Those Caterpillar Kids Grow Up So Fast
It seems like just yesterday that our gardener friend Gerry Williamson shared photos of the tiny butterfly caterpillar eggs he’d discovered on his milkweed plants. Then suddenly, this, a big old caterpillar that soon, through the magic of nature, will start the process of metamorphosis into a Monarch butterfly.
As a high-rise resident, I don’t get to personally experience this amazingness, and I’m grateful to Gerry for sharing his photos with Local Food Forum.
New Manager Wants Austin Market to Be Catalyst
The Town Hall City Market in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side has always had the potential to play an important role in addressing the food access and service deficits for a community long affected by economic decline and above-average crime. But the market, part of the public Chicago City Markets program, did not blossom despite the efforts of previous managers.
As the farmers market season approached, the city needed a new market manager. And in hiring Veah Larde, they found the trifecta of someone with deep roots in Austin, experience in foodservice, and a high-energy determination to take the Austin Town Hall Market to previously unseen heights.
The Austin Town Hall City Market kicks off its season this Thursday, June 8 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., at 5610 W. Lake St., in the park that houses Austin’s historic former Town Hall building. (Before the city of Chicago annexed Austin in 1899, the community was the seat of suburban Cicero Township.) It is worth a visit just to meet Veah, whose enthusiasm is infectious.
This is not her homecoming because she never really left. “I am an Austin girl,” Larde said in an interview with Local Food Forum. “I tell people I'm from this dirt. I was born and raised here. It's ingrained in me, I get it. I have graduated from schools in the area, went off to college and then came back.”
It was in Austin that Veah started her food business, Two Sisters Catering, which later took up residence at The Hatchery food business incubator in East Garfield Park. She opened a brick-and-mortar location in Austin in 2021, but concluded quickly that it would not be financially successful and closed it.
Though she had more than a decade as a food entrepreneur behind her when she was contacted by Chicago City Markets about the manager opening at the Austin Town Hall market, Veah was initially concerned that she had never run a farmers market before. But she came around to the idea.
“I can do this because I approach it as if it's a big catered event, a big vendor fair,” Veah said. “I've put on many of those. You know how many events, how many weddings I've orchestrated. If I can orchestrate weddings, all those moving parts, and go in and design the room and design the food and design the staff to work it, I could do a farmers market,” she said, adding, “And it's in my backyard.”
The immediate challenge she faced is that she was only officially hired as of April 8 and has had to scramble to recruit vendors and other market participants. In order to make this work, Veah has put Two Sisters Catering on hiatus until the market season ends this fall.
“I had to come in running, I haven't sat down for a day since I've been hired,” she said. “I've been running to talk to people to get in. The thing is so many people are already locked and loaded in other markets. So it's like, how can I get enough people, enough vendors to do this market and find enough activity?”
Adding a degree of difficulty is that the bigger farms that are household names in the farmers market community are not apt to take on a smaller market with a history of very modest attendance. She is offsetting that by seeking vendors who either have never sold before at farmers markets or food businesses that have struggled since the COVID pandemic “that are willing to give a market a try to see can they get in front of a new market, a new audience of people.”
She is also recruiting service providers who can provide information about key issues such as health, nutrition and child care. She noted that there are two nearby centers for seniors who could benefit from access to the healthy foods that will be sold at the market.
“The farmers market is not just the food, it’s all of the things that make the people attending feel like this was a great experience,” Veah stated. “You get to feel special, because the vendors get to know your name because you come out. And when you come up they say, ‘Oh hey, Martha. Hi, Sam.’ That makes people feel invested. And that's what I'm about.”
Veah grew up when Austin — now 75 percent Black and 17 percent Hispanic according to the 2020 census — was more demographically diverse and economically stable. She hopes the Austin Town Hall City Market can be the spark that encourages more people from outside the community, including the relatively affluent suburb of Oak Park just across Austin Ave., to not treat Austin like a stranger.
“I've worked this market [as a vendor] before, and it was just basically Austin, a few people off the South Side,” she said. “But this time I said, ‘Can we open the doors?’ We’re all Chicago Strong, even if we're in the suburbs.”
We’ll be toasting to the market’s success and plan to visit soon into the season.
This Week’s Regional Farmers Market Schedule
While attending an event last week about U.S. Department of Agriculture urban ag programs, I learned about an exciting new farmers market on Chicago’s Far South Side. The Urban Agriculture Department at Olive-Harvey College, part of the City Colleges of Chicago, is opening Olive-Harvey College’s Farmers Market at 10001 S. Woodlawn Ave. in the Pullman neighborhood.
The market will be held on selected Fridays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. beginning this week (June 9). To give vendors an added incentive to participate, the market will provide each with a 10’ x 10’ tent, a setup table and chairs. To apply as a vendor, click here.
This market opening is one of 23 added to our schedule lineup — the last big surge, as most markets are up, running and preparing for the summer peak season.