Local Food Fuels Main Street Mojo in Rural Kentucky

Just four years ago, Main Street in the small city of Corbin, Kentucky looked and felt like most downtowns in rural America: Vacant buildings. Empty sidewalks. A few surviving businesses. Today, though, there are thriving businesses and it’s hard to find a parking space on the mile and a half of Corbin’s Main Street. And local food is the engine driving this community’s revival.

Kitchfix-ing Prepared Meals in Chicago: A Good Food Festival Exhibitor Story

FamilyFarmed’s annual Good Food Festival & Conference is the oldest and largest event in the Midwest focused on local and sustainable food. At its heart are the producers, buyers, sellers and others who exhibit their businesses there. Josh Katt, chef/owner of a company that prepares and delivers delicious food from sustainably produced ingredients to homes and catered events in the Chicago area, shares his experiences as an exhibitor.

Donate to FamilyFarmed’s IndieGoGo Drive — And Help Us #GrowYoungFarmers

FamilyFarmed has launched a fundraising campaign — titled “Help Us Grow Young Farmers!” — to support the latest expansion of its extensive efforts to train farmers across the United States so they can achieve sustainable success. The campaign, staged on the IndieGoGo crowd-funding site, is titled “Help Us Grow Young Farmers!”

Green City Market haul
Rick Bayless
Paul Sippil

First Person: Seeking Better Health and Bigger Community Through Good Food

by Paul Sippil, Guest Contributor Paul Sippil is the founder of the new, Chicago-based Farm-to-Table Community Dining and Wellness Group, which seeks to bring communities together and stimulate discussion of healthier eating through Good Food on social media and at special dinners featuring farm-to-table ingredients. The latest of these dinners, scheduled for the evening of Wednesday, Read more about First Person: Seeking Better Health and Bigger Community Through Good Food[…]

Chicago's Green City Market
Local Foods retail store in Chicago

The Promise of Local Foods’ New Chicago Retail Store Is Right In Its Name

Local Foods, a Chicago distributor of local and regional farm and artisan food products, has opened a 27,000-square foot store not far from the city’s downtown. It is carrying produce, dairy, eggs, and meats from farms in the Midwest region centered on its biggest city, along with fresh, frozen and packaged foods from top regional artisans — and is considered a big step forward in local food retailing by advocates of the Good Food movement.

Rick Bayless Demo at GFFC

Ten Delicious Facts About Chicago’s Good Food Scene — Tell Us About Your Town

[The original version of this article was published May 1 on the Huffington Post website.] As FamilyFarmed prepared for the James Beard Foundation Awards in Chicago on May 4, we decided to welcome out-of-town attendees with an article providing “10 delicious facts” about the blossoming Good Food scene in our hometown. We found we had created a pretty sweeping guide to Chicagoland Good Food, so we’re making it a standing feature. And we’d love to hear about the Good Food scene where you live — let civic pride rule!

James Beard Awards 2015 logo
Chef Rick Bayless
Rick Bayless Demo at GFFC
Tell William Cider at Farmhouse Chicago

Farmhouse Tavern’s Good Food Approach Sees Lake Michigan Region as Field of Plenty

T.J. Callahan, the founder and owner of the Farmhouse Tavern restaurants in downtown Chicago and suburban Evanston is a bit wary of the “farm to table” label, which some critics say has been overused to the point of becoming a cliche. “Farm to table, it’s such a nebulous kind of concept,” Callahan said in an interview with Good Food on Every Table. “So we’ve called ourself, from day one, a ‘Midwestern craft tavern.'”

Paul Fehribach cooking demo

Good Food Chef of the Year Paul Fehribach: Southern Tradition and Strong Values

Paul Fehribach of Big Jones restaurant in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood will receive FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year award during the Good Food Festival, Saturday, March 21 at Chicago’s UIC Forum. He earned the award because of his culinary skills — steeped in the traditions of Southern cooking — and also because of the strong values that prompt him to seek out locally and sustainably produced ingredients, including many rare or heirloom varieties.

New Holland Distillery of Michigan

The Localicious Party: Eat, Drink, Be Merry — Affordably

What would you pay to welcome the glorious arrival of spring with one of Chicago’s best annual food and drink tasting events?
Most sampling events these days will set you back three figures. But Localicious — on the evening of Friday, March 20 at Chicago’s UIC Forum — is a great night of eating and drinking great local products, for just $80.

Rob Levitt of Chicago's The Butcher & Larder

Chicago Butcher Rob Levitt on the Meaning of Good Meat and His Local Foods Move

Rob Levitt established himself as a major figure on Chicago’s food scene when he and his wife Allie opened The Butcher & Larder meat shop four years ago. Here Rob Levitt discusses his somewhat unexpected career as a butcher and his hopes for bigger things with his upcoming move, expected this spring, into a larger space in the new Local Foods retail store.

Paul Fehribach, chef-owner of Chicago's Big Jones restaurant
Mark Schneider of Living Waters Farms
The Big Jones Cookbook