Meet Chicago's Market Ironwoman
Veteran market manager Elsa Jacobson makes five weekly markets run
Elsa Jacobson, Farmers Market Ironwoman
National Farmers Market Week wrapped up on Saturday. As we looked for a way to wrap up this big event, we determined it would be appropriate to salute the efforts of Elsa Jacobson, market manager extraordinaire.
A veteran of more than two decades on the Chicago farmers market scene, Elsa is going above and beyond by overseeing five markets on five separate days: Edgewater Farmers Market on Mondays, Lincoln Square Farmers Market on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Uptown Farmers Market on Wednesdays, and Lincoln Park Farmers Market on Saturdays.
The only days on which Elsa isn’t a clipboard-wielding fixture are Sundays and Fridays (the latter is the only day each week in which there are no markets within the city limits.
Elsa was born and raised in suburban Evanston. Following high school she launched in to a peripatetic career that took her to Kansas City, Washington, D.C., and New York City (among other places) and included arts management.
She returned to Chicago in the late 1990s and began managing markets for the City of Chicago, which then ran the Lincoln Park Farmers Market, the Bucktown market (predecessor to today’s Wicker Park Farmers Market, and Lincoln Square Farmers Market (“all of which I have subsequently returned to manage, sort of like foreshadowing,” she said).
I first became acquainted with Elsa at the Good Food EXPO presented for many years by FamilyFarmed, my former employer. Elsa was a regular at the event’s “Good Food Commons,” partnering with David Arfa on a cheese-making class that included dairy cheese, vegan cheez, tofu and tempeh.
As launching Local Food Forum has enabled me to visit many different farmers markets than I have typically in the past, I also crossed paths with Elsa frequently at her many markets. It is a pleasure.
Follow Local Food Forum on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram