Thanks, Jim: One Year After FamilyFarmed
One year ago today, I ended my nearly seven-year tenure at FamilyFarmed, the Chicago nonprofit that works to build a better food system from the product/entrepreneur side.
Like any life experience, my time at FamilyFarmed had its ups and downs. I had experiences that I’ll remember fondly the rest of my life, and some I’d rather forget. I worked with some of the best people I’ve ever known… and some I’d rather forget.
But as I mark this occasion, I have to say that, almost certainly, I would not have been able to build the knowledge base and the connections that made Local Food Forum possible had there been no FamilyFarmed to open so many doors for me.
Local Food Forum is all about our local food community. And the community of amazing people and game changers I came to know during my time there — and who embraced my crazy little experiment in creating a publishing platform focused specifically on local food — was the biggest going-away present I could ever have asked for.
So I want to give a shoutout to Jim Slama, FamilyFarmed’s founder and now Managing Director of Naturally Chicago, for giving me this big leg up.
Jim took a chance on me shortly after I moved to Chicago, after ending a 30-year career as a political journalist in D.C., even though I had little to recommend me except some talent as a writer and a personal passion for helping to improve our nation’s food culture. The work I did for and with him enabled me to build that glorious community.
He recognized the hard work and passion I put in to help launch and sustain Naturally Chicago by bringing me back on board as the organization’s communications consultant. And from day one, he has been 100 percent supportive of Local Food Forum.
So thanks, Jim. Although FamilyFarmed is now in my rear-view mirror, it is great to have the opportunity to continue working with you on the road ahead.
That Is One Big Sweet Potato
Tomorrow I’ll be celebrating the 1st anniversary of the official launch of Local Food Forum (no, I didn’t waste any time), and on Saturday, the early opening of Green City Market’s season will enable me to start early with photos and tips about our region’s earliest seasonal crops.
Local food season never really stops, though, because storage crops — mostly root vegetables and squashes — sustain us through the winter. But as the photo above suggests, the twilight of these storage crops can produce some wild variations in the sizes of the items.
The photo is of big and little sweet potatoes, radishes and parsnips I received in recent delivery orders. That ginormous sweet potato clocked in at almost three pounds, and when I cooked and mashed it, it almost completely filled a medium saucepan. That nearly two-pound radish could last me into May. The parsnips are a little closer in size but if I have to be out very late, I might stick the bigger one in my pocket in case I needed it for self defense.
I am grateful for all these delicious, healthy local products, while looking forward to a season of more normally sized items.