Peaches are In, Can Corn Be Far Behind? (No...)
Plus, Dovetail Brewery fundraiser fest for Growing Home tomorrow.
Peak-a-boo
This beautiful sight greeted me at South Loop Farmers Market at Grant Park Thursday evening. Los Rodriguez Farm of Eau Claire, Michigan not only had the first summer peaches I’ve seen this season, but lots of them.
And some other great news: At least a couple of farms have announced on social media that the arrival of sweet corn is nigh (really nigh, like this weekend).
More on my South Loop visit below, but first, late news about a great-sounding craft beer fundraiser with proceeds going to one of our most mission-driven urban farming organizations.
Dovetail Secret Garden to Help Growing Home
Sorry about the late notice, but I just learned about this very cool event that will take place tomorrow (July 15) at Dovetail, one of my favorite Chicago craft breweries.
Titled Secret Garden, the event will take place from 2 to 8 p.m. at Dovetail’s biergarten, tasting room and barrel loft at 1800 W. Belle Plaine Ave. in the city’s Malt Row. The event is focused on the brewery’s barrel-aged, Belgian-style spon beers (spon is short for beers that are spontaneously fermented by wild yeast).
And some more good news… $1 from every beer purchased will benefit Growing Home, the non-profit urban ag organization in the West Englewood neighborhood that produces tons of organically grown produce that helps increase healthy food access in their under-resourced neighborhood, while providing skills and job training for individuals who are ex-offenders or have other obstacles to obtaining employment.
There will also be a mini-farmers market at the event.
Here is how Dovetail describes the event:
Join us Saturday as we turn over our taproom, Biergarten and Barrel Loft to celebrate the fruits of labor of love, our spontaneously-fermented beers. Equal parts of nature and nurture, our spon beers are made in the Senne Valley tradition in this city in a garden, Chicago. These beers take years to come into fruition and we’re excited to debut Vignette 2023, as well as dip into our library of past blends.
Each beer poured Saturday will directly benefit our friends at @growinghome; and we’ve gathered some more friends for a mini market on our patio. Hope to see you there!
Scenes from the Skyshow
We got a break from our July monsoons on Thursday and enjoyed one of the loveliest days this year. I went up to the roof deck of our high rise (41 stories above ground) to see if I could capture some sunset photos. Turned out it was pretty cloudy, but there were enough cloud breaks in the northern sky to produce the pretty scene above.
Our best wishes go out to the people in the suburbs who experienced an unusual rash of Chicagoland tornadoes during Wednesday evening’s storms. As often happens, after a storm is over, the contrast between the clearing sky and the big departing clouds produces some beautiful images. The one above was taken from our apartment.
Now Back to the South Loop Market
South Loop Farmers Market at Grant Park is a relatively small, neighborhood-focused market that pops up each Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. in a vacant lot at 1201 S. Michigan Ave. (actually across the street from Grant Park at the southeast corner of Michigan and Roosevelt Rd.). But it has a few of my favorite vendors, and as the photo above shows, the skyline backdrop is a major plus.
Zeitlin’s Delicatessen is one of those favorite vendors. Sam Zeitlin produces a variety of delicious bread and other baked goods. The standouts for me are his bialys, those hard-to-find rolls of Jewish origin, which have depressions in the top to which Sam adds creative fillings.
The bialys on the left have an onion filling. The ones on the right, two of which came home with me, have a spicy harissa and tahini filling.
I had one of the bialys this morning with a schmear of homemade baba ghanoush. A little round slice of heaven.
I mentioned Los Rodriguez Farm is the peach breaking news story above. These folks not only produce some of the area’s most beautiful vegetables and fruit, but it tends to come in very large. Those seriously may be the biggest beets I’ve ever seen.
The whole market haul (from left): yellow summer squash, carrots and peaches from Los Rodriguez Farm; chive horseradish cheese from Stamper Cheese (Chicago); zucchini from Hebron Farms (Vandalia, Michigan), where I also purchased yummy Mattawan Mediterranean yogurt (Mattawan, Michigan); and those bialys and sesame bagels from Zeitlin’s Delicatessen.
I hope this whets your appetite to buy delicious, nutritious, sustainably produced food from local farmers this weekend. And don’t forget to look for that corn.