Hallowed Ground of Highland Park
Paying respect to those lost to gun violence after a visit to Ravinia Farmers Market
Hallowed Ground
Downtown Highland Park, Illinois. It looks like such a normal place, a shopping district geared to the suburb’s mostly well-to-do population. The kind of place where people could gather for a July 4th parade without a care in the world. Until this July 4th.
On that day, yet another angry young person with way too easy access to a high-powered, rapid-fire, military-style rifle climbed to the roof of the store with red awnings in the center of the photo. In the course of a few terrifying moments, the suspect rained 83 bullets down on the crowd below, killing seven people and injuring dozens more. And the normalcy of Highland Park was forever altered.
I was up in Highland Park visiting the Ravinia Farmers Market. I’d been trying to get up there for a long time. I never could have imagined that when I finally did, the city would be mourning the kind of atrocious massacre that has, bizarrely, becomes almost commonplace in our society.
There are memorials in several locations downtown, with photos of those who died, hundreds of flower bouquets, and messages written on paper or in chalk. It is at once encouraging to see such an outpouring of love and concern, while at the same time it makes you more infuriated that it happened at all.
This is a publication about building a better food system. I believe strongly that this should be beyond politics, that the idea of producing food in a manner that is better for human health, better for the planet, better for animals and better for farmers and farm workers just makes sense. I became a Good Food activist after giving up a 30-year career as a political journalist because rancor, manufactured outrage and conspiracy theories had overridden reasoned debate.
I have thoughts about the need to bring sanity back to our nation’s approach to guns, but I don’t want to pull Local Food Forum into the culture wars, so I will share them on my personal Facebook feed.
Just know that I stand with Highland Park and Uvalde and Buffalo, just as I stand with the victims of gun violence on our urban streets. We must do better.
Ravinia Market In Concert With The Season
I have friends at Ravinia Farmers Market (if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it is very near the outdoor summer music venue of the same name). Peggy Malecki, the publisher of Natural Awakenings Chicago magazine, works at the market and she was able to hand me a hard copy of this month’s edition, in which my story about the trend toward more local and healthier foods is on the cover. Market manager Ed Kugler has been an advocate of organic food for decades.
In addition, I was surprised to run into Laine DeLeo, CEO of Fast Lane to Health, a startup that makes snack treats with superfood ingredients. I met Laine when she was a frequent participant in Naturally Chicago’s first run of live events prior to the pandemic.
The market is located in Highland Park’s Jens Jensen Park, named for a famed landscape architect who live from 1860 to 1951. It is a modestly sized market with vendors lining a paved lane and across a grassy lawn.
I did most of my shopping from D&S Farms of Berrien Springs, Michigan, from whom I bought my first yellow peaches of the year (I had previously scored some white peaches from another vendor),
One tent had the following signs with information for people who want to donate to help with Highland Park’s efforts to recover from the July 4 shootings.
Here’s my modest market haul:
There are those yellow peaches, zucchini and green beans from D&S Farms; sliced sourdough bread and soft pretzels from 3D Baking (Chicago); and a very big eggplant (hello, baba ghanoush!) from a vendor who didn’t have a sign and I forgot to ask (oops).
By the way, if you’re a frequent reader, you’ve probably figured out by now that I’m pretty much addicted to soft pretzels.