A Local Food Feast for Body, Mind and Soul
A recap of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance's Farm to Fork Feast
Celebrating Progress with Local Food and Drink
Across Illinois, everyday people — family farmers, farmers market employees and vendors, farm-to-table chefs and restaurant owners, food justice and food access activists, advocates and more — do everything they can to help build a better food system.
But accelerating the arrival of that better food system sometimes takes government action to change laws that inhibit those in the local food ecosystem, or that provide funding for people and programs that affect the positive changes we need for a food system that is healthier and more accessible, sustainable, humane and fair.
Illinois Stewardship Alliance is the leading state-level advocate for local farms and food. Local Food Forum publishes often about their work, and it was my pleasure to not only attend the non-profit organization’s Farm to Fork Feast in the Chicago suburb of Naperville last Saturday (October 7), but at the organizers’ invitation, serve as “official photographer.”
The Setting
The event took place at McDonald Farm, a regenerative farm that is also home to The Conservation Foundation. It is one of the few remaining farms in Naperville, where suburban growth overtook the city’s agricultural heritage over the past few decades.
It could hardly have been a more beautiful late afternoon, nearly cloudless with just a nip in the air. Attendees had the opportunity to participate in tours of the 49-acre vegetable farm led by farm manager Russell Cerocke (at left in the photo below); the entire property is 60 acres.
This high tunnel structure was filled with starter plants for the fall season.
Not surprisingly for an organization devoted to conservation, the farm has its own energy-producing wind turbine.
The Inspiration
The event’s formal program featured Liz Moran Stelk — Illinois Stewardship Alliance’s executive director since March 2017 — whose remarks focused on the organization’s values and accomplishments. Here are key takeaways from her talk:
We use our voices and our choices to shape a more just and regenerative food system. This organization was founded 49 years ago by folks who knew that if we take care of this land, it will take care of us. And we've worked for decades to ensure that we can keep family farms on the land, protect our soil and water, inspire the next generation of farmers, and move toward real food security.
So many of you use your choices. You buy local and sustainable food. We do that whenever we can, as much as we can, wherever we can. But we know that we can't buy our way to a more just, sustainable food system. We have to use our voices collectively to change the policies and the structures that really cement the industrial food system in place.
Liz then introduced Morgan Snedden, who with her husband Josh Snedden became first-time farm owners at their Fox at the Fork Farm in Monee, Illinois in 2019. Their innovative work has gained such notice so quickly that they were named by Illinois Stewardship Alliance as its 2023 Local Food Changemakers.
We started Fox at the Fork to create connections between the food we eat, the land we live on, and the community that surrounds us. Before we were farmers, Josh worked in insurance and financial services. And I worked as a crisis counselor in an emergency room. We, like so many people, were pretty disconnected from our food.
We grow chemical-free, hand-tended vegetables, herbs and seedlings that we sell through local farmers markets, wholesale restaurant and farm accounts, as well as through a local delivery service. We also donate our extra produce to an organization that works to alleviate hunger and homelessness in the south suburbs. We care about a local food system rooted in responsible land stewardship, because my husband and I are the combined age of the average farmer today... We believe we must take care of our soil, water and ecosystem if we have any hope of growing food for many years to come.
We worked with the Alliance and members of [its] Local Food Farmer Caucus to draft the Local Food Infrastructure Grant Act. It's a piece of legislation that creates a $2 million fund for canneries, mills, butchers, food hubs, and will help support the food economy in Illinois for years to come.
Morgan then turned the podium back over to Liz.
I'm also proud to report that the Alliance has been trusted by the state Department of Agriculture to distribute that $2 million in the coming months… [Our food system has] been hollowed out by consolidation and a fundamental shift from diverse farms with many crops to just two [conventional corn and soybeans]. And rebuilding that local food supply chain infrastructure is really essential to making local food more affordable and accessible to everyone.
Part of what sustains me in this work is knowing that what we do now will create a world where my sons, they're 6 and 7, and by the time they're old enough to grow up and grocery shop for themselves and their families, that Good Food — sustainable, local, healthy, humanely raised and under fair working conditions — will just be the regular food in the grocery store…
This is really essential and urgent work. We witnessed in the pandemic the fragility of our food system and our food supply chains, and really the unreliability of the industrial food system in the face of a challenge. And we know the climate crisis is going to impact farms and supply chains in ways we can't even imagine right now. But we can be more prepared. And in a state with 23 million acres of farmland, we should be able to feed ourselves…
We have so much work to do. And with your help… we are going to pass the first ever Good Food Purchasing Policy to shift public procurement this year, stem fertilizer pollution to our drinking water, we're going to expand livestock processing capacity, and organize a powerful statewide alliance of farmers and eaters for our next 50 years.
The Food
With principles such as those, the Farm to Fork Feast had to feature locally and sustainably produced ingredients. The meal was prepared by the Movable Feast + Co. catering company (Wheaton), using produce from their Feast Farm in Aurora and Down at the Farms in Fairbury, and poultry from Wanda Farm in Harvard. Plus…
… an apple, kale and rosemary apertif from Flourish Juice Company in Joliet with ingredients from McDonald Farm and from UC Farms in Plainfield.
Superfood Kale Salad with red cabbage, cashews, dried cranberries, raw brussels sprouts, hemp seeds and Dijon dressing.
Grilled Rainbow Carrots with swiss chard, red onion, almond, local honey, and lemon.
Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with smoked bacon, garlic aioli, and arugula.
Vegan Sweet Potato Cake with corn, cashew dill cream, and kale slaw.
Balsamic Chicken with slow-roasted tomatoes, basil pesto, and balsamic glaze.
Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies and Lemon Drops.
The local motion extended to the beverage tent with craft beers from Riverlands Brewing (St. Charles), Sturdy Shelter Brewing (Batavia), and Art History Brewing (Geneva), and Illinois wines from Lynfred Winery (Roselle)… and also to the raffle drawing prizes, which included freshly baked breads from Publican Quality Bread (Chicago), a local food basket from Village Farmstand (Evanston), locally grown and handcrafted chilled juice from Flourish Juice Co. , a field-to-farmstand CBD package from Tulip Tree Gardens (Beecher), a specialty steak bundle from Mint Creek Farm (Cabery), and Patagonia camping gear.
And last but certainly not least…
The People…
… and more people…
Illinois Stewardship Alliance group photo.