I ate a salad almost entirely from Illinois or Wisconsin today.
Chicago has had a whole swing of temperatures lately. The blizzard snow we had melted off and what tried to be another snow blanket suffered the same fate. It seems every morning the sidewalks are slippery and covered in a few flakes, but by evening they are dry as a bone.
Thankfully what has remained constant for me is the success I'm having eating out of our cupboard and chest freezer lately. I've been eating asparagus, kale, applesauce, oven roasted tomatoes, peppers, and even some fresh items. I keep saying it's easy - mostly because I've forgotten about ten hour Saturdays cleaning and blanching and sanitizing jars in 85 degree weather - but I really want to convey to anyone who laments buying a bell pepper from Chile that you really can do it. You can still eat fresh items grown closer than the average 1500 miles your food travels to get to your plate.
One terrific resource I have found is the Chicago Downtown Farm Stand. This tiny store offers locally made baked goods and farm direct veggies/fruits/purees/cheeses/eggs for you to buy. DOWNTOWN!! Really. It's right across from the Cultural Center* and hidden away between the elevated tracks above Wabash and the Theater next door.
I've saved quite a bit of time avoiding the grocery store for ingredients to cook with, but I do still need basics every once in a while. Today I had no time to pack lunch, and no food ready that would have been adequate. So I took my lunchtime stroll past the tourists and their cameras craned to the skyline to pick up some potatoes and fresh greens (yep - fresh from Living Water Farms to make a salad. The last few nights I've dined on cheese, crackers and wine - so a salad was in order.
As happens to the best of us - I left with more than that. Here, dear readers, you can see what local goodies you can get for $27.10 on a Thursday in the last week of February here in Chicago:
1. A dozen medium eggs from local, humanely raised TJ's chickens. ($3.50)
2. 50% off $2/lb Potatoes (Purple, Red, Mini-Russet, respectively) - The Farmstand offers 50% off produce that needs to be eaten right away. These potatoes had a few small eyes coming out... barely. ($3.20)
3. One 50% off salad mix and one full price ($3.75 full price + $1.88 half price)
4. Small slice of raw milk cheese from Wisconsin. ($2.08)
5. Probably not locally sourced but locally made Spicy Chickpea Snacks ($3.00)
6. Large Jar BCC Honey from Illinois ($9.25)
With tax this came out just over $27.
The farmstand still has local potatoes, garlic, squashes, yams, onions, mesclun mix, kale, bean sprouts, cornmeal, frozen Seedlings blueberries and all the normal canned goods from Tomato Mountain and that super great Co-Op Hot Sauce our house can't get enough of. If you go there, look for the 50% off produce to make into soups or eat right away.
The red potatoes are seriously almost sweet and buttery on their own. So creamy. They would make the worlds best creamy potato soup or go with a spicy Thai curry like nobody's business.
So start there, and look for root veggies at your own local market that are grown somewhere closer to you than Idaho (unless you are my Montana friends then hey good job.)
Wishing you resources previously unknown for whatever your passion may be - mine apparently is parentheses in this post...
Love love love,
K.
If you happen to be in the Farmstand neighborhood before the end of March, check out the exhibit of arguably the finest street photographer in Chicago: Vivian Maier. I haven't made it yet but intend to when I get the first opportunity. More Info here: http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_landing/events/dca_tourism/FindingVivianMaier_ChicagoStreetPhotographer.html
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