Familiar Place, New Faces at Lincoln Park Market
Plus, details about our paid subscription campaign, and the week's market schedule
Lincoln Park Market: November Day in the Sun
The handful of local farmers markets that extends their outdoor seasons into November do so with their fingers crossed. You never know what you’re going to get with Chicago weather. Local Food Forum wrote last week about our spooky Halloween that included a series of fierce (though fortunately brief) snow squalls.
But on Saturday (November 4) it was certainly so far so good for The Lincoln Park Farmers Market, located in the parking lot of Chicago’s Lincoln Park High School. With bright sunshine and temperatures in the 50s, who could ask for anything more?
The sun shone bright on the pickles, giardiniera and hot sauces produced by Chicago startup Pickled Prince. Brian Greene (above) and wife Alex Skrzypczyk (also a chef) have gained a following for their delicious preserved products that has been boosted by the presence of their products on preparations by the popular Honey Butter Fried Chicken and Tribecca’s Sandwich Shop.
If you have time over the next two Saturdays before the market closes for the season, I recommend you stop by and pick up some good stuff.
The best part of visiting The Lincoln Park Farmers Market is getting to chat with Elsa Jacobson, market manager extraordinaire and longtime friend. Even with the outdoor market season winding down, Elsa continues to provide space for recently launched food producers, enabling them to introduce themselves to customers who hopefully will remember them when the market re-opened next spring.
I happily took up Elsa’s offer to introduce me to two new vendors. But it turned out that I already knew Sam Fazioli. He worked at Zeitlin’s Delicatessen’s farmers market stands, and we’d chatted about Jun Bug, the Chicago-made honey kombucha company he was developing. Well, Jun Bug has launched! Congratulations, Sam.
I sampled two of the four flavors and bought bottles of the other two to enjoy at home. Delicious stuff. I’ll be back.
Meet one of the newest entries in Chicago’s doughnut sector. Daly’s Donuts have one key difference from most other holey pastries: They are baked rather than fried. The startup was launched by the married couple of Conor and Alejandra Daly — that’s Conor in the photo above — and Alejandra has perfected the cinnamon sugar doughnuts and donut holes through years of making them for friends and family.
The donut holes I sampled and brought home sure are tasty. Hopefully you’ll be able to visit them at The Lincoln Park Farmers Market and other markets during the next outdoor season.
Saturday’s market haul: Donut holes from Daly’s Donuts (Chicago); Jun Bug ginger kalamansi and saffron sunrise honey kombucha (Chicago); apple cider and green bell peppers from Los Rodriguez Farm (Eau Claire, Michigan); watermelon rind pickles from Pickled Prince (Chicago); and chive horseradish cheese from Stamper Cheese. (Chicago).
This week’s slimmed-down market schedule, a combination of remaining Chicago region outdoor markets and the first wave of indoor markets around Illinois, is below. But first, please take a look at this important message.
Help Make Local Food Forum Sustainable Too
I’m not a natural entrepreneur, so it is really uncomfortable for me to ask folks to spend money on, well, me. But if I’m going to be able to make Local Food Forum sustainable and grow it as the media platform for participants and advocates in a better, locally based food system, I really have no choice.
To date, only a small percentage of Local Food Forum’s 935 subscribers are paying customers. I really do love our free subscribers, because the mission of Local Food Forum is to get information out to as many people as possible. But it would help a lot if more folks would contribute to the cause by starting or upgrading to a paid subscription at the low, low price of $5/month or $50/year (there’s a yearly $100 Founders subscription too, but I wouldn’t be so bold as to ask).
This week I will be posting about upcoming new programming that will provide extra benefits to being a paid subscriber. And to sweeten the deal, I am pledging 20 percent of proceeds through December 10 to pediatric cancer care at Lurie Children’s Hospital (my selection… the hospital is in no way involved in this campaign).
The hard truth is that Local Food Forum is far from self-sustaining, which means I have to do a lot of contract work to pay the bills, which in turn limits the amount of time I have to focus on building Local Food Forum. I am beginning to explore ways of creating other revenue streams so I’m not totally reliant on paid subscriptions, but I can tell you they would help a lot.
Please consider getting a paid subscription to help keep Local Food Forum going and growing.
Thanks,
Bob
This Week’s Outdoor and Indoor Markets
We’re into the overlap between the outdoor and indoor market seasons; the early indoor adopters are now included in this schedule.
Also, because there isn’t a tremendous number of indoor markets in Illinois, I am repeating last year’s practice of providing the schedule for winter markets across the state. PLEASE let’s crowd-source… If you see any winter markets you know about that are missing, please let me know.
Tuesday, November 7
Lincoln Square Farmers Market, 7 a.m. to 12 p.m., Lincoln & Leland Aves., Chicago
Friday, November 10
St. Charles Farmers Market, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Baker Memorial Church, 307 Cedar Ave.
Saturday, November 11
Batavia INDOOR Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., The Dock at 150 First Street
Grayslake Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 201 Center St.
Green City Market Lincoln Park, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., 1817 N. Clark St., Lincoln Park, Chicago
Green City Market West Loop, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mary Bartelme Park, 115\S. Sangamon St.
Huntley INDOOR Winter Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 1 pm., 11712 Coral St.
Naperville Farmers Market, 7 a.m. to 12 p.m., 200 E. 5th Ave.
61st Street INDOOR Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., 6100 S. Blackstone Ave., Chicago
Sugar Grove INDOOR Farmers Market, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., 121 S. Municipal Dr.
The Lincoln Park Farmers Market, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., 2001 N. Orchard, Chicago
Twin City INDOOR Farmers Market, 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., 106 Avenue A, Sterling
Woodstock INDOOR Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., McHenry County Fairgrounds
Sunday, November 12
Buffalo Grove INDOOR Winter Farmers Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 2900 N Main St.
Champaign-Urbana Farmers Market INDOOR, 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., Lincoln Square Mall, Urbana
Farmers Market at the Dole INDOOR, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 401 Country Club Rd., Crystal Lake
Bob’s World, and Welcome to It
It was kind of a tough week, but this beautiful dusk sky on Thursday provided a beautiful grace note.
And this has not only been a great fall color year, but it is lasting into November. Here’s a pretty maple’s red leaves on Armitage Ave. near The Lincoln Park Farmers Market.
Thanks for your support, Annette!
I'm proud to be a paid subscriber. This is hard work, Bob. It can't be done without support.