Thoroughly Local Dinner
As mentioned, Friday was the 1st anniversary of the official launch of Local Food Forum. So how could I not celebrate with a thoroughly local home-cooked dinner?
That is a country style pork rib from Jake’s Country Meats (Cassopolis, Michigan) topped with some Carolina-style BBQ sauce from Chicago’s Lillie’s Q; roasted carrots from Star Farm Chicago; and yummy sautéed winter spinach from Hebron Farms (Vandalia, Michigan).
Living la vida local.
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WhatsGood Pops Up in the Lobby
I’ve written several times about WhatsGood. The Rhode Island-based company debuted in Chicago four years ago as a home delivery service for farmers markets — playing a crucial role getting food from Green City Market vendors to consumers during the early COVID shutdowns.
Now, starting with the opening of its first brick-and-mortar Farm Shop in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood last December, WhatsGood has pivoted to building direct relationships with vendors for home delivery, often turning around customers’ orders the same day.
And this past Saturday, WhatsGood added a new wrinkle by staging a pop-up in the Cascade Chicago high-rise apartment building in downtown’s Lakeshore East neighborhood. I popped into the pop-up and also stopped by the Farm Shop on Sunday to take the photos below.
And stay tuned: Matt Tortora, WhatsGood’s co-founder, and I have had several engaging chats about how to accelerate the movement toward a better food system — so we decided we’d let our readers in on the conversations. Matt and I will be recording Zoom chats, just in time for the start of the region’s official growing season, in which we’ll discuss what’s new in the markets (or coming soon), what’s good about individual plants and products, and the big issues that are facing our community.
Lack of video content is one of Local Food Forum’s self-assessed shortcomings from Year 1, and the What’s Good About Local Food chats hopefully will be the first step in remedying that shortcoming.