Food Is Love, After All
I have been a big fan of the movie Casablanca since I was a kid. Toward the end of the movie, Louis Renault, the corrupt police captain played by Claude Rains, tells Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) that he always knew that Rick was a rank sentimentalist.
I’ve loved that line because I am, in fact, a rank sentimentalist. So I could gush on about this past Friday, the 37th anniversary of my wedding to my BFF Barb. Except for one thing: Barb HATES it when I get all mushy in public.
Fortunately, this is a newsletter about food, and food will find a way to get around the lifetime ban on egregious mushiness.
I mean, I just can’t deny that there is some kind of karmic significance in finding that heart-shaped potato above in the bag of spuds I opened to prepare our anniversary dinner. Not something I’d be cheeky enough to put it in a gift-wrapped box, but still symbolic. And darn tasty.
Here’s what the anniversary dinner looked like:
Everything is local except for the salads, which is not that easy to pull off in late March. The pork chops are from Jake’s Country Meats (Cassopolis, Michigan). The (mashed) potatoes are from Hebron Farms (Vandalia, Michigan). And the butternut squash, roasted with a bit of cinnamon and (local) maple syrup, could be from one of several local farms; this one was sitting in the pantry for a while so I can’t pinpoint the source.
Barb likes to say that her mother told her to find a man who could make her laugh and cook her dinner. Fortunately, those are two of the things at which I am best.
Green City Market Opening Weather Watch
The countdown is on for Green City Market’s way-early April 2 opening day at its Lincoln Park flagship site. Planning anything outdoors in April in Chicago is a gamble, and my friends at Green City are really rolling the dice.
The advance weather forecast says it won’t be shirtsleeve weather, with high temperatures in the 40s, but it won’t be freezing. Keep that warm jacket handy and come out and support your local farmers. They’re doing this for you, and they have to be out there for hours.
Plus, don’t you want to know what the season’s earliest crops are? I sure do! And maybe you’ll find a heart-shaped potato all your own.
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