Reminder: Check Out Our Farmers Market Tracker for Your Weekend Local Food Plans
Make the Most of This Transitional Season Between Spring and Summer Crops
Seems like yesterday that I was complaining about the persistent chilly weather through most of spring. But with the exception of Wednesday’s 90+ mini-heat wave, it has mostly been downright pleasant in this first half of June, and it sounds like it’s going to be on the cool side this weekend.
It also happens to be the last weekend of spring. The outdoor farmers market season is pretty precious to a lot of us local food lovers, so why not make the most of this transitional season in which the late spring and early summer crops are all in abundance?
Click the button below to access Local Food Forum’s Chicago-region farmers market tracker. Make your plans, and please support our local farmers.
Link Up Illinois Plays Vital Role in Increasing Farmers Market Access
Non-Profit Program Provides Financing for Markets to Double Food Benefits
Farmers markets certainly are places where people with means can stock up on delicious, healthy, sustainably produced local food.
But it is always worth reminding that the vast majority of markets in Illinois and around the U.S. play a key role in expanding access to this good food by accepting — and in many cases doubling — government benefits for those facing food insecurity.
Link Up Illinois plays a key role in these efforts in our home state of Illinois. Administered by the Experimental Station non-profit, which also runs the 61st Street Farmers Market on Chicago's South Side, Link Up finances markets' programs that increase the value of federal SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and Illinois Link benefits.
This Local Food Forum article contains a message from Matthew Ruffi, who runs the Link Up Illinois program, describing the program's impact. Please take a look and visit their website to learn more about this essential program.
Farmers Market Reporter Visits Aurora's Granddaddy of IL Markets
Even Among the Handful of Long-Running Markets, Aurora's Stands Alone
Most of the long-running farmers markets in the Chicago region are between 45 and 50 years old, born in the 1970s during the infancy of the Good Food movement.
But in Illinois, the farmers market in the populous southwest suburb of Aurora stands alone: Continuously running since 1912, it is acknowledged as the oldest farmers market in the state.
Ed Kugler, who roams metropolitan Chicago as the Farmers Market Reporter, visited the Aurora Farmers Market Downtown. Ed is knowledgeable about legacy markets — he manages the 47-year-old Ravinia Farmers Market- Illinois in the north Chicago suburb of Highland Park. Both even Ravinia would be the great-grandchild of Aurora Farmers Market.
Enjoy Ed's photos from his visit in this Local Food Forum article.
Love this! Reminds me of the Violette de Bordeaux Figs with calabrian chili oil & cured lardo recipe I adapted from California cuisine restaurant Rustic Canyon! check it out:
https://thesecretingredient.substack.com/p/get-rustic-canyons-recipe-violette