Our friends at Edible Chicago magazine have let us know that their 5 Year Anniversary issue is out on the streets this Memorial Day weekend. That is a picture of Seedling Farms strawberry ice cream on the cover, a hint of things to come at the farmers markets this summer. Stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter for updates on their distribution locations. Website will be updated within the week.

• VISIT FARMER’S MARKETS

We love when it is easy to get local food, and as May rolls into June, it’s getting a lot easier to get local food. Farmer’s Markets are in season now.

It’s easy to focus on a few markets, like Green City because they so strongly meet our eat local needs. Yet, there are 100′s of markets across the Chicago area, into Indiana, up into Wisconsin and all across Illinois. Find new farmers, unique products, and more ways to expand your locavore life.  The Local Beet has the biggest, most comprehensive list of area, and we define area broadly, farmers markets around.  In addition, the list if searchable and sortable.  See what’s out there.

• KNOW WHAT’S IN SEASON

Before heading out to one of those many markets, take the time to know what is in season.  Set your expectations.  Study recipes.  Know what to find.  And know what to find here.  First of all, you have to know what is in season for our little corner of the earth, not what’s in season in California or even what’s in season in Springfield, Illinois.  Second, you have to know what’s in season now, this year.  We keep up with what’s actually in the markets, now what could be in the markets.  We update our What’s in Season Guide as needed to ensure you know.

• MAKE THE MOST OUT YOUR MARKET EXPERIENCE

Knowing what’s in season is just one of the many tips we provide to help you shop the markets.

• SHARE!

We want to hear about your market experiences.  We never have enough Beet Reporters.  Tell us what you found or what you did with it.

• ENJOY!

It’s a balmy 45 and I considered covering my precious tomatoes this evening. I decided against it, convinced that it’s Memorial Day weekend and they will be OK. I’m pretty sure that last year couldn’t have been a more different setting. I feel like everything came early last year and I wasn’t prepared for it. At a recent Chicago Cooperative meeting the ice breaker question was what is your favorite spring vegetable? Without blinking an eye my answer was morel mushrooms… Well, River Valley Ranch had photos of their morels up last week at the market, so if you are able to find them, I recommend this morel mushroom ravioli courtesy of the Parsley Thief as a long weekend project for the family or friends because it’s amazing, albeit a bit time consuming but completely worth every minute of work put in. It’s buttery and creamy and textured and melts in your mouth. Homemade pasta has more flavor and is more fun to eat because there’s more to the experience. The flavors that come out are more surprising and exciting than dried pasta and this recipe with the fresh morels drives it home.

Cut and wash 8-10 ounces of morel mushrooms in water. Beware, ants may fly out of them… totally normal, don’t freak. Drain when you’re sure they’re dirt and bug free. Heat some butter in a skillet and add 2 or 3 large shallots that are minced (if you’er lucky, River Valley Ranch will have some grown from their mushroom compost). Cook until translucent. This is one of those times where you really use real butter… like super awesome high quality butter and don’t skimp ladies and gents, this ravioli is serious (Nordic Creamery I’m looking at you). Add the mushrooms and let them sweat out all the water they absorbed for 10 or 12 minutes. Pour 1/4 cup dry white wine into the pan and let the mushrooms absorb it. Add 1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon (I used dry from the Spice House and wasn’t disappointed). Remove from heat and let cool.

Drain 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese for 15 minutes. Since you’re already taking the effort to make the pasta from scratch, might I suggest also making the ricotta (seriously, Smitten Kitchen where would I be without you)? Many local farmers have both milk and cream for sale. I have used Kilgus Farmstead but there are many options. Chop the mushroom mixture and mix it into the ricotta along with an egg (farm fresh or bust), a pinch of nutmeg and a cup of grated Parm. Make the fresh pasta courtesy of Mark Bittman and roll it out into sheets. I used a rolling pin (i.e. empty water bottle/wine bottle) to roll my dough out. You don’t have to be fancy about it! Lay out 2 sheets of pasta and take the advice to use cornmeal dusting because it will stick. Spacing an inch apart, mound some heaps of mushroom goo onto one of the sheets of pasta. When you have a reasonable amount, carefully lay the second layer on top. Dip your finger in water and moisten the edges of the pasta so they’ll stick together.

Cut the ravioli with a knife, or a ravioli press, or a cookie cutter… whatever works and lay on a pan covering with a towel until the process is complete. You should get about 24 ravioli out of it. Boil a pot of salted water and carefully drop them in one at a time. Cook for 2-3 minutes until they’re floating on the top. Drain and serve with some melted butter, parm, or mushroom oil and just let the emotion take control. Thank you Parsley Thief for a great recipe and River Valley ranch for delightful morels! Happy mushrooms!

After a while, while musing about your garden and what you are planting, you realize that you are gleaning knowledge that should make you eligible for college credit. You gain experience in soil science, biology, botany, meteorology, geology, and of course, agriculture. Gardening and farming can also give you a sense of connecting to history. A couple of ways this may happen is through the heirloom vegetables you are growing or the old fashioned methods you use to grow your crops. Another way you can connect to history while gardening or farming, which crosses over to a different realm outside of these two pursuits, happens when you find artifacts in your soil.

I started gardening as a kid in Franklin Park next to a house that was built in 1915. Over the years as I turned the soil over I dug up parts of old, obviously antique bottles, chunks of coal, and for some reason marbles, tons of marbles! These finds always made me think of the people who lived in my house in previous decades. Who were the kids who played in the yard with all of these marbles? Where are they now? How old are these marbles? From the coal, it was clear to me that the house must have been heated by coal at one time. This made me think, did they make the kids who played with the marbles shovel the coal? I once found some kind a campaign coin that advertised “Vote twice for Alderman Anton Cermak President and Member, Board of County Commissioners.” Another prize from that old garden was an arrowhead made by some long ago Native American.

Alderman Cermak campaign coin

(Click on pictures for better view)

These days we are gardening, and raising livestock, out at our farm in Knox County and the relic discoveries have intensified. Many relics pulled from the soil at the farm are just discarded junk, old electrical fixtures, broken jars, and bricks. Others have novelty value such as a nice collection of 1960’s era soda pop bottles churned out of the soil by the action of our hogs. They were possibly tossed aside by some farm kids of the time who were later chewed out for losing what were then returnable bottles. Two very intriguing relics that I also have to give my hogs credit for finding are more Native American relics. These were lying around for some time after being dug up but their importance was not apparent until further inspection revealed that they were ancient tools of some kind.

Porcine archaeologists on staff at Smiling Frog Farm

Soon after it became clear that these were in fact relics, my wife looked up a website that listed relics found in Illinois. From this we deduced that the one old tool is a celt. A celt is an axe like tool which can also be used like a hoe. It is something like an adze. The other tool was not as easily identifiable. It looked like to us it was some kind of a hammer or, as the website described, a war club.  The age that the website put on these objects was incredible! They were said to have been used from between 2000 to 3000 years ago! I had been a little skeptical of this assessment as the website was selling relics and could be overstating the age of any relic posted to boost the price.

Metate and unfinished Celt

As I said gardening and farming can connect one to history in many ways. The arrowhead, celt, and the other object that have been uncovered in various gardens over the years made me wonder about the Native Americans who made them. How were the tools used? Why were they discarded? Where could I find this information? As luck would have it Kelvin Sampson of the Dickson Mounds State Historic Site spoke at the KnoxCountyHistoricalMuseum in Knoxville, Illinois on Sunday. He gave a great information filled presentation assessing any relics brought in by the general public. I, of course, brought in the arrowhead, celt, and the other object.

According to Mr. Sampson, the first object was indeed a celt, but one that was not finished. It did not have the polished surface that a finished celt had. Other people did bring in finished celts and he used them as examples. The second object, the one we were not so sure of, was next. He had looked at objects that other people had brought in and determined that, although they looked like man-made objects, they were natural pieces of stone shaped by water. The assumption suddenly came over me that our stone may be just that, a stone. But when Kelvin looked at it he held it to the audience and showed two dimples, one on each side. This told him that although it looked natural it was man made. He determined the relic to be a metate, or mealing stone. It was probably used to smash open acorns or nuts. These two relics were appraised by Mr. Sampson as being around 3000 years old confirming the website information.

I found the arrowhead when I was about 11 or so. Since that time I have always wanted more information on it. After reading up on the Native American history of the Chicago Area, I always assumed that a Pottawatomie had been hunting in Franklin Park back before the white man settled there and discarded the arrowhead.  I also assume that this was sometime before there was any trade for guns and other tools that the white people had to offer, probably before the 1600’s. But the first thing that I learned from Kelvin Sampson about the arrowhead was that it was not an arrowhead. An arrowhead is about the size of a dime and this object was about two inches long.

Dongola scraper, spear point, or knife

What I have is a knife, spear point or a scraper. Also, it was made of what is known as “Dongola chert.” This chert comes from far Southern Illinois or Southern Indiana and was traded up north following the extensive trade routes of the time. The biggest thing that I learned though, was that after the Native Americans began to grow corn the need for the types of tools, like the one I thought was an arrowhead, were no longer necessary. So the object was much older than I had ever imagined. It may be between 3000 and 8000 years old!

I was 11 or so when I found the scraper. The other kids that I showed it off to would almost always erupt “That’s not worth anything!” of course referring to money. But the value this object had was the connection that it gave me to a person that lived centuries ago in the same spot where I grew up. Long before there was a Franklin Park, a person dropped a scraper. It became buried and possibly moved by later farmers, house builders or home owners trying to grow a lawn, only to be found by a curious gardener. Long before there was a KnoxCounty, somebody left their tools behind. The tools have marks on them that probably came from being hit by plows or disks so they probably were moved around many times as well, only to be found by curious hogs. Yes, some of the things that make gardening and farming worthwhile are not apparent until you stumble upon them!

 As you may recall the Farm Bill, a large omnibus package of policies, programs and funding streams that structures our nation’s food and farm system, is typically written debated and passed approximately every 5 years. Last year after the U.S. Senate passed a new Farm Bill, due to election year politics the House refused to bring a Farm Bill to the floor for full debate, so instead we have been operating under a bad extension to the 2008 Farm Bill that left stranded a number of important local food and sustainable agriculture programs. Need a refresher on the Farm Bill process click here.

Last week both the U.S. Senate Agriculture and House Agriculture Committees debated and passed competing Farm Bills. Both bills end direct payments and renew funding for important stranded programs like the Farmers Market Promotion Program (now the Local Food and Direct Market Promotion Program), the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development program; but the House Agriculture Committee’s bill also contains very deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and is markedly less reform minded than the Senate Committee’s bill. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition had this to say about the House Agriculture Committee’s bill, “Despite its name – The Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act – the bill includes no major reforms beyond the preordained elimination of direct payments.  It reinvests most of the savings from direct payments back into new commodity and crop insurance subsidies.  It increases the per farm commodity subsidy limitation by 92 percent and leaves in place current loopholes that allow individual farms to collect unlimited payments.  It places no caps whatsoever on farm insurance subsidies.”

In comparison the Senate Bill is over all much better and contains a number of important historic common sense reforms that will save taxpayers money, protect the environment and support local food and beginning farmers. However, among other important provisions, important limits to crop insurance subsidies that were included in the 2012 Senate bill were not part of the package—which brings us to the full floor of the Senate.

This week – starting today – the Senate will debate a new 2013 Farm Bill, and Senator Bob Casey, Senator Jon Tester and Senator Dick Durbin have introduced 3 important amendments that need to be included in the final 2013 Farm Bill.

• [Senators Casey (D-PA) and Harkin (D-IA)] An amendment that authorizes a microloan program tailored for the needs of beginning and military veteran farmers and ranchers.  New farmers need access to land, credit, and capital to get their hands in the dirt, and this amendment will help them better access their #1 biggest need – financial capital to launch and sustain their farm businesses.

• [Senator Tester (D-MT)] An amendment that will help keep a wide array of plant seeds in the public domain by ensuring that researchers can develop publicly held seeds for farmers – think the honeycrisp apple or non-GMO corn – instead of corporate-controlled privately held varieties that take control away from farmers. Classical seed breeding – and holding seed varieties in the public trust – is as old as agriculture itself, and is the source of the most-productive, best adapted seeds in the world.  Corporate giants like Monsanto are trying to privatize as many seeds as possible – so it’s critical that researchers at our public universities can access public research dollars they need to continue developing and improving the best possible seeds for farmers – and for home gardeners!

• [Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Coburn (R-OK)] An amendment that takes a bold first step towards reforming ballooning crop insurance subsidies for wealthy mega-farms. It’s long past time to rein in these subsidies – this common-sense amendment will save taxpayers over $1.3 billion dollars and ensure maximum support goes only to those who need it, not a handful of mega-farms.

Among the hundreds of amendments (and those still yet to be introduced) the Senate will debate in the coming days, these stand out. They have the potential to make a real difference on the ground in the lives of farmers and communities, and represent a step in the right direction for getting our food and farm system back on track.

Help Make These a Reality – We need YOU to call today!

Here’s the contact info for your two Senators:

Senator Dick Durbin:202-224-2152

Senator Mark Kirk:202-224-2854

Calling is easy – just dial the numbers above and leave a message. Obviously you don’t need to call Senator Durbin about his amendment, unless you want to say thank you, but make sure you call Senator Kirk. When you call leave a message like this one below with the person who answers the phone:

“Hello, my name is ___ and I’m a constituent and a voter (and tell ‘em if you’re a farmer!). I would like to leave a message for Senator Durbin’s [or] Senator Kirk’s agriculture staffer. Can you take a message for me, please? The message is: I urge the Senator to support Senator Casey’s microloan amendment and Senator Tester’s Seeds and Breeds amendment (and Senator Durbin’s crop insurance amendment) during floor debate this week. These amendments will help family farmers, beginning farmers and sustainable agriculture. Thank you.”

We won’t get a better farm bill – and, with it, a better future for our nation’s food, farmers, air, soil, and water – without your help! Make that quick call right now – and help us spread the word!

State Policy Update – Composting Reform Moves Forward

While, much of our attention here at Illinois Stewardship Alliance has shifted from state policy issues to D.C. as the Farm Bill debate has heated-up and progressed, action at the State Capitol has not abated. Last week on Tuesday May 14th by a vote of 54-1 the Illinois Senate Passed HB 2335 the Urban Composting Reform bill that will make it easier for community gardens, schools, and urban agriculture projects to accept off-site materials like landscape waste and food scraps for composting on site. HB 2335 has passed both chambers and now head to Governor Quinn’s desk where we expect he will sign it into law making Illinois a national leader when it comes to urban composting. A similar bill, HB 3319, that will make it easier for rural farms to compost on-site by expanding the list of allowable materials for an IEPA on-farm composting permit exemption is scheduled to be voted on by the full Senate this we where it is expected to pass as well.

Wes King

Interim Executive Director

Illinois Stewardship Alliance

“Local Food Matters”

Illinois Stewardship Alliance (ISA) is a state-wide membership based grassroots non-profit that supports local food systems and sustainable agriculture through education and advocacy. ISA is currently in the middle of our 2nd Annual Membership Drive, sign-up to become a member today and get entered to win dinner for two to one of Illinois’ premier farm-to-table dinners or Patagonia luggage.

Electron micrographs of native high amylose starch, ×3000                                   Shoepeg Corn

The Journal of Nutrition                                                                                               General Mills

Most of the corn grown in the United States is dent corn, 85% of which is genetically modified. There are old heirloom varieties and varieties still grown in remote valleys of countries like Mexico and Bolivia that may hold the key in their genes that will revive the world corn crop in the event of a calamity, such as disease or pest that the current corn varieties have no defense against.  These varieties are usually very hardy and can be, through saving the seeds of the best specimens, be acclimated to most growing areas.  I myself have always wanted to grow an heirloom corn variety that I can grind myself for cornbread such as a flint corn. After some research I have found one heirloom variety of corn that do all of the above so this year I will try,  Roy’s Calais Flint Corn.

According to the website of Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste:

Roy’s Calais flint corn is an open-pollinated flint corn originally cultivated by the western Abenaki (Sokoki) people in     Vermont, and subsequently grown and maintained by pioneer farmers, including Roy and Ruth Fair of North Calais, VT. In 1996 Tom Stearns obtained the seed from local farmers like Mike and Doug Guy, who had received the corn and seed-saving information from Roy Fair.

Roy’s Calais Flint Corn

Slow Food USA, Ark of Taste

Roy’s Calais Flint Corn is also a variety that has come to the rescue once during a past calamity. According to legend, it was one of the few varieties of corn planted in Vermont in 1816 that produced a reliable crop during what was known as the “Year without a Summer”. There were food shortages that year due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in what is today Indonesia. This eruption sent a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere and crops worldwide were lost that year. Having come from a colder region where most corn varieties do not do well, Roy’s Calais Flint Corn has the genetics for a shorter and colder growing season.  Since I am busy in the spring I am not able to get all of my crops planted in time for the length of their growing season. With its shorter growing season (90-95 days) Roy’s Calais Flint Corn is a variety that I can put off planting until later. It is also said that it makes excellent cornbread and polenta. I will try this variety this year and if it turns out to be one that I like I will save the seeds for the future.

Polenta with Wilted Escarole and Olive Oil Fried Eggs

Food52.com

Brigitte Derel of the High Mowing Organic Seed Company wrote a terrific narrative about  Roy’s Calais Flint Corn http://www.highmowingseeds.com/blog/a-narrative-on-roys-calais-flint-corn-by-brigitte-derel/ This is where I first became interested in this variety and where I first became informed about its interesting history.

Roy’s Calais Flint Corn is available from:

High Mowing Organic Seeds http://www.highmowingseeds.com/organic-seeds-roys-calais-flint-corn.html

Fedco Seeds http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/search.php?item=682&

The Green City Wednesday market is a great time to shop and talk to the farmers in a relaxed environment rather than fight the crowds of  the Saturday market. Last Wednesday , I was fortunate to make Chef Paul Virant’s (Perennial Virant, Vie) cooking demonstration where he showed how darn easy it is to make ramp mayonnaise using a blender with tempura fried asparagus. The best thing about the Green City Market chef demos is that you can taste the food and interact with the chef and ask as many questions on how to cook things as you want.  Today Chef Heather Terhune of Sable Kitchen and Bar is up for it at 10:30am. Another new item at the GCM is baby food, Honest Purees, made by chef Dana Cox Lipe. She ,also, has organic, salads at her booth that you can eat as well. The GCM BBQ tickets are on sale already, too.

As we move closer to summer, more local farmstands are opening in the city, including the Chicago Lights Urban Farm that is a collaborative project with Growing Power at 444 W. Chicago Ave. Wondering what is in season? Chief Beet Rob Gardner elaborates on it and gives his advice on how to shop at a farmers market. There are some great farmer newsletters to subscribe to that are full of tons of tidbits and detail on what is season, one is Terra Brockman’s letter of Brockman Family Farms that have a stall at the Evanston Farmers Market and the other is the 61st Farmers Market letter written by Connie Spreen but the only way you will get it is to subscribe. Our full list of area markets can be found here (and remember this list will only get bigger) Food Day Chicago (Oct. 24) is celebrating the onion and the many benefits of the allium family for the month of May on their facebook page (Check it out for some health tidbits, recipes, onion trivia and “like” it while you are there.

Now on to the busy week ahead including International Biodiversity Day at the Field Museum today a kombucha workshop put on by WeFarm tonight, the end of the Chicago Craft Beer fest with a party in the West Loop and of course the many markets that have opened!

This post is for you if:

• You like to eat dinner at home most nights of the week
• If you prefer to make that dinner yourself
• You order takeout a few nights a week and you feel guilt every time

Spending just 20 minutes thinking about your meals for the week can save you at least five hours in the kitchen a week. Planning your dinners takes a few minutes of thought and a few hours in the kitchen on one day, instead of an hour a night.

You’ll save time, money and sanity, especially if you’re like our family – we work full time out of the home and have side projects when we get home. We have two kids under the age of 5 and 2 fur kids that also need our attention. With a few hours spent planning and cooking on the weekend, dinner during the week can come together in five minutes.

The minimalist plan

I look to my weekly produce delivery for inspiration. A few days in advance, I find out what goodies I’m going to get. Then I create a loose plan to work the organic goodness into healthy meals for the week. Since produce needs to be used up first, I plan everything around produce.

Once I know what fruits and veggies will fill the fridge, I take stock of fridge and pantry for items I need to use up or restock. I choose our dinners for the week, then make a grocery list.

Prep. This is where the fun begins. When you get home from the farmers market, store, or when your produce arrives, crank some tunes or put on a movie, get to work, and don’t forget to have fun!

1. wash and dry greens and herbs (a salad spinner speeds this along) and wrap in paper towels or kitchen towels
2. peel veggies like parsnips, beets, or carrots, chop them for raw snacks, or shred them to throw into salads, stir fry’s, sauces or smoothies
3. freeze bananas (peel, break into chunks, put into a baggie and freeze) for smoothies
4. Roast veggies – chopped carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, potatoes, root veggies
5. rice and/or quinoa – cook a big batch for the week (I usually make about 2 cups dry) – use for curries, rice bowls, soup, burritos, salads
6. soup – make a big batch; carrot, sweet potato, black bean or tomato soup are all easily portable for lunches
7. dips – bean dip, hummus, red pepper dip, eggplant dip
8. sauces for pasta – tomato sauce, pesto

I mix and match all my prepped items – pesto on pasta, hummus with veggies, rice for quick stir fry’s. Near the end of the week is normally when I start making some fun combos to use up everything – this past week was marinara sauce with finely chopped and roasted cauliflower and broccoli – the kids didn’t even notice.

Once these cooked foods are in ready to go in my fridge; my kitchen becomes a fast food restaurant. There is no Chinese restaurant in Chicago that can take my order faster than I can assemble dinner.

Do you like to do some food prep for the week ahead? What kind of items do you like to prep?

Like this? Get more tips for minimalist meal planning at Barefoot Essence and be sure to like my Facebook page!

Last Saturday I made my first ever visit to the 61st Market, and I came home with a ton of pictures. This Saturday I visited the market where I’ve made my most visits, the market that made me the eat local guy I am. I’ve come home with much less pictures. The reason, a rather thin showing in week one. It might be the weather but I’m not sure. I did not do a lot of digging. Three regular vendors, Ellis of Michigan fruit, Sandhill Organic of Prairie Crossing initiatives  and Iron Creek of Indiana greenhouses did not show. Farmer’s who’ve had impressive early season showings in recent years, like Genesis Growers and Nichol’s did not have much to offer. In fact both admirably offered as much old as new. I could, if I wanted, buy potatoes, celery root, black radishes, sunchokes, dried beans and carrots at this market. There was asparagus.

All winter long, whenever I visited my wife at the Evanston Winter Market, I chatted with the folks from Geneva Lakes.  Often, they’d talk about how their dad was using up the hoop houses for early season cucumbers.  Well, I’m glad he did, coming home with three on Saturday.  We got organic hamburger from our friends the Wettsteins; asparagus from our friends at Hardin Farms, and cheese from our friends at Nordic Creamery. I cannot say that we’re good friends yet with the folks from Penny Pastry, because this was their first time at the market. Next week.  We got some nice wheat buns from them. The market has one other new vendor, Three Queens, a couple of Oak Park guys sapping Wisconsin trees for maple syrup.

The maple syrup guys gladly handed out tastes and also explained the advantages of re-labeling maple syrup as amber and dark instead of grade A and grade B.  Amber tasted fresh and clean.  I preferred the defined maple flavor of dark.

If nothing else, there’s donuts.

I’ll be there next week. Will you?

The Oak Park Farmer’s Market is open every Saturday until October 26 from 7 until 1 PM.  The market is in the parking lot of Pilgrim Church on Lake, one block west of Ridgeland.

Library of Congress – By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

Ace Beet Reporter Jeannie Boutelle knows that there’s more than one way to look at local food.

“Everybody talking rustic Italian, should be talking local. Because that’s what Italian food is to Italians— it’s fresh and simple. And to be fresh it has to be growing right there. It’s all seasonal— you don’t do citrus in the winter or stuff like that.”  Gebert finds a chef saying all the right things.

I like the way this person is approaching their eat local challenge.

We ascribe to the “local is as far as it takes to get the right food” theory, and fair trade is vital and important to what we consider good, local food.

Read Michael Pollan’s Cooked yet, Bill Daley likes it.

Mmmmm, the taste of arsenic with that chicken.