Chicago: Rising Above the Twinkie
My first trip to Chicago! People are pretty food smart around here. (Fun fact: the largest public library in the world is Chicago’s Harold Washington Library Center. It contains over 2 million books.) Saturday was a day packed with locally grown food and community activities in the Chicago area. We started up north at the Downtown Evanston Farmers’ Market, where we set up bright and early for a series of cooking demonstrations that were scheduled throughout the morning. They definitely had one of the largest selections of the freshest and ripest produce I have ever seen at a farmer’s market. One farmer had 36 different varieties of European potatoes!
The cow has landed! The Chef Rocky Road Tour hits Chicago for a weekend of food activism.
It was “Nonprofit Day” at the market, which meant we weren’t the only organization spreading information about how we can improve our food system. We had a chance to meet with groups like The Talking Farm, which is doing great food policy work at the state level throughout Illinois. It was great to meet with other local activists and discuss how we can work together. As a symbol of our collaboration, I made three salads from ingredients I found at the market. One with cauliflower and fresh tarragon, one with oyster mushrooms and shallots and one with bi-color corn, poblano peppers and cilantro.
After parting with fellow activists, we headed downtown to the Chicago French Market, where we had the second cooking demonstration of the day. (It took a little while to get there since the Chicago River flows backwards.) The French Market is an indoor market that features local produce and meats from the area, along with artisan vendors like RAW, which offers 100% organic raw vegan food. I did a cooking demonstration, preparing a seared grass fed rib eye with roasted garlic and my own interpretation of ratatouille.
Instead of one kind of Twinkie®, Chef Rocky discovered 36 varieties of European potatoes from one farmer at the Downtown Evanston Farmer's Market.
On Sunday, I made a quick stop at the Glenwood Sunday Market. I bought an iced tea blend that was infused with blueberry flowers from a local farmer, and saw a cooking demonstration on jams, jellies and preserves which taught me a few new tricks. We then finished the day with an activist meeting at Argo Tea. It was our largest turnout yet and it was nice to meet so many new people and talk about various food issues that they are concerned about. The activists that participated took petitions with them to bring back to their communities to get signed. This has been my first visit to Chicago and I am really going to miss it. They’ve come a long way since inventing the Twinkie®.
Check out our photos!
-Chef Rocky Barnette
36 varieties of European potatoes!?! Someday, this is something I’d love to see. These postings are exciting to read & realize the dedication others also have to a local, diverse food movement.
Thank you for stopping by and shopping at our Glenwood Sunday Market! Rocky, our condolences to you on the unexpected loss of your friend. May the rest of your road trip go well.
Great to meet you folks (at Argo Tea), and converse more in depth about the issues around the production of healthy food–and alternative grass-roots movements to reintroduce such basic life-giving wisdom (or not– as per most of how the coventional/industrial-farm corporations currently operate). A BIG hank you for keeping the momentum of discourse around healthy/healthier living, going around the Midwest this summer, and for what you have done in the last half decade around these important issues.
It’s been fun (and heartening) to read your blog and see photos of many people (we’re all out there– we just need to know this and take more steps to come together in creating the changes we want!) all over coming together, to promote better conditions for growing healthier food and taking care of our environment (e.g. the water, air quality, especially).
You say it was your first visit– plan to come back; Chicago loves your kinda people– head and hearts (and cooking skills!) on the right track…toward health and healing and change in governing policies….
Thanks for contributing to a great summer,
in Chi-town,
Stephanie
[...] In Chicago, the team did a cooking demo at the Evanston Farmers’ Market and at the Chicago French Market and met with activists at various venues in town. Read all about it here. [...]