I’m filling in for Rob this week as he’s stuck in New Jersey eating bad food. No snow this week, and the big news is that the Green City Market moves outdoors beginning this Wednesday! (Note the temporary location below.)
WHAT TO BUY NOW
You can find three types of items in season now in the Chicago area. First, see the first Spring crops: radishes, watercress, ramps (only a couple more weeks for these), sorrel, fiddle-head ferns, nettles, green onions, and green garlic. Look for curly wild chives sprouting up from your lawn. Second, there is a robust crop of indoor vegetables: lettuces, spinach, micro-greens, mushrooms, herbs, rocket, carrots, turnips and beets. Finally, there’s what’s left in storage crops: onions, potatoes, celery root, beets and apples. Do continue to resist the tyranny of the “fresh” for a few more weeks. We expect you can find frozen and dried fruits from Seedlings at various markets. Tomato Mountain does all sorts of things with its Wisconsin tomatoes, not just salsas; I love the pickles made by River Valley Kitchen. The Downtown Farmstand sells Three Sisters Garden dried beans. Use the local.
WHAT TO BUY SOON (OR LOOK FOR KEENLY)
Morels. Asparagus after that.
WHERE TO FIND LOCAL FOODS
These stores specialize in local foods:
City Provisions Deli in Ravenswood, Chicago
Downtown Farmstand in the Loop, Chicago
Green Grocer in West Town, Chicago
Dill Pickle Coop in Logan Square, Chicago
Marion Street Cheese Market in Oak Park
Butcher and the Larder in Noble Square, Chicago
C&D Pastured Pork, locations for purchase here. Also follow on Facebook for information regarding whereabouts.
New! We learned of an Indiana farm growing lettuces, basil and rocket (a/k/a arugula) indoors called Eden Farms. They sell mostly now in Indiana, but they also sell to the Sunset Foods stores on the North Shore.
We are still seeing Michigan apples at Caputo’s. We’ve also espied storage beets from Midwestern farms there.
WHAT TO DO NOW
Saturday – April 30
Chicago — 19th Annual Green and Growing Fair. Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park Ave. 10 am to 2 pm. Special market with Nichols Farm, many other vendors, in the Conservatory. More information and schedule here.
Evanston – Free Screening of Lunch Line, Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., Screening starts at 2:30 pm, doors open at 2 pm. (Lunch Line is about the history of the school lunch program. The screening will be followed by discussion with Hardy Murphy, District 65 superintendent of schools; Debbie Hillman, chair of the Evanston Food Policy Council; Rochelle Davis, president and CEO of the Healthy Schools Campaign; Carl Caneva of the Evanston Health Dept., and Friend of the Beet, Michele Hays, a District 65 parent who writes a blog about food education and food security.)
Geneva – Geneva Community Market – Inglenook Pantry – 11 N. 5th Street, Geneva – 9 AM – 1 PM
Grayslake – Spring Farmer’s Market – Downtown Grayslake – 10 AM – 2 PM
Sunday – May 1
Chicago — Wicker Park Farmer’s Market @ Big Star. Nichols Farm will be there this Sunday and every Sunday through June. 10 am to 4 pm. 1531 N. Damen. Get spinach — and tacos.
Tuesday – May 3
Chicago – Tuesday Funk @ Hopleaf, 5148 N. Clark, 7:30 pm. So you didn’t get tickets to 3 Floyds’ Dark Lord Day, don’t despair. Go drink local beer at Hopleaf, and hear readings from Paul McComas, Tim W. Brown, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Brooke Wonders, and Scott Smith.
Wednesday – May 4
Chicago – Green City Market – 7 AM – 1 PM – *note temporary location* N. Clark & W. Wisconsin (just north of normal outdoor location). (From the Green City Market on their temporary location: Green City Market is currently working on a number of improvements to our site in Lincoln Park, including a new drainage system, improved pathways, and greater accessibility . We’re all very excited about this project and hope that you will be as well. The renovation project was slated to be finished by May 3rd, in time for the opening of the Market. Unfortunately, due to the cold, wet weather we have been experiencing over the past few weeks, groundbreaking has been delayed. As it stands now the project will likely be finished in late May.)
Chicago – Edible Gardens at Lincoln Park Zoo, 10 am to 1 pm, open to all.
Thursday – May 5
Chicago – Ecuadorian Chocolate Tasting with Slow Food Chicago to benefit the Kallari Foundation, Fine Arts Building, Curtiss Hall, 410 S. Michigan Ave., 6-8 p.m ($10 for Slow Food members, $15 for non-members). Kallari is the world’s only chocolate that is 100% owned by the indigenous cocoa growers and processed at a factory only a few hours from the farms. The Amazon-based chocolatiers will teach attendees about regional chocolate flavor profiles and illustrate the process of chocolate-making from cocoa seedlings to chocolate bars. The eye-opening, sensory-stimulating lecture will help guests distinguish chocolate characteristics, discern roasting techniques and recognize regional origins, all while sampling gourmet chocolates from around the world. Purchase tickets here.
SAVE THE DATE!
May 7 – Purple Asparagus, Visit with best-selling author of World Without Fish, Mark Kuransky, to discuss the importance of marine conservation and what we do to make sure that we don’t live in a World Without Fish. Special guests include representatives from the Shedd Aquarium who will lead us through an interactive activity to show how interconnected we are with all of the world’s species. Demonstration by Dirk Fucik of Dirk’s Fish and Gourmet who’ll treat us to a delicious dish made with sustainable seafood. Free. Peggy Notebaert Museum, 2430 N. Canon Drive, Chicago. 11 am to 1 pm.
May 19 – Slow Food Chicago, Farm-to-Table Series, Big Jones, Chicago, 5-course menu featuring local farms. $49 includes tax, gratuity, and a $10 donation to Slow Food Chicago. Optional beverage pairings: $25. More information here.
May 25 – Savor the Seasons Tasting Fesivals: Lettuce, Green City Market, Chicago, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. June 7 – Taste the Great Lakes Dinner – Freshwater fish dinner at Dirk’s Fish with Slow Food Chicago. More information here.
August 3 — Outstanding in the Field with Paul Virant of Vie and Bare Knuckle Farm, Northport, MI. There are a lot of great farm dinners with local farms this summer with Outstanding in the Field, but join The Local Beet in making the trek north for this one, as it promises to be special as anyone who has tasted Bare Knuckle’s pork belly from Duroc Cross hogs can attest. More information here.
Watermelon? you say.
Yes, I know, watermelon are months away from our farm stands and markets. But during last year’s season, I had a lot of it. This may sound like an embarrassment of riches to you (and to me during these cool days of early Spring), however, in September, I was doing whatever I could to avoid throwing away the weekly supply of mottled green orbs I found in my CSA box. Procrastinator that I am, I pureed and froze cups and cups of the stuff.
As I sorted recently through my freezer to make room for the new growing season, I came across my six mason jars filled with coral colored liquid. Now, what to do with it? I brought my question to the crowd.
On Twitter, I relayed my dilemma. I explained that we don’t eat too many desserts, nor do we drink cocktails often. Therefore, sorbet and margarita were off the table.
Two suggestions stood out. From a grower and seller of many watermelon came the idea of jelly. The second was a pasta sauce.
In two days, I’ve depleted my supply and crowd sourced two new magnificent recipes.
Cappelini with Watermelon, Prosciutto and Goat Cheese
Serves 2
2 cups pureed and strained watermelon puree
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3 green onions, whites finely chopped, 1 inch of the greens finely sliced
2 tablespoons heavy cream
freshly ground pepper and kosher salt to taste
3 slices prosciutto, thinly sliced
1 ounce goat cheese
1/3 cup pea greens
1/4 pound cappelini
Pour the puree into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the liquid to about 1/3 cup. Strain the reduction into a small bowl. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once boiling, add the cappelini to the pot and cook according to the package. Heat the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the whites of the onions and cook until softened. Whisk in the flour and cook for about a minute. Whisk in the reduced watermelon juice until the sauce seems slightly viscous and thickened. Stir in the cream and season with salt and pepper. Drain the pasta, add the prosciutto and coating all of the strands of the pasta with the sauce. Scoop the sauced pasta onto plates or shallow bowls. Sprinkle on the goat cheese, scallion greens and pea greens. Serve immediately.
Watermelon-Basil Jelly
2 cups watermelon puree
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 package liquid pectin
3 basil stems
Whisk the first three ingredients in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the basil stems. Turn the heat to medium high and bring the watermelon to a boil. Cook until the mixture is thickened and reaches 200 F. Remove the basil stems and pour the jelly into hot sterilized jars. Cool to room temperature and store in a dark place until ready to use.
If you love morels, but are hesitant to forage for them yourself, then consider driving the five hours to Black Star Farms and attending their annual morel hunt and feast on May 10th. Everyone meets at the Inn at 5 p.m., and starts the search with a seasoned guide. Following the hunt, you’ll meet up at the Inn’s Pegasus Lounge for morel hors d’oeuvres and wine. Then Chef Jonathan Dayton will prepare a special morel dinner with dessert and wine pairings. The cost is $75 per person (plus 18% gratuity and tax).
Black Star started doing these morel hunts about six years ago. With this year’s late spring, Coryn Briggs of Black Star Farms assures us that they’re pretty sure there will still be some morels left in the woods at the Farm, but if there aren’t, they have their sources. Dinner will be a savory sampling of morel dishes paired with an assortment of wines made by Black Star from grapes grown on the premises. If nothing else, the woods are beautiful at this time of year with trillium and other wildflowers, and wild leeks, in abundance.
If you decide to stay at the Inn, rooms will be available for 20% off. Please dress for the weather and let Black Star know if you have any dietary restrictions.
Call for more information and reservations. 231.944.1251.
Some of you Beetniks may know that I recently joined the Board of Slow Food Chicago. I’ve always been impressed with their mission, which combines a good meal with a good cause. I’ve decided to be more active in that mission. As I’ve been dipping my toes into SFC business, I’ve been keenly aware of their activities with a community garden in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood. The garden, done in conjunction with the North Lawndale Greening Committee, the Chicago Honey Co-op, and NeighborSpace, is known as preSERVE. In fact, I feel a bit sheepish that I have not been more on top of preSERVE’s activities. Still, a recent bout of good fortune for them, makes me want to catch up in telling you about it.
This week, preSERVE received a big boost towards a more varied and sustainable garden through a generous donation by Nature Hills Nursery. As First Prize Winner of a Green America Award, preSERVE will receive $1,500 worth of fruit trees and brambles, providing delicious fresh food for the neighborhood, signifying the permanence of the garden, and making it more inviting to the community.
Let me know give you a bit of background on preSERVE. Slow Food Chicago believes community gardens play a fundamental role in a vibrant local food system, and they have seen gardens thriving even in the most arid of Chicago’s “food deserts,” including North Lawndale. Slow Food Chicago teamed with The North Lawndale Greening Committee and The Chicago Honey Co-op who had been active in Lawndale. North Lawndale Greening Committe ran seventeen gardens, including the African Heritage Garden; while the other partner, the Chicago Honey Co-op keeps bees and an urban garden while providing job training skills to people returning from prison and others who may have difficulty gaining employment. The Honey Co-op also provides gardening opportunities for volunteers from all over the city.
Amongst their gardens, they found an empty corner lot, hosting nothing more nutritious than the crumbs in an empty chip bag. The North Lawndale Greening Committee and NeighborSpace, a nonprofit that acquires and supports the community based management of small parks and gardens in Chicago, worked for years to purchase the vacant lot, which measures over 4,000 square feet and gets full southwestern exposure. Slow Food Chicago, the Greening Committee, Honey Co-op, and NeighborSpace hatched a plan for this lot that would help address an unmet need: they would grow food: real food that was either unavailable or unrecognizable at the corner markets and fast food chains nearby, on a scale that was not possible in the existing Greening Committee edible gardens. This would support the larger vision of a sustainable business model that would yield a return for the North Lawndale neighborhood through the eventual creation and sale of traditional value-added products– or “preserves,” like the pickled vegetables “chow-chow.”
With a lot of encouragement and support, these partner organizations and a host of volunteers set about spreading compost and creating wood-chip pathways between newly laid rows. They planted rows of black eyed peas, crowder peas and sweet potatoes. When they started getting reports from neighbors of stolen peas, the preSERVE team knew that their garden was a success.
preSERVE was founded and is led by a volunteer committee including Jennifer Sandy, Slow Food Chicago Board Member; Bob Pallotta, Slow Food Chicago former Board Member; Michael Thompson, Chicago Honey Co-Op; Dr. Shemuel Israel, North Lawndale Greening Committee; Damien Casten, Candid Wines, and Ben Helphand, NeighborSpace. The project has over 100 supporters and volunteers who have assisted with everything from building, planting and harvesting the garden, to volunteering at Slow Food Chicago’s Summer Solstice and TomatoFest Fundraisers. They want you to know more of what they are doing and they are happy for you to lend a hand.
AND THE WINNER IS…
Jen Caputo!
We had two tickets to give away to tonight’s annual Growing Home benefit this Thursday, April 28, at the Chicago Cultural Center, and we asked Beet readers to email and tell us about the local food they’ve had during last week.
We received a response from Jen Caputo, who is a dedicated locavore that eats, grows and cans her food, as well as drinks local! In her own words:
We live in the suburbs so unfortunately the Green City Market is a little far for our daily shopping. We do try to make as much from scratch as we can though and live off our frozen and canned produce from last summer.
This week for breakfast we’ve been enjoying yogurt with peaches frozen last summer along with peach jam (our last jar!) that I canned on homemade sourdough bread (I always keep a starter alive in the fridge). Last night I made salmon cakes (salmon is wild caught in the US but not nearby unfortunately) and I added Chives cut fresh from my garden minutes earlier and parsley that is currently enjoying life under my basement grow lights (started from seed 4 months ago). I made a tartar sauce to go with them by dicing some of the pickles I canned from last summer’s cucumber harvest (also from my garden). I was lucky enough to start my raised beds and salad boxes early this year so we also were able to harvest mixed greens all week for side salads made of arugula, spinach, mache, minzua, red oak, and speckled lettuces.
We’ve also been nurturing quite the basil forest both in the garden window and under the grow lights so dinner the other night was a homemade sourdough baguette, sun-dried tomatoes (that we dried in our oven from 2010’s backyard tomato harvest), garden window basil, burrata cheese, and a sun-dried tomato powder that we made last fall. Our favorite snack is the aged cheddars that we got up at Widmere’s in Wisconsin. Over Christmas we picked up 5 blocks each of their 2 year, 6 year, 8 year, and 10 year and after giving many out as gifts, we still have plenty to provide us with snacking pleasure!
We also love to drink local! Over the weekend we enjoyed a cocktail made from Koval’s white whiskey and a simple syrup we made from the rosemary we’ve been overwintering in our garden window. All week we’ve been enjoying local beers from Goose Island, Three Floyds and Metropolitan. We’ve also been drinking North Shores’ Aquavit, Koval’s Ginger Liqueur (aka, the best stuff ever!), and experimenting with ways to use Koval’s new orange flower liqueur (it’s pretty sweet). We pick fresh mint from our overwintered indoor plants to spruce up our water and cocktails as well.
To summarize, we eat local by preserving as much as we can, mostly from our own gardens, but also from the farmers markets. Keeping our gardens going year round either by overwintering in the garden windows or growing new under the basement grow lights, and ALWAYS drinking local beer and liquors.
* * *
Congrats, Jen!
How closely do you follow the Local Family. We consist of two Local teens, ever willing to eat apples for month’s on end. Myself, Dad, the chronicler. The person who constantly promises to broadcast the eat local revolution, one meal at a time, and then consistently loses the time to do it. Finally, Mom, who cooks up the bulk of the locavore meals, and if you know one thing about Mom, if nothing else, she likes to refer to a book or two to guide her locavore meals. Now, a book or two, over the years has morphed into a book or three; I mean a book or three hundred. OK, my best guess, we own more than three hundred cookbooks. We live in a bungalow with eight rooms plus two bathrooms. In each of those eight rooms, you can find cookbooks. One room, our extra bedroom, our “sun room”, sit piles of books. You have heard me call my wife, lovingly, the Cookbook Addict.
For ages, I’ve been, mmmm, Cookbook Addict, that would make a good column for the Local Beet. For one thing, given the size of the cookbook sections at area book stores, I knew more cookbook addicts existed. For another thing, I knew there may be addicts and there are addicts. I mean, man did she know about cookbooks. Help others I pleaded to her. Share your knowledge. Occasionally, she gave weak promises. She would do something. She never did. It remained a good idea.
I shared this good idea with Kim Bartko, who I worked with on the 2011 FamilyFarmed Expo. She thought it a good idea. She however, had a better idea. See, she too happened to be a cookbook addict. She too knew too much about the field. Unlike my wife, Kim wanted to participate. The Local Beet now has its Cook Book Addict. I did not expect anyone else to approach the mania of the addict in the Local Family, but Kim’s already proved to me in a few weeks that she’s quite a crazy gal.
She is a crazy gal, however, more willing to share. Kim brought all sorts of excellent ideas for cookbook addict posts. We finally settled on a post on her top ten most essential eat-local cookbooks. Of course, addict that she is, Kim could not fill a Beet post with all ten. In her first post for us, she made it through five must have books. None of the books she highlights is obscure or dated, but Kim makes a strong case for why they should be on your shelves. Given her addiction, it is only a matter of time until we start getting to the books we’ve barely heard of. Welcome a new Addict to the family.
Editor’s Note: We are pleased to introduce our newest Beetnik, Kim Bartko, the Cookbook Addict. Close readers of this site may know we’ve been promising a cookbook addict series for ages. Still, as Rob explains, the Cookbook Addict we found is not the one we thought we had. We are, however, very happy with the one we got. Enjoy this first episode as Kim whittles her vast collection to a few essential tomes.
Photos by Sharon Hoogstraten
The Cookbook Addict’s Top Ten Essential Eat-Local Cookbooks, Part 1
I cook every day of the week, mostly, but not exclusively vegetable-centric meals for my husband and myself. I’m an intuitive cook—I look to recipes more for inspiration than instruction and rarely follow them to the letter. Nevertheless, I have a serious cookbook habit and a growing collection that exceeds 300 titles. What are the ideas, interests, everyday cooking and eating habits that shaped my growing library? What attracts me to a cookbook? Convinces me I must have one more even though the shelves are bulging and they are stacked in every room of the house?
First and foremost it has to engage and inspire me, respect good ingredients, and teach me smart techniques that make the most of the great local food I buy from farmers markets or grow myself. I enjoy cookbooks that take me deep into a culture or introduce me to new flavors or food pairings. I have a weakness for those big, beautifully designed and photographed coffee table cookbooks but have to admit that I cook more often from the plain-Jane titles in my library. While I don’t have time to waste in the kitchen—Who does?—I’m not interested in cookbooks that tout quick-and-easy at the expense of flavor or the integrity of the food on my table.
Most of the dishes I make are pretty simple, especially during the week—a big pot of soup in cold months; salads and fresh vegetables when the weather warms; poultry, meat, or fish once or twice a week. I like deep, pure flavors and get annoyed by fussy gimmicks or elaborate preparations. We are not really dessert people so I make them only for dinner parties, although we both love a nice piece of fruit at the end of a meal and my daily guilty pleasure is a small square of good dark chocolate. Weekends are devoted to big cooking projects—homemade ricotta, batches of breakfast muffins, a new sausage recipe, handmade pasta, and gallons of chicken stock—all to be incorporated into meals in the coming week or to store in the freezer. My cookbook collection runs the spectrum from the how-to-cook-everything bibles, to explorations of country- or region-specific cuisines, to esoteric single-subject books that challenge me to try, in my home kitchen, something I might ordinarily leave to the pros.
Every few months we host a dinner party for eight or ten people, complete with hors d’oeuvres, first course, main course, cheese plate, and dessert, always paired with wines. More often, we’ll invite a few friends over for a weekend dinner—comforting one-pot braises and gratins in winter and in the summer, something simple on the grill with a few salads from our garden. Depending on what’s in season, I’ll bake a fruit tart or serve a big bowl of sweet cherries or wedges of melon for dessert. I rely on a special cache of cookbooks to help me plan menus, pair wines with food, and compose a cheese plate, plus a few that focus on my kind of desserts—usually fruit-based, not-too-sweet, with pure, clean flavors.
Although hardly orthodox locavores—citrus fruit, avocados, coffee, tea, olive oil and spices appear on our table regularly—most of the food in our household is local and sustainably raised and comes from farmers markets or our garden. We live in a Lincoln Square bungalow on a 35-foot lot and except for a small, weedy rectangle of lawn, our back yard is planted with vegetables, herbs, and berries as it has been since we first moved in fourteen years ago. Over the course of the April–November growing season the two chest freezers in our basement fill with tomatoes, string beans, greens, raspberries and blackberries, and we supplement our harvest with Michigan blueberries and stone fruit. I make jams and pickles, dry hot peppers, freeze herb pastes, and keep apples, pears, winter squash, onions, and garlic from the farmers market on well-aired shelves in the coldest part of the basement. Under heavy row covers, we can harvest sturdy greens like kale, chard, and collards, as well as carrots and leeks, well into December in most years. My current obsession is cookbooks that teach me inventive ways to preserve food. This is the fastest-growing part of my cookbook collection.
Now that you know a little bit about how I cook and eat, I’d like to tell you about the Top 10 Essential Local-Eating Cookbooks in my library. I’ll start with the five cookbooks I use almost every day—one of them seems always to be open on my countertop—and tell you a little about why I use them and give you examples of how I adapt recipes to what I find in my larder or local market. Next post, I’ll follow up with five more essential cookbooks with a more focused purpose—those I rely on to fill my freezer and pantry with preserved food or consult when I entertain friends and family. I’d love to hear from Localbeet readers about your can’t-live-without cookbooks. If I’ve overlooked a really great one, I probably need it on my shelf!
1. Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters
For weekday meals this is the book I look to most often for inspiration. I’ve cooked from Alice Waters’ books from my earliest days in the kitchen and if I had to name one cooking mentor, Alice would be it. I own almost all of her books but this one positively bristles with sticky notes marking favorite recipes. Some, like “Eggplant, Tomato, and Onion Gratin” or “Cannellini Beans and Wilted Greens,” I’ve made for friends so many times they’ve become my signature dishes. The recipes are simple in the best possible way—balanced, nuanced, no extraneous flourishes, perfect (and sometimes surprising) flavor combinations—and they’re organized by type of vegetable which is exactly how I think when cooking from my garden or larder. Although Alice has the luxury of Northern California’s mild, four-season climate, only two of the more than forty vegetables cataloged here cannot be grown in Chicago’s food shed (artichokes and avocados) and three more, while not commonly produced in our area, could be cultivated in our climate (cardoons, chickpeas, lentils). Each vegetable is introduced with a short essay about how it’s grown, how it’s used in her restaurant, what we should look for when buying at the farmers market, plus general directions about how to prepare and store it once we’ve brought it home. The recipes that follow are a thoughtfully curated collection that illuminates the range and versatility of each vegetable and makes the most of its distinctive flavor and texture. I’m especially fond of the many recipes for delicious gratins like the rich “Wild Mushroom and Pasta Gratin” and “Potato and Sorrel Gratin”. Served with good bread and a salad I make them often for a satisfying dinner and have leftovers for lunch the next day. An important point to note: while this book celebrates vegetables it is not a vegetarian cookbook. A number of recipes include poultry, meat, or fish and bacon, pancetta, and duck fat are often found in the ingredient list. The book is in itself a beautiful object, illustrated with Patricia Curtan’s exquisite linocut prints it also bears her classic, understated book design. The hardcover edition is wrapped in a matte black jacket that’s as elegant and timeless as a little black dress.
2. Good Meat: The Complete Guide to Sourcing and Cooking Sustainable Meat by Deborah Krasner
I am fortunate to live close to Cleetus Friedman’s City Provision Deli, where each week I buy local, sustainably and humanely raised poultry and meat in the small amounts our two-person household consumes. Deborah Krasner’s essential reference taught me how to adapt the techniques I already knew for cooking grain-fed meat to enhance the leaner, firmer texture and deeper, sometimes more mineral flavor that characterizes meat from pastured and grass-fed animals. Krazner’s more than 200 recipes have multicultural roots reaching to Europe, North Africa, South America, and Asia, cultures where butchers traditionally work closely with the small farmers who raise the animals they sell. This is the first book I consulted when planning a whiskers-to-tail dinner of Slagel Farms rabbit I prepared for my wine tasting group. The book is also a terrific reference on sustainable animal husbandry, information we all need to ask smart questions at the farmers market. A list of online sources makes it easy to purchase sustainably raised pastured and grass-fed meat for those who don’t have access to a great farmers market or Cleetus as a neighbor. With its extensive sections detailing beef, lamb, pork, rabbit, and poultry anatomy and the cuts derived from butchering these animals, it’s an indispensible reference for anyone who’s signed up for a meat CSA and finds unfamiliar cuts in the box. For those who take the next step beyond a CSA and purchase a partial animal carcass, Krasner offers sound strategies to determine the amount of meat your household will need over the course of a season and suggests ways to inventory and track what you freeze. She also recommends ways to adapt your usual meal planning when you have a full freezer to mine but you’re accustomed to cooking from the grocery store’s fresh meat case.
3. Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan
The damp-rippled, sauce-spattered, and oil stained pages of my copy testify to the frequent use it gets in my kitchen. A search for “Italian cooking” on Amazon’s site lists more than 5,000 cookbook results (and I own way too many on that list) but this is the Italian cookbook I return to again and again for her elegantly calibrated recipes. Her brilliant “Spinach and Tomato Pasta Sauce, Romagna-Style” is emblematic of the precision, purity, and balance found in regional Italian cooking. She begins by combining surprisingly small amounts of sautéed onion, celery, carrot, and a tiny bit of pancetta, then butter-braises spinach until it collapses into a velvety tangle and finishes the sauce with a single cup of chopped tomatoes—nothing more than impeccable ingredients in perfectly attuned measure. Her command of technique and a deep understanding of its effect on flavor have no better illustration than in two recipes she offers for pasta with zucchini. Each produces simple, clear flavors with a very different character. “Zucchini, Tomato, and Basil Sauce for Pasta” has, she says, “the elemental vegetable garden taste” where garlic is sweetened by gentle simmering in the juices of fresh tomato before shredded zucchini is added in the last five minutes of cooking so it retains its texture. Contrast this with “Zucchini Sauce for Pasta with Tomato, Parsley, and Chili Pepper” where nearly identical ingredients produce an entirely different sauce when the squash is sliced into thin fingers and slowly cooked to tenderness in olive oil “to sweeten and lengthen [its] flavor,” before tomato is added to finish the sauce. Marcella cooks with a profound appreciation for her ingredients that demonstrates a respect for the food and the farmer that I strive to cultivate in my kitchen.
4. Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen by Rick Bayless
While in high school my family moved from Pennsylvania to Denver and that’s where I first tasted “mexican” food, a curious amalgam of Tex-Mex and New Mexico cooking styles that relied on canned chilies, cheese-heavy enchiladas, and leaden sopapillas. It didn’t hold much interest for me. Years later, when I dined at Frontera Grill soon after it opened, I was astonished by the first fresh, vibrant mouthful and fell in love with authentic regional Mexican food in that moment. Rick Bayless has earned his locavore credentials with the commitment to growing food for his restaurants, his early support for the Green City Market, and by investing in local farms through the Frontera Farmer Foundation. I’m a better cook and gardener because of what I learned eating at his restaurants, cooking from his books, and visiting his Bucktown garden (through a tour offered by Bill Shores, Frontera’s gardener). Following Rick’s example, we grow purple streaked heirloom tomatillos, meaty poblanos, jalapeños, and serranos to enjoy in fresh salsas throughout the summer. At season’s end, we grill tomatillos over wood charcoal to freeze for cooked salsas, like the “Essential Roasted Tomatillo-Chipotle Salsa” we use to sauce enchiladas stuffed with chard from our garden and farmers market butternut squash. We do the same with poblano peppers, blistering them over a wood fire and dropping them, unpeeled, into freezer containers to pull out, a few at a time, for a staple of our winter weeknight menu, “Tacos of Creamy Braised Chard, Potatoes, and Poblanos.” I love to make a big pot of his “Oaxacan Black Bean Soup” with Three Sisters Farm dried black beans seasoned with the homemade chipotle peppers we make by cold-smoking red-ripe jalapeños and covering them with garden tomato sauce to store in the freezer. It’s a perfect cold weather supper with cornbread made from Three Sisters cornmeal. Still celebrating my recent successful adventure into home cheese making, I can’t wait to make another creamy batch of ricotta for Rick’s “Herby Ricotta-Poblano Tacos.” The spectrum of flavors in my everyday cooking is amplified by Rick’s inspiration and that’s exactly what a great cookbook should do.
5. Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers
I love Judy Rodgers’ thoughtful, evocative writing. Even if I couldn’t find a single recipe I was dying to try within its pages (it’s hard to find one I’m not swooning over) her opening essay “What to Think About Before You Start & While You Are Cooking” is reason enough to put this book on my “Essentials” list. “Cookbooks will give you ideas,” she writes, “but the market will give you dinner—study your market at least as avidly as your library.” Judy Rodgers manages, in every one of her recipes to imbue rustic flavors and textures with a quiet refinement. With her meticulous palate and restrained sensibility, she has an uncanny ability to make even “Boiled Kale, Four Ways” seem sexy that sends me rushing to the kitchen to pull out a sauté pan. As a teenager she apprenticed in the three-star kitchen of the world-renowned Troisgros brothers’ restaurant in southwest France, where she absorbed the flavors, techniques, and seasonal rhythms rooted in this still very rural region. This is the France of small farms, duck fat, goose liver, plum orchards, rough red wine, and Armagnac. She learned to salt meat and fish days ahead of time to produce deep flavor and succulent texture; to pickle the grapes, prunes, and cherries that accompany rustic charcuterie from the region where snout-to-tail eating was born; and most important, she developed the habit of tasting, encouraged always by her mentors to taste, season, taste, think, taste again. This careful observation and attunement to raw ingredients permeates her recipes with a finesse that transformed my thinking in the kitchen. I am a convert to “The Practice of Salting Early”, have learned to brighten a lackluster sauce with a few drops of vinegar or vermouth, and can now produce a silky pan reduction by gently swirling the pan instead of stirring. “Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad” made with a Gunthorpe chicken from City Provisions is our Sunday supper in most weeks. Judy’s roasting method is flawless, producing a crisp-skinned, moist, and flavorful bird that sits atop a salad of bitter greens slicked with garlicky dressing, punctuated with the occasional sweet dried currant and crusty shards of peasant bread that absorb the bird’s juicy drippings. A subtly seasoned “Rabbit Sausage,” its tender texture the result of a cream-soaked bread crumb panade, was a highlight of the charcuterie plate I served at a recent dinner party. Her recipe for “Basic Rich Tart Dough & Two Variations” is the only one I use now. The text runs on for six pages, not because there is anything inherently complex about the process, but because she details years of carefully observed experience in a two-page introduction, then provides guidelines and adaptations that accommodate multiple methods of forming the tart and the variable characteristics of tart fillings. From any other writer, this level of detail might send me screaming from the kitchen. Instead, I am enthralled.
Up next: Five More Essential Local-Eating Cookbooks I rely on for preserving and entertaining.
Kim Bartko is a writer, graphic designer, and shameless cookbook addict. It might have been a love of letters, cooking, and gardening that inspired her career as an editor and designer of books on gardening and cooking. Or maybe her day job fueled the passion for writing, stirring pots, and tending a vegetable patch. Regardless, she spends much of her time thinking, reading, and writing about food. Her blog, The Cookbook Addict, is a delicious nexus of insight, opinion, and cooking experiences that affirms why all of us really do need one more cookbook.
Did the last Local Calendar predict snow? Was your first thought, like mine, when you saw the white, what about the pear trees. Still, it’s hard to think ahead to fall fruit when the fields barely deliver any Spring fare. The ability of Mother Nature to sprinkle some April snow on us just adds to our eat local frustrations. Of course, we cannot have any local food yet.
Or can we. The best of the local food coming in late April comes not from the storage sheds and not from hard fields but from the cozy hoop houses. For farmers deep in plastic, this season produces bountiful crops of cold weather beauties. Most of this food, however, goes to restaurants or CSA customers. If you are a market shopper you may still feel frustrated. We are hoping, however, to see enough on Saturday at Green City Market. See below for our best guesses as to what’s in season now.
WHAT TO BUY NOW
You can find three types of items in season now in the Chicago area. First, see the first Spring crops: radishes, watercress, ramps, sorrel, fiddle-head ferns, nettles, green onions, and green garlic. Second, there is a robust crop of indoor vegetables: lettuces, spinach, micro-greens, mushrooms, herbs, rocket, carrots, turnips and beets. Finally, there’s what’s left in storage crops: onions, potatoes, celery root, beets and apples.
Do continue to resist the tyranny of the fresh for a few more weeks. We expect you can find frozen and dried fruits from Seedlings at various markets. Tomato Mountain does all sorts of things with its Wisconsin tomatoes, not just salsas; I love the pickles made by River Valley Kitchen. The Downtown Farmstand sells Three Sisters Garden dried beans. Use the local.
WHAT TO BUY SOON (OR LOOK KEENLY)
Asparagus!
WHERE TO FIND LOCAL FOODS
These stores specialize in local foods:
It’s open! Eat locally butchered meat at the Butcher and the Larder.
C&D Pastured Pork’s sales around town.
New! We learned of an Indiana farm growing lettuces, basil and rocket (a/k/a arugula) indoors called Eden Farms. They sell mostly now in Indiana, but they also sell to the Sunset Foods stores on the North Shore.
We are still seeing Michigan apples at Caputo’s. We’ve also espied storage beets from Midwestern farms there.
WHAT TO DO NOW
Saturday - April 23
Chicago – Green City Market – 8 AM – 1 PM – Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Geneva – Geneva Community Market – Inglenook Pantry – 11 N. 5th Street, Geneva – 9 AM – 1 PM
Grayslake – Spring Farmer’s Market – Downtown Grayslake – 10 AM – 2 PM
Wednesday – April 27
Chicago – Soup and Bread at the Hideout benefiting local food pantries – 1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago – 530 PM – 730 PM
SAVE THE DATE!
June 7 – Taste the Great Lakes – Freshwater fish dinner at Dirks with Slow Food Chicago
Okay, unlike what seems like EVERYONE, this month, I am not really on the OMG ramps, ramps, ramps I must have NOW bandwagon. Don’t get me wrong, I love their ushering in of Spring, love there oniony-garlicky flavor, but quite frankly they are so thirty-plus years ago for me. Been there, done that, all at the ripe ole age of nine. Oh so ahead my time.
After moving to the midwest in the early 70’s (Hinsdale, IL to be exact) I found myself a new BBF, Kim. Well, said BBF and I were playing outside (cuz yeah, back then that is what you did, no inside on the Wii or PC for us) in the woods behind her house (which was technically Oak Brook: tip off for you foragers out there, then again guessing development over the years has wiped out the ramps) we came upon an absolute SEA of ramps or what our nine year old selves called wild onions (I mean who was on the ‘ramp’ trend back then?).
I have no idea what went off in ours heads that we both thought, hey we can sell these! Forget lemonade, that is so ‘done’, no one is selling wild onions. We furiously picked mounds of them (god we must of stunk to high hell), set up a stand at the end of the driveway. Bring on the buyers, we are so going to make our fortune. Genius! Smartest. Kids. On. The. Block. Well in the early 70’s? No. So. Much. Not one sale. We couldn’t understand it. Like I said, ahead of our time. If we had set up that same stand today we would be golden, buzzed about in the the food blogosphere or featured on the on Food Network as the youngest food entrepreneurs…
Now after all that ramp-reminiscing I am craving the stinky little weed. Do like them pickled, or roasted, but on a cold wet day it’s in a cozy comfy pasta dish that I am a hankering for. I am hoping that the Pasta Puttana has her ramp pasta at Green City tomorrow (had some last year and it is oh so good) but meanwhile I want some pasta today. And thanks to my friend Bernie (she who has provided the gorgeous pictures on this post – this gal can shoot food!) for turning me onto this quick ramp pasta recipe from epicurious.com.
Spaghetti with Ramps (serves 4)
- 1/2 pound ramps
- 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 pound spaghetti
- 2 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan
DirectionsTrim roots from ramps and slip off outer skin on bulbs if loose.Blanch ramps in a 6-quart pot of boiling salted water, 2 to 3 seconds, and transfer to a cutting board with tongs.Coarsely chop ramps and put in a blender with zest and oil.Add spaghetti to boiling water and cook a few minutes, then ladle out 1/2 cup pasta water and add to blender.Purée ramps until smooth and season with salt.Continue to cook spaghetti until al dente, then ladle out about 1 cup additional pasta water before draining spaghetti in a colander.Return pasta to pot with ramp purée and toss with parmesan over moderate heat 1 to 2 minutes, thinning sauce with a little pasta water as needed to coat pasta.
With the impending arrival of a fuzzy, long eared creature, everyone seems to be talking about eggs this week. The always amazing Christina LeBeau gives her rundown of eggsperiments on Spoonfed. Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan just re-posted her how-to dye eggs naturally over the Kitchn (I love the suggestion of oiling the eggs to give them a high shine). Even bloggers of different faiths have gotten in on the game. Me, I’ll be dying lots of eggs since my Little Locavores kid and I will be appearing on WGN tomorrow at 11am to demonstrate natural egg dying.
I also wanted to share with you this entry that I wrote several years ago for The Local Beet, which talks not only about how to dye eggs naturally, but also how to buy eggs that are not only good for the body but also for the planet since that’s what Purple Asparagus is all about.
In pagan culture, the egg signified the rebirth of the earth during spring. Christians adopted this symbol for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, allegedly having occurred in early spring. Eastern Christianity has created several myths regarding the connection between the egg and the Easter story, including a claim that Mary Magdalene brought eggs to share at the tomb of Jesus, which turned bright red when she saw that Christ had risen.
With all of these associations with life and the earth, it only makes sense that the eggs that we dye for our baskets, egg hunts and rolls be good for the earth and respect life. To do this, we need to be educated consumers and understand the labeling on the cartons.
Sustainable Eggs
Three separate certifying systems have been created by egg producers.
Certified Organic: This is the only certification that is regulated by the government. To earn it, a farmer must pass an inspection showing that the eggs came from hens that eat an antibiotic-free, 100% organic diet, and are allowed access to the outdoors and sunlight. What it does not require is a certain barn or shed size or limit on the amount chickens housed inside such facilities. It also does not require that the chickens spend any time outdoors and specifically allows a farmer to temporarily confine his hens for a variety of reasons, with no definition of the term “temporarily.” It does, however, require certain humane limitations including that a bird must be anesthetized prior to de-beaking, a common practice in egg farming.
Certified Humane: This certification is regulated by Humane Farm Animal Care and is concerned less with what the birds eat than with how they are treated. Hens must eat a “wholesome” and “nutritious” diet, they may only receive antibiotics in the case of disease. The certification requires that the hens have “sufficient space, shelter and gentle handling to limit stress.” In Illinois, Phil’s Fresh Eggs has been named Certified Humane under this system. (They’re also white and great for taking on dye). To find other producers, visit Humane Farm Animal Care’s website. Organic Valley may not be “Certified Humane,” on its website, it states its promise to the consumer that its eggs have been:
“Produced on family farms in harmony with nature without antibiotics, synthetic hormones or pesticides. Our hens are raised humanely and given certified organic feed—never any animal by-products—and range freely outdoors.”
A note on hormones: a hormone-free claim is a bit of a non-sequitur given that hormones are never given to hens being grown for laying eggs or during the egg-laying period unless sick.
The United Egg Producers Certification: This is quite a dodgy “certification.” According to Marion Nestle, the certification “merely attests that a company gives food and water to its caged hens.” Unsurprisingly, a large majority of industrial egg producers have received this certification. The website is chock full of double speak. On the home page, we see a wholesome young family on their bucolic farm. There is a large section called Myth v. Fact. My favorite myth v. fact is the first:
Myth: Farmers only care about profit.
Fact: U.S. egg farmers are committed to the humane and ethical treatment of animals. Many of the farms are family-owned and operated.
While I’m sure that majority of family farmers treat their hens humanely, having recently watched HBO’s “Death on a Family Farm,” family-owned and operated can not necessarily be equated with humane treatment.
A Note on De-beaking: It’s important to note that none of the certifications prohibit de-beaking, though the Certified Organic and Humane standards do require that the birds be anaesthetized during the procedure. Birds are de-beaked to prevent the aggressive behavior that is almost inevitable in close quarters. In the “The Ethics of What We Eat
Sustainable Egg Dyeing
Ever since my son was born 5 years ago, we’ve coloring our eggs naturally. What we’ve done is to use the by-products of our home cooking that would otherwise be destined for the garbage or the compost bin. For example, yellow onion skins create a lovely beige shade, red, a purplish one. I’ll blanch spinach, a traditional menu item on Maundy Thursday, for green. Boil some beets for red. Leftover coffee stains not your teeth for brown. The only virgin ingredients that I use are dried spices – really, how many of you are going to use up that entire jar or turmeric? I also have a huge jar of tomato powder that is past its prime (a donation from the very generous Spice House for a Purple Asparagus project) that when combined with vinegar turns up orange. When using spices, boil water to fill a bowl just large enough to hold an egg or two and add a tablespoon or more or the desired spice with a bit of vinegar. But my all time favorite natural egg dye? Red wine. Not only does it color the egg, but it gives it a sparkly sheen – I’ve always assumed that it’s the sulfites. The best part? When your egg is done, it’s cocktail time.
Pink
1 beet, quartered
cold water to cover
1 teaspoon white vinegar
Cover the beet with cold water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Simmer until tender. Pour off 3/4 cup of beet liquid into a small cup. Mix with vinegar. Reserve the beet for another purpose. Soak eggs for 15 minutes to 1/2 hour.
Yellow
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 teaspoon white vinegar
Bring the water to a boil. Whisk in turmeric and white vinegar. Let the liquid cool. Soak eggs for 15 minutes to 1/2 hour.
Blue
1/2 cup blueberry juice poured off from a bag of frozen blueberries, thawed
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon white vinegar
Heat the blueberry juice and water to boiling. Add vinegar. Let the liquid cool. Soak eggs for 15 minutes to 1/2 hour.
Purple
1 cup red wine
This is my favorite egg dye. Soak eggs for a few hours in the refrigerator. They will become a mottled, sparkly purple. The wine can be reserved for cooking
Green
This is a new color suggested by my friends over at Kiwi Magazine.
3/4 cup water
2 to 3 chlorophyll caplets (found in natural food stores)
1 teaspoon vinegar
Bring the water to a boil. Break open the caplets and pour the content and stir. Let the liquid cool. Soak eggs for 1/2 hour or longer.
Image: www.leelanau.com/ © 2002 leelanau communications, inc.
April has once again been designated as Michigan Wine Month by the Governor of Michigan. As I have written before, wine has been a steady growth industry of late for Michigan. New wineries are opening every year, though, truth be told, some wineries are way ahead of the pack. It will be interesting to see how quickly the new wineries assimilate into this pack; I think some Michigan wineries still struggle in striking a balance between making sweeter-style wine to suit more occasional wine drinkers, and making wine with more nuance and complexity to suit the more experienced oenophile. However, as the second most diverse agricultural state, and a leading grower of fruit, it should be natural for this state to develop a winemaking industry, and I don’t just say that as a wine-lover.
One area that is ahead of the pack is the Leelanau Peninsula in Northwestern Michigan. Last weekend, the Leelanau Peninsula Vintner’s Association (Twitter: @lpwines) invited a group of people who regularly write, talk about, or otherwise imbibe local wine to gather and discuss this burgeoning local industry. The main purpose of the event, though, was to try the much-anticipated 2010 vintage. Why is 2010 so anticipated? The weather during the growing season was relatively warm, which means that the wine had enough time to fully ripen on the vine, an issue for any winemaking in a colder climate.
I had the chance to spend a good deal of time barrel tasting the 2010s at Bel Lago winery, one of the best wineries in the region. As the name suggests, Bel Lago winery is located high above the beautiful Lake Leelanau. The winery attracts people interested in trying their unique bottling of a 100% Auxerrois, normally a blending grape in Alsatian whites. They also produce many other wines, particular standouts include a fantastic Pinot Grigio (though more in the style of Pinot Gris), Gewürztraminer, and a sparkling Brut Rosé, made in the méthode champenoise, which was delicate-as-a-spring-flower on the palate, but packed with a dry, lingering finish.
Bucking the Riesling and white wine trend so pervasive in Northern Michigan, Bel Lago produces a signature red, called “Tempesta,” which is a blend of 45% Cabernet Franc, 22% Regent (a hybrid grape), 13% Lemberger, with the balance being comprised of several other varieties. I was pleasantly surprised by this red (normally, I’m a little selective about the reds being produced in Michigan). It had such ripe fruit and complex flavors, I think it would change most people’s minds about whether it’s possible for Michigan to produce complex reds that could eventually rival those from Washington and Oregon.
I had the chance to talk with Bel Lago’s winemaker, Charlie Edson, a knowledgeable and passionate winemaker who has been plying his trade since he started experimenting by making wine in carboys decades ago. After winemaking professionally for over twenty years in the region, it would be an understatement to say that he’s familiar with the tempestuousness of Michigan seasons; although Edson did not say this, it seems as if Tempesta was named for the region’s weather (n.b. it was snowing last weekend). Edson produces Tempesta only during the years when the fruit is the ripest, which means that it has been produced recently during the years ’02, ’05, and ’07, and is currently in barrels for the ’10 season. I tasted some straight from the barrel, and a few sips demonstrates the potential for full, ripe cherry fruit, complex spices, tobacco, minerals, and cocoa, balanced by restrained acidity, even though the wine has approximately ten more months in the barrel.
I’ve long been a fan of Black Star Farms and its winemaker, Lee Lutes. I didn’t have the opportunity to try all the 2010 wines (some other time, hopefully), but I did taste the 2010 Pinot Gris, one of my favorite Black Star wines. Having had the ’09 Pinot Gris, the difference between it and the ’10 vintage was stunning. As 2010 was blessed with plenty of hot, sunny days, 2009 was damned with just as many cold, rainy ones. As many ’09s from Michigan tended to have a thinner finish and more acidity, the ’10 Pinot Gris by Black Star Farms showed the season’s potential: For the first time in a long time, I could taste fuller fruit, and a longer finish.
Finally, it wasn’t all wine last weekend: I was lucky to have the opportunity to taste two of Nikki Rothwell and Dan Young’s Tandem hard ciders, labeled as “Farmhouse” and “Crabster.” The couple have been making hard cider for a few years (and the ciders’ insignia is aptly emblazoned with a tandem bicycle, a nod to the couple’s hobby). Even the British-style Farmhouse, made from a variety of dessert apples grown on the Leelanau, is more like wine in its lightness and complexity, whereas the Crabster is more continental in style, and has more complexity, grace and tartness than the usual hard ciders, which differ from their juicy, non-fermented cousins only by the presence of alcohol. Nikki and Dan discussed their plans to plant European apple varieties that are not necessarily for eating, but grown specifically for making hard cider. I look forward to learning more about what they bottle in the future.
With several ovens a blazing, Tipsycake (1043 N. California Ave.) was lively and summerlike on a chilly Saturday night in March, just before the Jewish holiday of Passover. The wind was howling through Humboldt Park while inside this communal kitchen, artisanal breadsmith Anne Kostroski plopped loaf after loaf of dough into Chinese clay pots and deposited them quickly into an oven before her hands got scorched. Each loaf rose to golden brown, hand-made perfection in its own covered pot as she hurriedly repeated the process to bake enough for sale at the Logan Square Farmers’ Market.
As a seasonal change of pace, in anticipation of the two traditional Seder (“order”) meals that begin Passover, Kostroski is making matzah the old-fashioned way. Like, 500 years old. Although compared to the first matzah, baked about 3,000 years ago, her Spanish-Jewish (Sephardic) recipe is a relative newcomer. While Anne was not pressed for time the way a tribe of Israelite slaves fleeing an angry Egyptian army might have been, the native Wisconsonite moved with a confidence and surety that suggested she’d baked this before.
Care for a little pepper with that, honey?
Strictly kosher matzah, called “shmura,” complies with a set of rules determined by the rabbis and sages of yore. These include careful rabbinic supervision, completion of the mixing and baking in less than 18 minutes as well as the avoidance of interruptions.
Kostroski, whose bread business is named Crumb, enjoyed no such peace. In addition to TheLocalBeet reporter asking questions and filming, there were the distractions of Tipsycake owner, Naomi Levine, directing her staff, as well as other independent bakers who, like Kostroski, rent space in Tipsycake to practice their craft. The relaxed banter, gossip and chitchat went back and forth across the kitchen as one baker built a car-tire-sized Simpsonesque donut (with a large bite removed), another prepared an oversized fondant cupcake and a third decorated a Chicago Cubs-theme birthday cake. Crumb was the only matzah baker in the place.
“I feel that sense of history and tradition,” said Kostroski, a convert to Judaism who moved from Racine to Chicago after a detour studying pastries at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley and running a restaurant in Nashville.
“The first time I made matzah was when I was in college in Milwaukee and working at a Breadsmith. I was NOT a good baker when I was growing up. My mom used to make fun of me.”
The recipe she uses includes the “nontraditional” elements of pepper (ever a popular staple in Medieval Western Europe for those who could afford it), honey (which she buys from Dennanne Farms in Elgin) and eggs that she finds at the Logan Square Market, as well as organic wheat. Kostroski makes a variety of breads for the Market, but brings out the matzah only for Passover.
“I’m trying to make a home and a life for myself in Chicago and I want to create a community with my fellow entrepreneurs,” she said, noting that once buyers discover how local her bread or matzah is, they become much more enthusiastic.
The finished product is unlike any matzah this reporter, or just about anybody, has ever tried. Kostroski found the recipe in a 1997 New York Times article about an Inquisition-era family in Spain that was put on trial by their host country in the early 16th century for secretly practicing Judaism after ostensibly converting to Christianity. The recipe, once used by Angelina de León, was found centuries years later along with documents of her trial. Now, half a millennium after de León met her fate, Kostroski carries on a tradition seldom seen in this area, where the majority of Jews come from Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi).
For starters, this matzah isn’t square. It’s oval. And it doesn’t come in a sealed box. It is also aromatic, which can hardly be said about ordinary matzah. But the flavor is totally unexpected. The honey taste covers the front of the tongue quickly and creates a much richer experience than traditional matzah, which is ordinarily (and fairly) compared to cardboard. To be certain, this matzah is not kosher for Passover in the legal sense, nor does it fulfill the spiritual meaning of matzah: to remind Jews of a time when we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for bread to rise and then enjoy a relaxed meal. Nope. This stuff is good.
For those who expect their matzah to be a passably tolerable food eaten out of obligation, Kostroski’s recipe will disappoint. Soon after chewing, as the cracker-like flatbread dissolves, the peppery taste hits. Now the sweetness is countered by the mild spiciness, bringing a complexity to this ancient icon that few modern eaters have ever tasted in a matzah. Crumb’s matzah deserves to be savored alone—not slathered in butter and jelly or peanut butter. I tried it with jelly, but quickly scraped it off. Anne’s unleavened bread stands on its own.
Eating it, I wasn’t really thinking about the travails of fleeing Pharaoh, crossing the Red Sea or wandering the Sinai. But I did picture the Converso (converted) de León family, persecuted like so many others in the 15th and 16th centuries, for their beliefs and dragged before inquisitors because their maid ratted them out for practicing their cultural tradition. The expulsion of Jews from Spain, followed by the systemic murder of many who remained behind but were not deemed converted enough for the authorities, was a catastrophe of epic proportion.
Watching Anne take pleasure in her craft, I thought about how she voluntarily converted to Judaism, and as a result, baked this ancient recipe proudly and with gusto. Señora de León was forcibly converted to Catholicism upon pain of death or exile, but continued to bake her matzah in secret, or so she thought.
As I sit down with my family for two nights this year, I will remember Señora de León and speak her name at the Seder, as a reminder that we Americans enjoy a security and comfort today seldom seen in the history of the Jewish people.
To buy Crumb matzah, e-mail Anne at crumbchicago@gmail.com or visit her at the Logan Square Indoor Farmers’ Market this Sunday at 2135 N. Milwaukee Avenue in the lobby of the Congress Theater from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. A bag of hand-made matzah is $4 for a half dozen and $8 for a dozen.
The recipe for the matzah and the story of the de León family was recorded in A Drizzle of Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain’s Secret Jews by David M. Gitzlitz and Linda Kay Davidson.
We really could repeat, repeat, repeat our Spring rants with each April Local Calendar. The story mostly remains the same. Where can we get actual local food. Now. See, there is food in the Spring. In the Upper Midwest. Let’s say you happened to find yourself in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend (and God, we wished that’s where we could find ourselves). You would find a market full with products. There would be a bit of cold storage. Those very last celery roots and sunchokes and burdock roots save for the most committed to local eating. There would also be the fresh, the new, the recent: ramps and morels and sorrel and nettles and watercress and various other short season items. And there remains products coaxed forward by farmers with the foresight, for instance, to leave carrots or parsnips in the ground for a spring crop, or others using hoop house low tech to get spinach and rocket and lettuces to a market in April.
Want to schlep, but not all the way to Madison? The Grayslake market started on April 2. Here’s a list of their Spring vendors. We know that one of the vendors, Geneva Lakes Produce, has a robust indoor production, so you might be pleasantly surprised with the produce available now.
WHAT TO BUY NOW
You just might start seeing the first Spring crops: radishes, watercress, ramps, sorrel, fiddle-head ferns, nettles, and green garlic. There may probably be more indoor grown vegetables: lettuces, spinach, micro-greens, mushrooms, cucumbers, herbs, rocket even turnips and beets if you have a good CSA; whats left in storage crops will be onions, potatoes, celery root, beets and apples.
Do continue to resist the tyranny of the fresh. We expect you can find frozen and dried fruits from Seedlings at various markets. Tomato Mountain does all sorts of things with its Wisconsin tomatoes, not just salsas; I love the pickles made by River Valley Kitchen. The Downtown Farmstand sells Three Sisters Garden dried beans. Use the local.
WHAT TO BUY SOON (OR LOOK KEENLY)
Asparagus! Green Onions
WHERE TO FIND LOCAL FOODS
These stores specialize in local foods:
It’s open! Eat locally butchered meat at the Butcher and the Larder.
C&D Pastured Pork’s sales around town.
New! We learned of an Indiana farm growing lettuces, basil and rocket (a/k/a arugula) indoors called Eden Farms. They sell mostly now in Indiana, but they also sell to the Sunset Foods stores on the North Shore.
We are still seeing Michigan apples at Caputo’s. We’ve also espied storage beets from Midwestern farms.
WHAT TO DO NOW
Saturday - April 16
Geneva – Geneva Community Market – Inglenook Pantry – 11 N. 5th Street, Geneva – 9 AM – 1 PM
Grayslake – Spring Farmer’s Market – Downtown Grayslake – 10 AM – 2 PM
Green Metropolis Fair – Mindful Metropolis and the Green Parent’s Network deliver a day focused on celebrating Spring, wellness and sustainable living. Free entry! (non-perishable food donation requested). Presentations on car-sharing, gardening, composting, CSAs, and more. Irish American Heritage Center - 4626 N. Knox, Chicago IL – 10 AM – 4 PM
Sunday – April 17
Slow Food Chicago Book Club – Come discuss a History of the World in 6 Glasses – First Slice Cafe – 4401 N. Ravenswood, Chicago – 2 PM – See the Slow Food Chicago calendar for additional details.
Monday – April 18
Our friend Jon-David, the Mafia Hairdresser, made us aware of GREEN CHICAGO @ Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa..
GREEN CHICAGO is an Earthday Celebration where “Social Media Royalty meet Chicagoland Green Groups” to mingle, have fun & learn about each other. Your ticket includes munchies, fabulous beverages & a special “Mafia-Mojito” made by jon-david. Pepsi Refresh Challenge winner, Alicia Ontiveros, will be screening a portion of Meet the Gulf, her documentary about the people in the Gulf of Mexico affected by the BP Oil Spill. All ticket and raffle purchasers go into weekly raffles leading up to the event and 1 lucky Ticket Event attendee will win a Hair Make-Over at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa. Mother Nature herself will be your special guest ambassador and show you how a salon can turn into a GREEN CHICAGO tradeshow and how a spa can turn into a screening room. At this event green-guy/writer/hairdresser jon-david will be launching & signing his book, Mafia Hairdresser, and all proceeds will go to Climate Cycle, the May 22nd Chicago fun bike ride which put solar power in Chicago schools. You will also be able to sign up for Climate Cycle. Pre-Purchase your book and pick it up at Green Chicago, 1313 Ritchie Ct. anytime after March 31. TICKETS now on sale VIA EVENTBRITE . See also the Mafia Hairdresser site for more information.
Wednesday – April 20
Chicago – Soup and Bread at the Hideout benefiting local food pantries – 1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago – 530 PM – 730 PM
WHAT TO DO SOON
April 23 - Chicago – Green City Market – 8 AM – 1 PM – Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
April 30 – GreenNet’s 19th Annual Green & Growing Urban Gardening Fair – Garfield Park, Chicago
SAVE THE DATE!
June 7 – Taste the Great Lakes – Freshwater fish dinner at Dirks with Slow Food Chicago
Oh, oh, oh so excited. Just noticed in my garden this past week that the rhubarb is pushing thru. Sigh of relief, Spring is officially here. Thanks you rhubarb for providing the validation.
I do have a confession: I HATED rhubarb as a kid. As much as I loved pie (and sweets of all kinds for that matter) I couldn’t get past where I had to harvest the rhubarb: a large manure pile behind the barn. To think I would actually want to consume something that came from a manure pile – NOT. I didn’t care how incredible my mom’s pie was, and that strawberries were involved, the suspect rhubarb stopped any bite of pie from entering my mouth. And trust me, I was not a picky eater as a child…or now for that matter.
A gift of rhubarb plants for my garden from my father-in-law years ago, helped me get past my aversion, and gave the stalks a try. Besides asparagus, rhubarb is another indicator to me that a long winter is behind us, and the world around will be shades of new green and the days will be warmer and longer.
“Pie Plant” as rhubarb is affectionately known, is botanically a vegetable but ‘swings both ways’ as fruit & veg and has edible stalks that vary in color from green to deep red. Believe it or not the green stalked have a more robust flavor….red just happened to become more popular thru the years…prettier I suppose.
Most popular in pie, a cobbler or crisp, stewed, or as jam, rhubarb stands up well to savory sides, salads and main course dishes. I cannot wait for the first stalks of rhubarb to arrive at the Farmers Market so that I can chop it up, put it in a pot with equal parts sugar, a few dashes of cinnamon, ginger and a sprinkle of water to cook it down until it is nice and jammy. Great on toast and I must say even better on vanilla ice cream. But after a conversation with Joel from Green Acres, at Green City Market I been inspired to go savory. The following recipe is the result.
Rhubarb Shallot Vinaigrette
2-3 medium stalks of rhubarb
1 tablespoon sugar
olive oil to coat
1 1/2 tablespoons minced young shallots
1/3 cup white wine vinegar (nb: if you run out of white wine vinegar the flat champagne that you forgot about in the back of the fridge stands in remarkably)
1/2 cup olive oil
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut rhubarb into 1 inch pieces. Coat with olive oil and sugar. Place on baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes or until soft.
Put rhubarb (be sure to scrape all the yummy caramelized bits off the baking sheet as well) in food processor or blender. Puree the rhubarb. Add shallots, vinegar, salt and pepper and blend together. Slowly stream in the olive oil. Viola, vinaigrette.
*Drizzle on a perfect head of butter lettuce from Iron Creek Farm for a simple salad. Or try the salad I made for lunch today: Thinly sliced raw asparagus, french breakfast radishes (from Green Acres), leftover roasted heirloom potatoes (from Nichols Farm), diced shallots or green onion, salt & pepper to taste, tossed with the Rhubarb Shallot Vinaigrette and topped with some roasted chicken and garnished with radish sprouts (from Tiny Greens).
**We should see rhubarb appearing at the markets in the next couple of weeks and FOR sure when outdoor Farmers Market season officially kicks off the first week in May.
In last week’s Local Calendar, we expressed full on frustration with Spring eating in Chicago. Our frustrations stem from the triple whammy: late growing season; what is growing now has little ability to reach our markets, with hardly any markets during the Spring, and third our winter stores are about about gone. It is not for nothing that early Spring is known as the Hungry Season. We find Spring frustrating. The locavore question, though, will we find this week as frustrating?
This weekend features farmer’s markets. The Winter Market in Beverly (Chicago) associated with Faith in Place on Saturday promises some fresh produce including spinach, kale and carrots. Green City Market themes this week’s market “Greens, Eggs and Ham.” We hope that means there will be some things green for sale. Green City should have some indoor grown crops and some storage crops to put a little dent in your Spring frustrations.
If nothing else, if you have the money and the time, Chef Paul Virant can meet your needs at Vie with this dinner on the 13th featuring an array of ramp dishes.
With very limited offerings around Chicago, we encourage you to explore our region. There is no greater bounty of local food than at the Dane County Farmer’s Market in Madison, Wisconsin. Even this time of year, you will find a mix of indoor grown vegetables and stored items. Then, when the market goes outdoors on April 16, you will find a wide selection of what Spring an actually offer in the Upper Midwest. In fact, we that while a trip to Madison will satisfy your shopping needs, it will only increase your frustrations because something like that does not exist in Chicago.
WHAT TO BUY NOW
This is the barest time of year on the Local Calendar. If you don’t have your own stores of food look for indoor grown vegetables:like lettuces, spinach, micro-greens, mushrooms, cucumbers, herbs, rocket; maybe you will find some root vegetables : beets, carrots, celery root, sunchokes, while there should still be storage crops like onions, potatoes and apples.
Do continue to resist the tyranny of the fresh. We expect you can find frozen and dried fruits from Seedlings at various markets. Tomato Mountain does all sorts of things with its Wisconsin tomatoes, not just salsas; I love the pickles made by River Valley Kitchen. The Downtown Farmstand sells Three Sisters Garden dried beans. Use the local.
WHAT TO BUY SOON (OR LOOK KEENLY)
It’s about time for the first things ofspring: watercress, ramps, sorrel, fiddle-head ferns, nettles, and green garlic. In addition, you may find farmers producing cold hearty root vegetables in their hoop houses; those in Spring CSAs, especially, may soon see turnips, beets, and radishes. Let us know when you start seeing these products.
WHERE TO FIND LOCAL FOODS
These stores specialize in local foods:
It’s open! Eat locally butchered meat at the Butcher and the Larder.
C&D Pastured Pork’s sales around town.
New! We learned of an Indiana farm growing lettuces, basil and rocket (a/k/a arugula) indoors called Eden Farms. They sell mostly now in Indiana, but they also sell to the Sunset Foods stores on the North Shore.
Your local grocery may not be carrying living waters lettuces, but look around for what they may have local. You can almost for sure find local apples and potatoes, maybe onions at various grocery stores. A recent visit to Angelo Caputo’s in Elmwood Park found a whole new rush of Michigan apples, including varieties not seen earlier this winter like empire and gala.
WHAT TO DO NOW
Saturday - April 9
Geneva – Geneva Community Market – Inglenook Pantry – 11 N. 5th Street, Geneva – 9 AM – 1 PM
Chicago – Winter market associated with Faith in Place at Beverly Unitarian Church- 12 PM – 3 PM
Chicago – Green City Market – Theme:– 8 AM – 1 PM – Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum – The Local Beet’s Sustainable Cook, Melissa Graham gives a demonstration at 10 AM.
Chicago – Screening of the movie Lunch Line – 1030 AM – Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Chicago – Become a Backyard Orchardist – See our previous post here for details and go here for tickets – 1 PM – 5 PM – Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Sunday – April 3
Monthly Glenwood Farmer’s Market, Winter Market – 6956-58 N. Glenwood, Chicago – 9AM – 1 PM
Wednesday – April 13
Chicago – Soup and Bread at the Hideout benefiting local food pantries – 1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago – 530 PM – 730 PM
WHAT TO DO SOON
April 16 – Green Metropolis Fair – Mindful Metropolis and the Green Parent’s Network deliver a day focused on celebrating Spring, wellness and sustainable living. Free entry! (non-perishable food donation requested). Presentations on car-sharing, gardening, composting, CSAs, and more. Irish American Heritage Center - 4626 N. Knox, Chicago IL – 10 AM – 4 PM
April 17 – Slow Food Chicago Book Club – Come discuss a History of the World in 6 Glasses – First Slice Cafe – 4401 N. Ravenswood, Chicago – 2 PM – See the Slow Food Chicago calendar for additional details.
April 18 - Our friend Jon-David, the Mafia Hairdresser, made us aware of GREEN CHICAGO @ Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa..
GREEN CHICAGO is an Earthday Celebration where “Social Media Royalty meet Chicagoland Green Groups” to mingle, have fun & learn about each other. Your ticket includes munchies, fabulous beverages & a special “Mafia-Mojito” made by jon-david. Pepsi Refresh Challenge winner, Alicia Ontiveros, will be screening a portion of Meet the Gulf, her documentary about the people in the Gulf of Mexico affected by the BP Oil Spill. All ticket and raffle purchasers go into weekly raffles leading up to the event and 1 lucky Ticket Event attendee will win a Hair Make-Over at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa. Mother Nature herself will be your special guest ambassador and show you how a salon can turn into a GREEN CHICAGO tradeshow and how a spa can turn into a screening room. At this event green-guy/writer/hairdresser jon-david will be launching & signing his book, Mafia Hairdresser, and all proceeds will go to Climate Cycle, the May 22nd Chicago fun bike ride which put solar power in Chicago schools. You will also be able to sign up for Climate Cycle. Pre-Purchase your book and pick it up at Green Chicago, 1313 Ritchie Ct. anytime after March 31. TICKETS now on sale VIA EVENTBRITE . See also the Mafia Hairdresser site for more information.
April 30 – GreenNet’s 19th Annual Green & Growing Urban Gardening Fair – Garfield Park, Chicago
