Good Food EXPO

Author Turkell, Fat Rice Team Take You On A Vinegar “Acid Trip” At EXPO

Do you love how vinegars improve and heighten the flavors in food? Do you want to learn more about the wide range of vinegars from around the world, and how you can use them in your cooking? Then you should buy a ticket to the Master Class on culinary uses of vinegar, which FamilyFarmed is presenting on Saturday, March 24 (9 a.m.- 11:30 a.m.) at its Good Food Festival — the second day of its two-day, 14th annual Good Food EXPO. The Master Class and cooking demo features Michael Harlan Turkell, the food photographer, podcaster and author who wrote the wryly named book Acid Trip: Travels in the World of Vinegar. He will be joined by Chef Abe Conlon and Adrienne Lo, co-owners of Chicago’s popular Fat Rice restaurant, which focuses on the Portuguese-influenced cuisine of the Chinese island of Macau.

Dishalicious

How Chef Of The Year Sarah Grueneberg Broke On Through

Chef Sarah Grueneberg’s passion for pasta at Monteverde restaurant has earned her the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Great Lakes and the Jean Banchet Award for Chicago Restaurant of the Year… just within the past year. FamilyFarmed is proud that Sarah will also accept our 2018 Good Food Chef of the Year Award at our Good Food Festival on Saturday, March 24 — and will conduct a cooking demo at our Chefs at Play stage. Enjoy our interview with Sarah, one of Chicago’s best-respected and best-loved chefs.

Good Food Festival

Pasta Power: Sarah Grueneberg’s Golden On Good Food Festival Chef Stage

Sarah Grueneberg, award-winning chef-owner of Chicago’s award-winning Monteverde restaurant, will receive FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year Award — and conduct a cooking demo — at the 2018 Good Food Festival, part of our 14th Annual Good Food EXPO. And as if Sarah were not enough reason to make your way to the UIC Forum on Saturday, March 24, wait until you see the rest of the lineup for our popular Chefs at Play stage. Mind blown.

Good Food Times: Frontera Party Nets $100K+ To Help Farm and Food Businesses

When you are throwing a big party, the usual measure of success is whether all good time was had by all. By that standard, the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration — marking three decades of Chicago Chef Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill — was a dazzling success. But the event also was a fundraiser for Rick’s Frontera Farmer Foundation and FamilyFarmed… and that also was a success.

FamilyFarmed Salutes the Chefs of Frontera 30 for Their Commitment to Good Food

The people who attended the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration on Sunday (April 30) — to help accelerate the Good Food movement — hopefully will always remember the evening they spent in what we called the Culinary All-Star Food Court. So as our thank you note, we present a photo essay of all of the participating chefs, with links to the chef profile series that Good Food on Every Table published in recent weeks.

Rick Bayless Caps Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration With Beard Top Restaurant Award

Chef Rick Bayless’ Topolobampo — which brought fine-dining regional Mexican cuisine to Chicago in 1989 — won the James Beard Foundation 2017 Outstanding Restaurant Award at the organization’s annual ceremony, held Monday night at his hometown’s Lyric Opera House. The award, which Rick received with wife-business partner Deann Bayless sharing the podium, came just one day after the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Chef Paul Kahan’s Enduring Bonds To His One Off Hospitality Family: A Frontera 30 Story

Chefs Erling Wu-Bower of Chicago’s Nico Osteria and Cosmo Goss of The Publican are two of the biggest young stars on the city’s and nation’s restaurant scene. So when they went to their boss at the hugely successful One Off Hospitality Group — James Beard Award winning chef Paul Kahan — a few months ago to tell him that they planned to open their own restaurant, Paul says, “Man, my brain exploded.” But Paul himself had benefited from the nurturing and encouragement of the chefs from whom he learned, such as Rick Bayless, and he and his business partners are helping Erling and Cosmo plan and develop their restaurant. All three chefs will participate on Sunday in the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration fundraiser at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Connect (And Party) With Rick Bayless… CEOs of Presence Marketing, KeHE and SPINS… and Support Family Farmers Too!

Spending time with leading Good Food business executives — at a gorgeous suburban Chicago home or a yacht cruise on Lake Michigan — sounds like reason enough to bid on two of the headline prizes in the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration’s online silent auction. But if you have Good Food business interests and want to learn more about this fast-growing sector that is building a better food system for America, how can you pass up the opportunity to learn from (while partying with) three giants of the Good Food industry: Bill Weiland of Presence Marketing, Brandon Barnholt of KeHe Distributors, and Tony Olson of SPINS, the leading data analyst for the natural and organic products industry.

Frontera 30

Chicago Chef Brenton Balika Proves You Can Go Home Again: A Frontera 30 Story

Brenton Balika grew up in the Chicago area in a family in which food and cooking were shared experiences. By his early teens, he developed the passion that led him to a career as a chef; he says the only jobs he has ever held are as a golf caddy when he was in the 8th grade and working his way up through restaurant kitchens. But Brent took a long and winding road to his current high-profile station: developing the soon-to-open Margeaux Brasserie and Petit Margeaux patisserie at Chicago’s Waldorf Astoria hotel for Chef Michael Mina’s San Francisco-based Mina Group. Brent will participate with other top chefs in the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration, a joint fundraiser for FamilyFarmed and the Frontera Farmer Foundation.

Frontera 30

Chicago Chef Mindy Segal’s Passion for Pastry: A Frontera 30 Story

Mindy Segal is a legend among pastry chefs, both in her home city of Chicago and nationally. The winner of the 2012 James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef, she has delighted customers at Mindy’s HotChocolate — her full-service restaurant in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood — for 12 years. for many years has made cakes for all of Rick Bayless’ family’s special occasions. So she was an obvious choice to participate in the Frontera 30th Anniversary Celebration, a joint fundraiser for Chef Rick Bayless‘ Frontera Farmer Foundation and FamilyFarmed, which will be held at The Art Institute of Chicago on Sunday, April 30.

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