This weekend, I am visiting my friends Beverly and David in Chicago. We have been friends since college and love to cook together, so I asked Bev if we could go to the farmers market and cook something for the blog. She laughed at me. Silly Texas girl that I am, I forgot that it's still winter in Chicago and thus their farmers market doesn't open for another month.
Luckily, Bev loves a good challenge and shopping for local fare, so
she set out on a mission to find a place where we could get some
local veggies. As it turns out, there is a year round "farm stand" in Downtown Chicago that is aptly named Chicago's Downtown Farmstand. This centrally located store front had a variety of vegetables, eggs, butter, cheeses, prepared foods and locally made products. It's even run by the city!
We bought spinach and shitake mushrooms as well as some wonderful apple butter. There were beautiful baked goods and we bought bunny cookies and handmade marshmallows for their kids' Easter baskets. We also bought lollipops from Das Foods that come in crazy flavors like maple bacon (named "Man Bait) and ginger ("Naughty Ginger"). It'll be interesting to see what they taste like - the names are a scream.
I was particularly interested in some spice mixes from The Spice House. Each spice mix represents a different ethnic neighborhood in Chicago. I bought 4 at $2.00 each (which seemed like a great deal):
- Bridgeport Seasoning - representing an Irish neighborhood, good for potatoes and steamed veggies
- Greektown "Billy Goat" Seasoning for making gyro sauce or sprinkling on chicken, fish or pork chops.
- Back of the Yards Garlic Pepper Butcher's Rub - great for steaks, chops, chicken and roasts
- Bronzeville Rib Rub for baby back ribs.
After the Farm Stand, we headed to a cheese and wine shop called Pastoral. They carry cheeses from around the world, but had a number of cheeses made nearby in Wisconsin, Michigan and even Nebraska. We bought a Carr Valley Billy Blue, aWisconsin goat's milk blue cheese that was incredible, and a Zingerman's Creamery Lincoln Log, another goat's milk cheese but from Michigan.
The big surprise for me in the cheese department was Capriole goat cheese from Indiana. I have been buying this brand of goat cheese for years from Central Market and had no idea that it was made so close to Chicago and that Beverly is a regular at the cheese maker's stand at Green City Market. Talk about a small world.
With all these great cheeses, we decided we need a great loaf of bread and had a short picnic on the lawn outside Bev's. We ate as much cheese, bread and apple butter as we could before our hands started to freeze.
