Mayor Lightfoot's Daley Plaza Drop-By
Her honor gets to know her farmers and her food (and her flowers)
Today’s Chicago Metro Farmers Markets
(* denotes season opener)
Thursday, June 3
Weather.com forecast: Mainly sunny, high 80
Accuweather forecast: Partly sunny, high 79
Daley Plaza City Market, 50 W. Washington St., Chicago
7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Growing Home Wood Street Farm Stand, 1844 W. 59th St., Chicago
Noon to 6 p.m.
LaGrange Farmers Market, 53 S. LaGrange Rd., LaGrange
7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Libertyville Farmers Market, 413 N. Milwaukee Ave., Libertyville*
7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Lincoln Square Thursday Market, W. Leland & N. Lincoln Aves., Chicago
3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Low-Line Market, 3400 N. Southport (at CTA Brown Line), Chicago*
3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
In This Issue
• Mayor Lightfoot’s Daley Plaza Market Drop-In
• Shrub-Date: Drinkable Vinegar Experiment Grows
Mayor Lightfoot’s Daley Plaza Market Drop-In
Given Daley Plaza City Market’s location in the heart of Chicago’s Loop, you never know who is going to drop in. Today it was Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot who — with her wife Amy Eshleman — took the short walk from City Hall directly across the street to check out Chicago City Markets’ flagship location.
Their tour, which included stops at several vendors’ stands, was guided by Mark Kelly, Commissioner of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Events (DCASE), and Yescenia Mota, who as DCASE special events coordinator has managed the Chicago City Markets program for 17 years. It included a stop at the market’s own tent to learn more about the Link program that enables shoppers to use public assistance benefits to shop for fresh, healthy food at farmers markets.
Some photos from the mayor’s walkabout:
Shrub-date: Drinkable Vinegar Experiment Grows
As we discussed in the May 28 issue of Local Food Forum, the Chez Bob Test Kitchen is experimenting with shrubs.
Drinking vinegars, usually flavored with fruit, were very popular from America’s colonial days to the late 19th century, both as bracing sweet-tart beverages and to give shelf life to perishable produce. They faded to obscurity after the advent of refrigeration — but have made a comeback over the past decade, driven by mixologists who discovered that shrubs work as ingredients in many cocktails, and by nutritionists touting the health qualities of vinegar.
Making shrubs could hardly be easier as they are composed of just three ingredients: fruit (or a vegetable like rhubarb that pairs with fruit), sugar and vinegar.
I started with rhubarb from a recipe on a blog called Feasting at Home. I cut up the rhubarb, mixed in the sugar, and then it macerated in the fridge for four days. Yesterday morning I strained the liquid, squeezed the heck out of the rhubarb pieces so as to not miss a drop, put it in a pint jar, then topped it off with apple cider vinegar. It’s pretty, and pretty tangy: Though it can be used immediately, I’m following the instruction to let it sit in the fridge a few days to enable the flavors to meld.
The strawberry season also is off to a nice start, and who could resist the idea of a strawberry-rhubarb shrub cocktail? OK, maybe you could, but I dived right in. Interestingly, the recipe I used from NYT Cooking took a different approach. This time, the fruit macerated with sugar for only a day… but the vinegar was added to the extracted juices and the fruit, to sit for a few days before being strained.
Both should be ready for some cocktail r&d this weekend. It may involve prosecco.
Such great pictures!!