Jen Rosenthal’s first full year as the rooftop farmer at Uncommon Ground restaurant can be fairly described as a big success. By the time the roughly half-year growing season ends in a few weeks, Rosenthal and her team of mainly interns and volunteers will have harvested nearly a ton of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, greens, beans, herbs, and other produce, most of which is used in the restaurant downstairs.
Food hubs, which provide aggregating, marketing and distribution services to regional food producers, are growing in numbers and influence, according to a survey report released Sept. 19, but still face a number of challenges.
The three-day Wurst Festival in downtown Chicago’s Daley Plaza this week will feature the key ingredients of any good Oktoberfest: sausages and seasonal beers. What makes this salute to encased meats stand out from most German-style harvest festivals in the U.S. is its emphasis on responsibly and sustainably produced foods from local and regional producers.
Discerning rum drinkers in the Chicago area may debate which locale produces the best variety. Some will say Puerto Rico, others Jamaica or Venezuela or Barbados or a variety of other nations in the Caribbean region. Now, at least a handful of Chicagoland’s craft spirits fans would include a new entry: Plainfield.
Fried chicken has been described as comfort food, indulgence food, and fast food, but for the most part, any resemblance between fried chicken and sustainable food has been purely coincidental. That is hardly the case, though, for Honey Butter Fried Chicken, a new restaurant created by two of Chicago’s most talented young chefs, whose much-anticipated grand opening arrives Saturday (Sept. 14).
Many people who serve as aides to farm state congressmen tend to be sympathetic toward the big agribusiness and food marketing companies that wield clout to influence federal agriculture policy. Bob Martin, now a senior policy adviser at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future in Baltimore, Md., went in the opposite direction.
The Artisan Distilling Program at Michigan State University opened a tasting room in July. The launch of the bar near the East Lansing campus fulfilled a longtime goal of MSU professor Kris Berglund, whose program had operated in a low-profile manner since he founded it in 1996. “We’ve kind of been the black ops guys,” said Berglund. “Now we’re coming out into the light a little bit.”
A salad made of farm-fresh fruit bathed in a syrup that includes liqueur or brandy — kind of an inverted sangria — is a delicious, slightly intoxicating, healthy, and easy-to-make summer treat.
The star of the Micro Brew and Food Review Aug. 17 in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park was beer, of course. But as the photo gallery on this post shows, sustainability was also a major theme.
Chicago’s Kari Underly is known nationally for her mastery of meatcutting. Now Underly, a third-generation butcher who grew up near South Bend in northern Indiana, is seeking to raise money to create the Range Meat Academy, which she says will be “the most comprehensive butcher training program in the industry.”
There are so many different aspects to the Good Food Movement. This photo gallery shows a range of them. Cursor over the photo to learn more about it.