The Talking Farm

Walk The Walk With The Talking Farm’s Urban Farm Dinner

Farm dinners have become a popular facet of “agritourism,” with farms working with chefs to bring “farm to table” dining back to the source. Dozens are held each year just in the Chicago food region alone. But most of the participating farms are well out in the country, requiring a day trip or an overnight stay. That location is what makes The Talking Farm’s dinner on Sept. 10 distinctive. The farm is just outside Chicago’s city limits and a short Sunday drive for most residents of the metropolitan area.

Purple Asparagus

Chicago’s Purple Asparagus Spearheads Food Literacy For Youngest Students

Those involved in the Good Food movement believe that if we are going to build a better food system, we need to start promoting healthier habits among our youngest eaters. Since 2005, Chicago nonprofit Purple Asparagus has put that belief to action, bringing its engaging food literacy program to children kindergarten to 2nd grade in selected Chicago schools.

Pilot Light Chefs Stirring Up More Food Education On Chicago’s South Side

Pilot Light is the chef-driven program that helps Chicago Public Schools integrate food and nutrition education into their students’ overall curriculum. And the nonprofit organization is prepping for its biggest expansion yet, adding eight schools to its lineup for a total of 14 around the city of Chicago.

The Kitchen Community: Growing Better Lives, One Garden At A Time

The first thing you notice if you visit a school with a Learning Garden from The Kitchen Community non-profit organization is … joy. The chance to get their instruction outdoors instead of in the classroom — learning to put seeds in soil, nurture the plants, and then harvest the food they have grown — is something the children really seem to relish. Yet it may take a few years, at least for the little ones, to realize what serious purposes are behind this fun school time.

School Food

The Children Will Lead Us: How Good School Food Is Changing How We Eat

Tim Magner works to integrate food education with fun through Chicago-based programs such as Nature’s Farm Camp. He reports that the longterm decline in the quality and nutrition in school food is being reversed, in sync with the rise of the Good Food movement. More school gardens, more cooking classes, more efforts by many administrators to find healthier choices for students. In his article below, Tim describes the positive impact that is having for our nation’s schoolchildren and our food system in general.

Chef Johnny Anderes is Keeping Farm to Table Real at The Kitchen Chicago

The Kitchen was founded in Boulder, Colorado in 2004 and features delicious food with a strong focus on local and sustainable sourcing at its restaurants. And The Kitchen goes beyond the core Good Food principles with its strong social mission, embodied in its school learning gardens program. Johnny Anderes, head chef of the The Kitchen location in Chicago, discussed the restaurant’s Good Food practices.

Nature’s Farm Camp: Making Good Food Real — and Fun — For Chicago Kids

Nature’s Farm Camp is an overnight camp, on a working farm, that immerses Chicago-area kids in a fantastic food-and-outdoor adventure. Tim Magner, in this contributed article, explains how in a world where kids are bombarded with hyper-processed foods loaded with fat, sugar and salt, Nature’s Farm Camp shows them something different — and better — in a beautiful natural environment that connects them with where food comes from.

Paul Kahan and Other Chicago Chefs Spark Pilot Light Program for Kids’ Food Education

There are few more important avenues for ensuring continued progress toward a better U.S. food system than teaching children about healthy food produced sustainably, humanely and fairly. Pilot Light, a chef-driven nonprofit in Chicago, is one of the most promising and innovative programs addressing this priority. Paul Kahan, a co-founder of Pilot Light and FamilyFarmed’s 2016 Good Food Chef of the Year, discusses the program in this Q-and-A.

Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences students
Nature's Farm Camp

First Person: Learning About Good Food is Child’s Play at Nature’s Farm Camp

Tim Magner is a co-founder, with Elena Marre, of Nature’s Farm Camp, a five-day, four-day summer camp that provides children with hands-on experiences about food and nature. Magner has entertained, educated and inspired kids in a variety of capacities for more than two decades, including as a camp counselor, a children’s book author, and operator of Truck Farm Chicago.

Paul Fehribach, FamilyFarmed's Good Food Chef of the Year

Paul Fehribach Good Food Chef Award, Pilot Light Demo at Good Food Festival

by Bob Benenson, FamilyFarmed The strong interest of many chefs in sourcing local and sustainably produced ingredients has played a big role in the rapid growth of the Good Food movement. So it is only natural that culinary stars would also play a big role at FamilyFarmed‘s Good Food Festival, the big public celebration of Read more about Paul Fehribach Good Food Chef Award, Pilot Light Demo at Good Food Festival[…]

Pilot Light Chefs
Purple Asparagus classroom event

Purple Asparagus at the Good Food Festival: They Love Kids, You’ll Love Them

Unlike a certain purple dinosaur, Chicago’s Purple Asparagus — a nonprofit group that uses fun and age-appropriate activities to teach kids about Good Food — is named for a real plant that is a springtime delicacy. That is kind of the point. Teaching children from very young ages about the benefits of real, whole, wholesome food is crucial to their developing healthy eating habits as they grow up, and that is the core of Purple Asparagus’ mission.

Alan Shannon of the USDA Midwest office

First Person: Making Farm to Fork the Table Setting for America’s Schoolchildren

Across our country, more and more schools have begun to source foods locally and to provide educational activities to students — a movement often called “farm to school.” Farm to school is growing, with major benefits for children, schools, families, farmers, food manufacturers, communities, and businesses.