthwhile.

We found local flour at Forks but we saw local flour milled at Bonneyville Mill, slightly NW of Middlebury. I save the best for last. An existing water driven stone mill, now being run by the Elkhart County Park District. Is the grain local I asked. No, the mill master replied. My heart dropped a bit. "It comes from near Rochester". Rochester being a town about an hour South Bend. Well, that seemed pretty damn local to me. They find several types of local grain to grind: wheats, corn (in two grinds), buckwheat, rye, and they sell it all at absurdly low prices. I cannot to return. Of course, I'll have plenty of other places to try nearby.

How To Eat Local - Continued

More Basic

Tomorrow starts the sign-up for an Eat Local Challenge being encouraged by Chicago's Green City Market. I believe the actual Challenge is in September. I want to do my part in getting participation. Take an Eat Local holiday. You may not look back. A week or so ago, I posted some tips on how to eat local. Then, I realized the tips were a bit short of the practical. Those tips were better suited for someone already wading. What about someone still on the beach? Over a series of posts, I'll provide what I see as the basics on how to eat local.

The Eat Local plunge requires three pools: what's local; what's available local and where can I find what's local and available. The questions revolve around each other, but have to start with the parameter of what the heck do I mean when I mean local. How do you (or we) define local food. From what area can I get my food, so that the food would be considered local. Where is the wall that keeps in my local food and excludes all traf. Eating local is about eating food within this zone. There is, however, no church of local (or localvore). Define you locality as you want.

A hundred mile boundary is certainly used. See here to get an idea of what are falls within your 100 mile diet area. Your local does not have to be 100 miles. If you live in the Chicago area, you may find that a good portion of your 100 miles is lake water. Do you want that. Local could mean just eating food grown in Chicago. That's possible if limited, with Growing Power and City Farm and honey made in Garfield Park. You could fish the waters, although you could not find the same in any store. Your local can be your state, or it can be your region. I go for the last. I take an expansive view of local. I consider local any food grown, harvested or reared in the states that about comprise the Big 10 Conference. That is, for me, local includes Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan.

Grown, harvested, reared--what about made, manufactured or produced. Tricky. Most soft drinks are made with high fructose corn syrup derived with Big 10 corn, local? Mars candy? Generally, for me, local production is not enough. I'm looking at the ingredients. Still, as I say a lot, I am realistic. My family is finding more and more local grains, and I think we will be making use of it, but our pasta and bread is generally not made with local ingredients. We do seek out local producers of these things (if possible).

Define your local. Know where you can get food, and it will be possible to know what food is available. Likewise, know what is your local and you can be more comfortable with you exceptions. As I also like to say, I'm a believer in the don't make yourself nuts school of eating local. Use salt damn it (your body needs it) and pepper and whatever other spices you need to make your food taste good. Drink wine, coffee, pop. Be comfortable with your exceptions because it makes your commitment that much more real.

Eat Local Cheese

BelGioioso Burrata

I noticed this a week or so ago, in the dairy section of Caputo's--note the Harlem Caputo's (at least), keeps cheese in two separate places. Most cheese, including the house ricotta and mozzarella, as well as the harder cheeses are in the deli; a lot of the other fresh cheeses (Polish and Mexican) and packaged cheeses are in the dairy area. Anyways, as we were long on fresh mozza in the Bungalow, I decided to wait.

Mike Sula at the Reader Blog finds it quite good, exclaiming:

This luxurious cheese fully lives up to its hype.

Open to the Public

The Wisdom of Children

I had the seeming brilliant idea that we would find a good breakfast place between Shippeshawana, Indiana and Chicago by driving West on US 12. Remember nothing is open in Amish Indiana on Sundays. Well nothing much existed at all on US 12 for a ways until we drove past the Cass County Conservation Club in Union, Michigan. Open to the Public on Sundays, the sign said. I was the only one brave enough to enter this domain of John Deere capped, playing pool, perhaps eating breakfast and brushing up on their Fox News. After my peek-in, I could hear the line from Animal House, "we're leavin'" as they fled Otis Day and the Night's Club. This lead, of course, to this pearl of wisdom from daughter 1:

"I'm not going to any place open to the public'

Local as I Wanna Be

Local Lamb, Local Beef, It's All Burger to Me


While a 1/2 lamb does not leave quite as much ground meat as a 1/2 cow does, was there any doubt how we'd first dig in?

Wettstein Organic's ground lamb mixed with Genesis Growers sweet summer onions, flat leaf parsley, egg as well as local company but non-local Penzy's sweet curry powder; ancient Milwaukee garlic, stale bread. Grilled. Served with a sauce of Greek (and I mean Greek) yogurt, Italian olive oil, grated Genesis Growers cucumbers and Genesis Growers mint.

Salad of earliest season Genesis Growers house tomatoes, Genesis Growers cucumbers, Harmony Valley Romaine (Whole Foods!), Wisconsin feta (forgot where).

Genesis Growers zucchini, Sandhill Organics fennel

Harry Potter and the Shawarma Sandwich

Can the Best Middle Eastern Sandwich be Found in the Loop...In the Basement?

OK, have I got your attention? Do I really think that the Middle Eastern sandwich stand, part of the Under 55 complex of loop lunch is the best, most authentic in the Chicago area. Nah, probably not, but I would say that like the recently finished Potter and the Dealthy Hallows, it gave me a lot of pleasure.

Like many, Potter's been on my mind. When Dad wants to discuss bad beats on computer poker and Mom wants to talk non-profit politics and one daughter thinks news on Brangelina matters and the other treats the happenings of her crew with as much reverence and detail; we can settle on a family conversation: Potter, Harry Potter. Good or bad Snape, what happened to Dumbledore in the tower, R.A.B., the missing horcruxes, the Gleam of Triumph, the place of Elves. We could always talk Potter as we waited endlessly for book seven. The well done Order of the Phoenix movie barely satisfied. Would we ever get the book, the answers. Younger daughter finished first, I a day later. It was a testament to how the action in the last book enthralled me, that I resisted the urge to start at the end (even as daughter gave a few things away). I dozed off last night revisiting all that happened at the end of Deathly Hallows.

I started thinking of Harry Potter at lunch again today. I thought this. The decent time between books stems not from Rowling's need to figure out how to meld the plots together. No, I think that stuff flows fast. Even in she gets stalled, she has magic to help: turn back time, faked identity, false thoughts, etc. What takes time is the amusements, the names. Many names have clear meanings, Remus Lupin or Xenophiliac Lovegood. More are just plain clever. The Monster Book of Monsters, blast ended skewts. I love the way Nicholas Flamel (the famed alchemist) runs off my tongue. I need Rowlingesque skill to name my sandwich. As many tiny explosions went off in my mouth today eating my Under 55/Caravan lunch, it seemed very Potter. It needs a name.

Anyone (anyone who loves to eat) who has ever been to Israel dreams of the falafel stands. It is not the falafel, good as it may be. It is the toppings. Any falafel stand worth its pita would offer at least 10 if not 20 toppings for your falafel. All of us who have tried that can never be satisfied with a barely dressed falafel. We want the package. Until today, I knew of no place in the Chicago area that came close. Sultan's Market could throw in some salad, hummus and baba ganoush, and some hot sauce, getting there. Pita Inn does a falafel with potatoes, also getting there. They remain far. Only this place, Caravan within the Under 55 food court gets close.

They offer three types of sandwiches, all variations of ground something. There is a dark beef version, a unnatural looking chicken and the classic chickpea. I believe these bases may be somewhat irrelevant. The falafels are not fried to order. The server fills a pita pocket sliced in two, then lets you go to work. A green and a red hot sauce, white garlic called toum, tahini, another white garlic sauce called tzatziki, "Armenian chopping board salad (a little Potteresque, no?); a tiny dice of potatoes mixed with cilantro; fried onions, a slaw, giardiniera, pickled turnips, "wild" cucumber pickles, humus, and a few other things I do not recall. You just pile.

I had this idea that I would do each 1/2 different, to try variations. It was useless. It was one big garbage plate of a mess. After a while I could not even eat it as a sandwich. I should say that the meat itself was quite tasty, well cooked and well spiced. It could have been a good sandwich by itself. Instead, I got Potter. I got Fred and George pulling little stunts in my mouth. Each bite was a mess of hot, spicy, crunchy, sour, fatty, smooth, bright.

I believe some gullets could not take all this. They might not be able to handle the full monty. Still, take the chance. You may find this the best, most authentic Middle Eastern sandwich in Chicago.

Under 55/Caravan
55 E Monroe St
Chicago, IL 60603
(312) 849-9512

How To Eat Local

This is a slightly expanded version of some tips I posed on the Chicago.localvores.org site.

Wisdom gleamed from nearly 3 years of attempting to eat local:

Be realistic. I like the challenge aspect of eating local, but I do not believe I need to deprive myself of items that make sense. I'm not giving up coffee; I'm cooking with olive oil; I'll buy some bananas. I do have a rough system to what I will eat non-local. It has to carry. It should be a product that is meant to be eaten beyond its boundaries. Put another way, could you have eaten it in Chicago 50 years ago. I think by allowing myself certain things, it makes the overall dedication to localism that much easier. Don't make yourself crazy. Eating local will grow on you.

(I should add that we have no eat local restrictions when we eat out. It is not as if a shrimp or a mango never touches my lips.)

It takes time. Time to know sources. Time to know what to put away. Time to know what works. We are so disconnected from our historical farming/eating habits. You just cannot reconnect. Local does not happen in a day. My wife and I still marvel at how naive we were on our long ago first visit to the Oak Park Farmer's Market. How we were disappointed with its seeming bareness. Now, we know what to expect in the Spring, come Summer, Fall, and especially, what it's like living through the non-market months. We know because we've been doing it. We still learn, and we expect to be better local eaters next year.

Eating local does not end when the farmers markets pull up their stakes. One must take advantage of the fuller months. My CSA box this week features a huge bag of green beans, five or so zucchini and 8 ears of corn. All of this stuff is not meant to be eaten now. I'll pickle some of the zuke and freeze all the beans and some of the corn. Eating local requires a commitment to eat what's in season and what's not in season. Eat your full of asparagus in June, but also eat your asparagus in January. Freezing is easy, although freezing space can be an issue. A full size freezer is not that expensive, as things go. My wife and I are still neophytes when it comes to other preserving measures: drying, pickling, canning. As I said above, eating local just does not happen. It takes time to learn to do the things necessary.

Local is where you find it OR (as Mad-Eye Moody would say) constant vigilance. You may find Michigan apples and Washington apples at your supermarket. Well, did you know there would be Michigan? Do you know there are often Wisconsin potatoes as well as Idaho. Seek out the local and then buy the local.

Build relationships with farmers. This last one is so key. You might be able to buy fresh produce, in Chicago, in the dead of winter. You can purchase home canned foods if you are a CSA member (and your CSA farmer cans). Or you get the inside scoop on cows, lambs, pigs, buying bulk to save $$ Full consumption of local meat was our biggest hurdle, and it was a cost issue. Meat raised locally and sold at farmers markets is very expensive. This cost gets drastically reduced when buying in bulk. While it is possible to find farmers selling whole, 1/2 and 1/4 animals on the 'net, it is easier and more reliable to know a farmer that will sell directly to you. My fascination, respect and interest in our local farmers helped drive me to eat local. Their returned favor has made it a lot easier.

The Condiment Queen Strikes Again

You(r) Fool

Perhaps because it implies more involvement with the food board universe than she has, my wife has disavowed the moniker, Condiment Queen. She's a luker she'll say. Condiment Queen is not a poster, not a nom de Internet. Still, as I explained long ago, it represents a certain improvisational style of cooking of hers. A style put to good use to address a daughter's birthday wish.

This story starts either at Target or with a box of gooseberries. I'll start with the gooseberries, that's a bit longer. I cannot resist buying things like local gooseberries. Gooseberries, as represented by Phil Smidt's pie, were a traditional fruit of the region, one now overshadowed by peaches, raspberries and blueberries. That and twin devils of ultra-tartness and tops and tails. A few local farmers fill the odd request. A worthwhile request as the puckishness is matched by a complex muskiness, like a good grape. Gooseberries are worth using. And if not in pie, then in the classic Joy of Cooking, gooseberry fool. An English fool is a fruit puree mixed with custard. Cook the gooseberries and run through a strainer. Voila, no need to pick off all those twiggy things on the berries. Us Yanks simplify things further, the puree folded into sweetened whipped cream. We had our gooseberry fool a few weeks ago.

Target, that goes back to about four years, a four year birthday. Given her choice of a birthday dinner, daughter number 1 picked target. What could be finer than a Target hot dog and a side of popcorn. The lesson: one gets what they want on their birthday no matter how bizarre. Fast forward nine or so years. What does one want? Carrot fool.

If you could make a fool from gooseberries (and sour cherries, my idea), why not with carrots. OK, I was not so keen, but the CQ took to it. She cooked down a bunch of Genesis Grower carrots in a bit of orange juice, added some honey, a bit of grated ginger and pureed. As is, it tasted not unlike an Indian dessert. Halwa, however, is not fool. In went the whipped cream. The final product was a layered glass of sour cherry fool (whipped cream, sugar, sour cherry syrup), the carrot fool, golden raspberries, and passion fruit fool (passion fruit curd from CQ's employer and whipped cream).

Fools do make an ideal summer dessert. They are both intense and light. Obviously, they match well against fruits that need balance, sour cherries or gooseberries, but as my wife and daughter surmised, there's a few other possibilities out there.

So Local, Even Our Artichokes are Local

Oak Park Farmer's Market - July 14, 2007

Last spring there was a brief debate on LTHForum.com on the idea of local vs. seasonal. Someone demurred over my spring produce. It was not seasonal because it came from a greenhouse. Well, not that long ago (as his books have arrived from Amazon) I found that my guru Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall supports me. He also argues in favor of the use of hoop houses to affect and alter the notion of seasonality. Like me, he sees a difference between a bit of plastic that seals in warmth and growing in laboratories. Ground matters to us.

These kind of greenhouses allow farmers to grow year-round around here. They also allow farmers to get things to the market sooner. For instance, Genesis Growers has tomatoes now. The other thing is, technology can change what can be local. Lloyd Nicholls is somewhat famous (notorious?) amongst the farm market community for his desire to get anything to market. Not just happy with 10 types of potatoes and 39 kindas of apples; he needs pink gooseberries and Nigerian eggplants and...and..artichokes. For at least a few weeks Nicholls is bringing local artichokes to the market. I'm no purest here. (Of course I do not really like artichokes). I bought one for each of the girls. I just wish he could coax out some figs.

Eat local does seem to be everywhere. Jewel Foods and Caputo's ("the original farmers markets") advertise their localness. I have no checked out the former, but I know the latter had more local products than Whole Foods including cucumbers (2 types!), zucchini, eggplant, and apples. The apples especially impressed me as they were summer Lodi apples, a highly specialized product (sauce). The kinda thing one only expects at farmers markets.

In other Eat Local news, the Green City Market BBQ made the strong case that one eats best when one eats local. Green City is also sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge come September. The more the merrier! And trends, I sense a movement towards local fish. Several chefs at the Green City BBQ were doing things with local fish, abet farm raised fish. Regardless, National 27's farm raised perch escabeche was one of the top dishes at the Green City BBQ. While I wait for more local fish, I've expanded my supply of local meat. On Saturday I picked up my 1/2 lamb from the Wettstein's. Our freezer can barely stand it.

As I've said many a time, eating local now is easy, so ask me later. If you cannot make it to one of the many, many farmers markets, at least you can hit Jewel.

This Week: Weeds

Oak Park Farmer's Market - 7/7/07

'tis a busy day last Saturday at the Oak Park Farmer's Market. First, I whisked my wife off to the bowls of Pilgrim Church (whose parking lot hosts the market). There, she took to her assigned task, mixer, which is really a hauler of a commercial mixing bowl back and fourth--luckily as a pie baker, she's a bit more handy with the Hobart. Second, I hit the stands, Vicki's Genesis Growers for herbs, tomatoes; Tomato Mountain for Sun Golds; Hardin for the first red peaches; Skibbe for blackberries; Sandhill for beets and fennel. Then, I waited around the Nicholl's stand for Suzy and Randy. The more time, the more I found: thin round Asian cukes, currents, new potatoes, the last of the spring strawberries, and the weeds. A farm product I can relate, pursulane, amaranth and lamb's quarters. As Mrs. Nicholls sez, "we have seven types of edible weeds on the farm." Only four more to try. Suzy and Randy showed and we split our six pounds of English peas. I ran all of the fragile stuff home.

Picked up the kidz and took my position in the donut brigade. The sun, the donut stand at the Oak Park Farmer's Market is mostly covered, but the seat of the cashier, my seat, stood exactly in the line of the sun. It was like a laser guided riffle kept its red dot on me all morning. I baked. And baked. A few seconds before puking, I took a break. Thankfully, we sold all of the supply of donuts by about 11:00 AM. Dropped the rest of the stuff off. The day did not get any cooler as we escorted daughter #1 to the Panic at the Disco show at Milwaukee's Summerfest.

Of course, there was frozen custard.

Eat Local Meat

Our Supply of Cow Slowly Dwindles as We Make Room for Our Lamb

Well, my wife, who it turns out does not like to be referred to as the Condiment Queen (who woulda thunk?) declared the sirloin steaks we had last night the best she's ever had. I'll say this for our local cow. It's good. Belying the grass-fed rap, it's quite tender. That may because Farmer Vicki fed the cow a good deal of vegetable scraps. She says it's the pumpkins that make the meat so sweet. Also, the knock on frozen meat is that it won't crust up nice. Not true. Now, I make sure to well pat dry the meat before throwing it on the grill, but crust has never been an issue. Of the two steaks last night, one got restaurant style grill marks. The other one, meant to be more well done for the kids, got a near Luger finish. In retrospect, I wish I would have got that crust on both pieces. When the sirloin steak came off the grill last night, there was just this incredible pure beef aroma. I bet if I was older it would make me nostalgic.

Not on purpose, but we have been working our way around the sirloin end of the cow. We had the football shaped roast, then last week we had the bottom sirloin roast, which looked like an open book. Last night were steaks cut about 3/4th of an inch. All have been done on the grill, with the last two being done with direct heat. When I made the bottom roast, I starting asking my wife about the condiment. "Green sauce, salsa fresca..." She stopped me. "No sauce. I want to taste the meat." Truth be told, the heavy beefiness of the bottom roast needed something to cut it, I ended up improvising with pickled jalepenos. Last night's steak however truly needed nothing more than Bruce Cook's Dalmatian rub (salt and pepper). We had it over a salad of farm fresh vegetables. We are spoiled in our eating.

If I could raise one complaint, I would say the cow was not very expertly butchered. Before the cow was processed (farm talk is so matter of fact), I spent tons of time researching how I wanted it cut. The problem, however, was when the time came, my butcher was not so much a butcher as a man with a very good band saw. The locker (more farm talk) had a standard way of cutting, and to the dismay of all my research had no idea what NAMP was. I managed to talk them into various cuts and such, but at the end of the day, things like the hanger steak disappeared. What arrived was a lot (a lot) of ground beef. The locker especially did not use the chuck and neck very well. With this sirloin we have been eating, they cut it latitudinally (horizontally from the back, did I say that right?). It leaves the bones out, but some of the sirloin cuts have large swaths of inedible cartilage running through them. I mean right smack in the middle. It's all a small price to pay for affordable local meat.

As to all that burger, the last package we opened went into making Middle Eastern style kefta. The meat was mixed with chopped onions, curry powder, red pepper, parsley and garlic. My burger is pretty fatty, the result again of the artless processing. Still, with burger, especially kefta, this fat's a good (great) thing. I cooked these kebabs all the way through yet they remained incredibly juicy.

Joining our remaining cow in the freezer will soon be 1/2 lamb purchased from the Wettsteins. Again, by getting the meat in its primal state, one saves a bunch of money. In this processing, the locker seemed confused as to what was the rack of lamb, the loin or rib. I think my rack is gonna be a bit of both. As with the cow, the fun comes in the unwrapping. Also, the processor found it odd that I even wanted the breast. It took three tries to find out how big was a lamb brisket. After much query, I just punted and said anything left over, grind. 1/2 lamb is significantly smaller than 1/2 cow, so I do not fear 200 lbs of burger.

My wife is not so keen on the suckling pig made available to us, but I have a few days still to work on her.

What's Local at Taste of Chicago

Lagnaippe

I'm not a Taste of Chicago snob. I enjoy a yearly visit, AND I had dreams that a Robert Randolph seat would open. The latter did not happen, but I was surprised to find a place expressly offering local produce.

Lagnaippe, the only stand at Taste of Chicago that features LTHForum in their signage, offered a crawfish boil with "Illinois corn" and a jambalaya with "local produce". Although I was pretty full on Harry Carey's fresh fried Idaho potatoes, I had to try the local item. So my wife and I split the eight ticket jambalaya.

Monica Eng rated it eh. Local be damned, it was well beyond forget it. For one thing, I was hard pressed to find any produce, local or not in this red mess. For another, it was overloaded with powdered sage, the same flavor that can over dominate some soul food. I mean this was really bad. I guess I don't instantly like everything local.

One of my Taste of Chicago fantasies remains a Nicholl's Farm stand at the fest.

7 For 1

It's been a very (very) busy few weeks as we put together the arrangements for my older daughter's call to Torah. Not much time to blog (even cut back on the computer poker), but as busy as I am, I'm always filled with thoughts of what to blog. If I could I'd expand on these I would [ed., like the promised farmer's market reviews?]:

Organic Farming is Hard

Farmer Vicki reports that the typical Chicago quick change from cold to hot keeps her job that much harder. Sugar snaps, we hardly knew ya.

Where There's a Nicholl's There's a Market

The Thursday Eli's Cheesecake Factory Farmer's Market had one stand, but when the one stand is Nicholl's Farm, what the hey. Five kinds of strawberries, ranging from good to great, red currents, shelling peas that were tiny orbs of green sugar, beets, carrots, greens. We are lucky in Chicagoland that the most ubiquitous farmer's market vendor (present at about 20 markets) is also one of the best.

Local Beats Seasonal

It's always someone's asparagus season, but when I want asparagus again, I can eat from the several bags I froze. I've taken the time to put away broccoli and greens too. I have rhubarb piling up, I just hope I can get to it.

Save, Save This Restaurant

Time Out Chicago's Save This Restaurant is like a running list of "my places", i.e., the kinda places I really like (even if I had not known of them until the column appears). David the Hat Hammond pleas for us to save Klas in Cicero, a place really, really in need of saving.

Hate This Restaurant

Trattoria Pepino, Elmwood Park

Book Reviews

William Grimes in today's NYTimes compares the current round of Eat Local books against the ultimate global food, sushi. His heart seems to be with the latter.

Vital Book

Enjoy shots of raw meat as much as me, then you'll appreciate that the River Cottage Meat book, by my guru Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been search and replaced for the the US market (keeping stateside readers from having to figure out their topside from their bottomside, their chuck from their clod). Wonderfully informative, a text book for any foodie.

Every Day a Market

If It's Wednesday It's Not Forest Park


I really like Drake's Farmer's Market calender, but in need of market today beside Green City, I ran into the little boo-boo. The Forest Park French Market is on Saturdays. In search of other market advice, I came across this good calender of Farmers Markets and the like from the Illinois Department of Agriculture (especially helpful for roadtrippers like the VI family; I'm keen on the Heritage Market in Pekin, which seems to run all year).