Uncommonly Good Beer Meetup… What’s Next?
Local Food Forum staged its second Beer Meetup of the year Saturday (April 15) at Uncommon Ground restaurant/Greenstar Brewing in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. Though we had fewer people than at the first Meetup in February (at Cultivate by Forbidden Root on Malt Row), we had just as good a time: Get a table full of Good Food advocates and their friends, and it’s guaranteed that no one will go away bored.
We chose Uncommon Ground because Greenstar was the first organic brewery in Illinois, and because the restaurant was at the cutting edge of farm to table when it opened more than 30 years ago.
As for my choices, I started with their Flippin’ Bats, a Mexican-style lager that, at 3.9 percent alcohol by volume, is about as “sessionable” as beer can be. The name plays off the restaurant’s location about three blocks north of Wrigley Field, home to the Chicago Cubs. I rounded out my day-drinking with Clocks & Spoons, an American pilsner that is 5% ABV.
Thanks to everyone in the happy crowd above for coming out, and I hope you did have a good time.
So… Where Next?
Given the number of chain saws and torches I’m juggling professionally, I’ve decided to leave the logistics up to the next venue’s operators.
That’s because the next venue is the annual Mayfestiversary held over Memorial Day weekend as a collaboration by Begyle and Dovetail breweries, located on Malt Row a block apart and a short walk north of Irving Park Rd.
A street fair replete with great beer, food trucks and musical entertainment, Mayfestiversary will take place at Begyle (1800 W. Cuyler Ave.) from 11:30 a.m. to well into the evening on Saturday, May 27 and Sunday, May 28. And the best part (for me) is that no financial arrangements or reservations are necessary.
The event is officially free, though a $5 donation is requested for The Friendship Center, a food pantry located a few blocks west of Lincoln Square. Folks who attend will pay for their beers and food on their own.
It’s six weeks out so I certainly don’t need a hard head count, but if you are interested, just let me know and I’ll start a list. Being the team player that I am, I’m even open to attending on both days if Saturday is good for some folks and Sunday is better for others. I’d recommend going early if we’re planning to meet up because this event does tend to get crowded, but I’m flexible on that too.
Easy Does It When Preparing to Eat Ramps
Unless you were raised in a rural area where ramps grew, um, rampantly, there’s a pretty good chance that these wild allium plants were not a major part of your spring food shopping. They certainly weren’t for this city kid.
But a few years ago, a surge in interest in these native plants among some chefs (some of whom staged their own ramp-hunting expeditions) raised their profile, and they became an early-season harbinger of true spring at our region’s farmers markets. Which also sent people to their cookbooks and online recipe sites to figure out what exactly to do with ramps.
There’s no doubt that you can do some fancy preparations with ramps, but what’s important to remember is that these plants are closely related to other everyday alliums — it is alternately known as wild onion and wild garlic — just a little earthy and maybe a little more pungent. That means you can put ramps to whatever purposes you usually put onions or garlic.
The photos above underscore the keep-it-simple strategy for ramps. At top is a sauté of ramps, leftover ham and scallions; the second photo is those ingredients flavoring my Sunday breakfast scrambled eggs with some really good toast made with olive bread that I purchased at Dom’s Kitchen & Market.
And for Monday dinner, this salad was all local (not the easiest thing to do this early in the growing season). I cut up a couple of ramps from Mick Klug Farm (St. Joseph, Michigan), then combined them with romaine lettuce, French breakfast radishes and scallions (including a big scallion flower) from Jacobson Family Farms in Antioch, Illinois.
Do you have a favorite ramps recipe (plain or fancy)? Let me know and I’ll share it with our readers.