My last trip to the winter Farmer's Market was about a month ago, right after the Family Farmed Expo. I noticed that the market was much busier than usual, and I wondered if fellow Expo attendees had learned of it's existence there and decided to start patronizing it. I made a mental note to myself to arrive earlier the next week so I would be able to get some eggs before they ran out.
Little did I know that the busy-ness was probably because that day's market was actually the last of the season. D'oh! No wonder it was so busy. I fretted and lamented: the summer farmer's market wasn't to open for another few months. Where could I get the truly local and Au Naturale foodstuffs that only a farmer's market could provide? I preferred to get my eggs, milk and meat there because I could talk to the farmers directly about how they raised their animals, as well as know that I was supporting local farmers directly. And those wheat berry tortillas... I only had one left! Sigh.
Around the same time I had a chance to chat with a former co-worker who now lives downstate in Champaign. She is doing a masters thesis that is focused on sustainable farming/organics/reducing meat consumption (and I know that I'm not getting her thesis exactly right, but you get the idea). I mentioned during our convesation how nice it must be for her to be downstate, amongst all the farmers, and able to practice what she preaches so much easier than it is for me up in the big city. To my surprise, she assumed that it must be easier for me- they don't have much in the way of winter markets down there, really nothing in the way of Whole Foods, and there are some co-ops but she really thought I had more options by being in a metropolis.
How interesting it is to look at something from the outside, right? The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that I can indeed shop and eat Au Naturally despite being hundreds of miles away from the farms. After all, just down the street from my office is Chicago's Downtown Farmstand, which I first mentioned in a very early post. All of their items come from within 250 miles of Chicago. This weekend, I took a quick loop around Green Grocer Chicago, a small organic farmstand very close to my house that I just keep forgetting about. They carry organic, local, and sustainable foodstuffs in a small storefront that's only a short drive further than my local grocery store. Could you cross off your entire shopping list there? Not often. But I could find a variety of chicken, duck, and sausages from farms I recognize, such as Mint Creek Farm, and I walked out with a fresh carton of eggs. Further north in the Logan Square neighborhood you can find Dill Pickle Food Co-op. And don't forget about the Friday Amish storefront with the magic donut holes and other goods.
So I challenge you, oh loyal 3 or 4 readers, to reach out and find your own neighborhood propriators of local and organic products. And share them here! There is no reason that we have to wait for summer markets and CSAs to eat locally and Au Naturale. After all, I've proven to myself that you don't have to look very hard to find a wealth of options under your nose.
Showing posts with label Family Farmed Expo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Farmed Expo. Show all posts
Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
FamilyFarmed Expo
I do apologize for the delay in this promised post, oh loyal 3 or 4 readers. My life has been a whirlwind, always spinning, spinning, spinning...
I would also like to welcome my newest reader from Iran! Welcome! With such an international contingency signing on these past few weeks, I feel like I should be trying more Au Naturale ethnic foods, no?
Anyhoo, in my last post I promised to go to the FamilyFarmed Expo and blog about it. To the expo I went, and blogging I am.
For those who missed the earlier preview of this post, the FamilyFarmed Expo down at the UIC Forum this past weekend was hosted by FamilyFarmed.org, whose mission is to expand the production, marketing and distribution of locally grown and responsibly produced food, in order to enhance the social, economic and environmental health of our communities. Pretty Au Naturale, right?
The expo was the public portion of a week-long FamilyFarmed tradeshow, filled with exhibits and seminars on topics ranging from how to eat organic on a budget to raising backyard chickens. From 11am to 6pm, my lovely boyfriend and I jumped around the exhibit hall and the seminars.
I was encouraged and enthused by the number of people who attended the expo overall. In fact, we tried making a loop around the exhibit hall with all the local vendors (kind of like a massive farmers market but with less produce) early on but it was so crowded we had to flee and make a second attempt later in the day. Once we did go through we were greeted by some of the vendors I was very familiar with from my shopping at both the summer and winter's farmers market, as well as advocacy organizations, info on getting into CSA shares, baby chicks for the kids to pet, and more. After inhaling a vegan wrap sandwich we picked up pickeled mushrooms, homemade bloody mary mix, hot sauce (made by an organization that uses produce from their own community garden in Chicago in the sauces and benefits children's programs), cheese, and a ton of information. I couldn't make it to my farmer's market the next day, so it made me feel like I was at least a little productive.
I will admit, however, that I was not as enthused by the seminars we attended- which is too bad, because I had such high hopes. While Rich attended an urban beekeeping seminar, I jumped into one on canning, pickling, and drying. I thought that would be a great learning experience for what to do with the excess of produce I plan on growing and buying during the summer and how to make all of that last during the winter. You know, so I don't have to feel guilty about buying gassed tomatoes from Mexico in January. Sadly, other than learning that a vacuum sealer might be a worthwhile investment, the entire panel was somewhat worthless. I learned what is good to store in a root cellar (uh, I live in a 3-flat condo in the city- no root cellar for me), heard a restauranteur tell a rambling story about how he almost got shut down because someone sabotaged a jar of pickled something, and a third panelist discussed how he just slices things and freezes them with the help of the aforementioned vacuum sealer. Nothing useful. The beekeeping one wasn't much better, apparently.
We did attend an excellent seminar on vertical farming and the operations that are already going on in the city of Chicago, such as a vertical aquaponic operation that reuses pretty much everything in order to power itself and eliminate waste. Fascinating stuff. The "small space farming" seminar was decent, too. However, I excitedly went to a Cheesemaking At Home seminar that, like the canning one, taught me nothing about making cheese at home (except a few websites where I can buy the materials) while Rich attended a vegetarian seminar that had one of the panelists begin her panel by saying that we should all be vegetarians because there is nothing in nature that naturally eats dead animals.
(Uh... as I've said before, I won't judge you if you decide that you want to be vegetarian or vegan. But don't blatantly lie to back up your reasoning. We had a fun time on the bus ride home listing all of the known carnivores in the universe.)
In any case, when we finally left after 6, we were tired, filled with (some) knowledge, and carrying a heavy bag full of delicious goodies. I was definitely glad I went and consider it a good addition to my Au Naturale quest for knowledge. I encourage you all to check out FamilyFarmed.org to see if they are doing anything in your area.
I finished up the weekend by making another loaf of rye, which turned out waaay better than my first attempt. Practice makes perfect, right?
I would also like to welcome my newest reader from Iran! Welcome! With such an international contingency signing on these past few weeks, I feel like I should be trying more Au Naturale ethnic foods, no?
Anyhoo, in my last post I promised to go to the FamilyFarmed Expo and blog about it. To the expo I went, and blogging I am.
For those who missed the earlier preview of this post, the FamilyFarmed Expo down at the UIC Forum this past weekend was hosted by FamilyFarmed.org, whose mission is to expand the production, marketing and distribution of locally grown and responsibly produced food, in order to enhance the social, economic and environmental health of our communities. Pretty Au Naturale, right?
The expo was the public portion of a week-long FamilyFarmed tradeshow, filled with exhibits and seminars on topics ranging from how to eat organic on a budget to raising backyard chickens. From 11am to 6pm, my lovely boyfriend and I jumped around the exhibit hall and the seminars.
I was encouraged and enthused by the number of people who attended the expo overall. In fact, we tried making a loop around the exhibit hall with all the local vendors (kind of like a massive farmers market but with less produce) early on but it was so crowded we had to flee and make a second attempt later in the day. Once we did go through we were greeted by some of the vendors I was very familiar with from my shopping at both the summer and winter's farmers market, as well as advocacy organizations, info on getting into CSA shares, baby chicks for the kids to pet, and more. After inhaling a vegan wrap sandwich we picked up pickeled mushrooms, homemade bloody mary mix, hot sauce (made by an organization that uses produce from their own community garden in Chicago in the sauces and benefits children's programs), cheese, and a ton of information. I couldn't make it to my farmer's market the next day, so it made me feel like I was at least a little productive.
I will admit, however, that I was not as enthused by the seminars we attended- which is too bad, because I had such high hopes. While Rich attended an urban beekeeping seminar, I jumped into one on canning, pickling, and drying. I thought that would be a great learning experience for what to do with the excess of produce I plan on growing and buying during the summer and how to make all of that last during the winter. You know, so I don't have to feel guilty about buying gassed tomatoes from Mexico in January. Sadly, other than learning that a vacuum sealer might be a worthwhile investment, the entire panel was somewhat worthless. I learned what is good to store in a root cellar (uh, I live in a 3-flat condo in the city- no root cellar for me), heard a restauranteur tell a rambling story about how he almost got shut down because someone sabotaged a jar of pickled something, and a third panelist discussed how he just slices things and freezes them with the help of the aforementioned vacuum sealer. Nothing useful. The beekeeping one wasn't much better, apparently.
We did attend an excellent seminar on vertical farming and the operations that are already going on in the city of Chicago, such as a vertical aquaponic operation that reuses pretty much everything in order to power itself and eliminate waste. Fascinating stuff. The "small space farming" seminar was decent, too. However, I excitedly went to a Cheesemaking At Home seminar that, like the canning one, taught me nothing about making cheese at home (except a few websites where I can buy the materials) while Rich attended a vegetarian seminar that had one of the panelists begin her panel by saying that we should all be vegetarians because there is nothing in nature that naturally eats dead animals.
(Uh... as I've said before, I won't judge you if you decide that you want to be vegetarian or vegan. But don't blatantly lie to back up your reasoning. We had a fun time on the bus ride home listing all of the known carnivores in the universe.)
In any case, when we finally left after 6, we were tired, filled with (some) knowledge, and carrying a heavy bag full of delicious goodies. I was definitely glad I went and consider it a good addition to my Au Naturale quest for knowledge. I encourage you all to check out FamilyFarmed.org to see if they are doing anything in your area.
I finished up the weekend by making another loaf of rye, which turned out waaay better than my first attempt. Practice makes perfect, right?
Friday, March 11, 2011
Xantham Gum?
First of all, because I am either vain or just love the positive reinforcement, I check my blog stats & page views regularly. How thrilled was I when I saw I now have readers in Canada and China! Welcome, international friends! Please feel free to comment with your perspective from a non-American view.
BTW- does that make me stalker-y? Or normal? Or both?
But on to the quandry of the day. For Fat Tuesday, my boyfriend and I decided to commemorate the holiday by dining on jambalaya. Beyond the insane number of spices that eventually brought tears to my eyes-- and I am someone who can handle spice-- one of the ingredients required was Worcestershire Sauce.
Worchestershire sauce is just simply delicious, in my opinion, and while at Whole Foods picking up the fresh made andouille sausage, sustainably raised shrimp and other ingredients, we suddenly couldn't remember if I had any or not. My lovely boyfriend insisted that we killed the bottle in the last recipe that called for it, so we decided to be safe and pick up a new one. And of course, this being Whole Foods, we found not the traditional Lea & Perrins bottle but the all-natural, organic, etc. bottle of Worcestershire.
Back home I opened up the fridge to find a large, mostly full bottle of Lea & Perrins in the door. Whoops. However, I remembered that technically the bottle belonged on my no-no list, due to the existence of, among other things, HFCS. Who wants to bet that the Lea & Perrins ingredient list across the pond contains HFCS? Any takers? Yeah, probably not.
Unfortunately, when I stopped to look at the ingredient list of our new Au Naturale bottle, I found a very different set of ingredients that went beyond the lack of HFCS. One of the items that caught my eye was xantham gum.
I don't know about you, but I see xantham gum and I immediately fear it. Sorry, I have apparently have a form of food xenophobia. I think it's the letter "x". Something about that seems unnatural. So I did what any responsible au naturale blogger would do: I went to the internets.
It's actually not as scary as one would think. Xantham gum is a thickener, like corn starch, and also like corn starch it is made from corn- most often from GMO corn, though, which I'm not a fan of. Xantham gum is a great substitute for wheat gluten for those who are gluten intolerant, is used as a binding agent in sauces and ice cream, and is added to gas pumps to improve viscosity of gasoline. Mmmm... ice cream and gas....
(On a side note- my goodness, will we all turn into large ears of corn? It seems like that stuff is everywhere! I'm currently reading "The Ominvores Dilemma" so I now have corn on the brain. But I digress.)
Sadly for me on this quest, questions tend to lead to more questions rather than answers. Xantham gum is a product of corn, so it's not totally artificial. But Splenda is supposedly "made from sugar" (nobody has yet been able to explain that to me) and I think that stuff is scary crap. And both were developed in food labs. Why do we need to eat things developed in a lab? Is it necessary? A convenience? An answer to an unknown problem? It may not do any harm, but I don't know if it's something I want in my body. I would prefer that I put things in my body that are grown from the earth as-is and not manipulated in a lab. Amazing how nowadays that seems like a novel concept.
I don't know the answers to those questions, and don't expect anyone else to answer them for me. It does remind me that my to-do list includes making a big batch of homemade condiments, which I may do in a few weeks when I'm not traveling on weekends for work. For the record, the organic worcestershire sauce wasn't that good so that's definitely at the top of my list. It also reminds me that I should start delving even more into an exploration of how food labels are created and the regulations that go into them: "natural flavors", anyone? But again, I digress.
On a happier tangent, though... I just bought tickets to the Family Farmed EXPO in a few weeks... I have a giddy feeling like I just bought concert tickets! Local farms, booths, cooking demonstrations, workshops from everything on how to make your own cheese to urban farming to raising chickens (no, I don't plan on doing that). So excited! Check it out at http://www.familyfarmedexpo.com/ and if you're in Chicago, let me know if you plan to go! I'm sure I will be blogging fast and furiously after the day is over.
BTW- does that make me stalker-y? Or normal? Or both?
But on to the quandry of the day. For Fat Tuesday, my boyfriend and I decided to commemorate the holiday by dining on jambalaya. Beyond the insane number of spices that eventually brought tears to my eyes-- and I am someone who can handle spice-- one of the ingredients required was Worcestershire Sauce.
Worchestershire sauce is just simply delicious, in my opinion, and while at Whole Foods picking up the fresh made andouille sausage, sustainably raised shrimp and other ingredients, we suddenly couldn't remember if I had any or not. My lovely boyfriend insisted that we killed the bottle in the last recipe that called for it, so we decided to be safe and pick up a new one. And of course, this being Whole Foods, we found not the traditional Lea & Perrins bottle but the all-natural, organic, etc. bottle of Worcestershire.
Back home I opened up the fridge to find a large, mostly full bottle of Lea & Perrins in the door. Whoops. However, I remembered that technically the bottle belonged on my no-no list, due to the existence of, among other things, HFCS. Who wants to bet that the Lea & Perrins ingredient list across the pond contains HFCS? Any takers? Yeah, probably not.
Unfortunately, when I stopped to look at the ingredient list of our new Au Naturale bottle, I found a very different set of ingredients that went beyond the lack of HFCS. One of the items that caught my eye was xantham gum.
I don't know about you, but I see xantham gum and I immediately fear it. Sorry, I have apparently have a form of food xenophobia. I think it's the letter "x". Something about that seems unnatural. So I did what any responsible au naturale blogger would do: I went to the internets.
It's actually not as scary as one would think. Xantham gum is a thickener, like corn starch, and also like corn starch it is made from corn- most often from GMO corn, though, which I'm not a fan of. Xantham gum is a great substitute for wheat gluten for those who are gluten intolerant, is used as a binding agent in sauces and ice cream, and is added to gas pumps to improve viscosity of gasoline. Mmmm... ice cream and gas....
(On a side note- my goodness, will we all turn into large ears of corn? It seems like that stuff is everywhere! I'm currently reading "The Ominvores Dilemma" so I now have corn on the brain. But I digress.)
Sadly for me on this quest, questions tend to lead to more questions rather than answers. Xantham gum is a product of corn, so it's not totally artificial. But Splenda is supposedly "made from sugar" (nobody has yet been able to explain that to me) and I think that stuff is scary crap. And both were developed in food labs. Why do we need to eat things developed in a lab? Is it necessary? A convenience? An answer to an unknown problem? It may not do any harm, but I don't know if it's something I want in my body. I would prefer that I put things in my body that are grown from the earth as-is and not manipulated in a lab. Amazing how nowadays that seems like a novel concept.
I don't know the answers to those questions, and don't expect anyone else to answer them for me. It does remind me that my to-do list includes making a big batch of homemade condiments, which I may do in a few weeks when I'm not traveling on weekends for work. For the record, the organic worcestershire sauce wasn't that good so that's definitely at the top of my list. It also reminds me that I should start delving even more into an exploration of how food labels are created and the regulations that go into them: "natural flavors", anyone? But again, I digress.
On a happier tangent, though... I just bought tickets to the Family Farmed EXPO in a few weeks... I have a giddy feeling like I just bought concert tickets! Local farms, booths, cooking demonstrations, workshops from everything on how to make your own cheese to urban farming to raising chickens (no, I don't plan on doing that). So excited! Check it out at http://www.familyfarmedexpo.com/ and if you're in Chicago, let me know if you plan to go! I'm sure I will be blogging fast and furiously after the day is over.
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