From the Ledge

Chicago is food festival central every summer.  Of course, the motherlode of culinary shamelessness, the Taste of Chicago, just wrapped over the weekend (with the hue and cry over violence at the Taste overshadowing any discussions of the quality of the delicacies on view, or more apropros, in mouth).  There’s something for every self-styled Chicago foodie over the next several weeks; from street festivals such as the Taste of Lincoln Avenue (where Chad and Trixie-watching will trump any attempt at true gastronomy) to high-end food celebrations/benefit events such as the very noteworthy Share our Strength/Taste of the Nation at the Trump International Hotel and Tower to idiosyncratic discoveries such as the Sugar Grove Corn Boil in, uhmmm, Sugar Grove, Illinois.  Since corn isn’t my vegetable of choice and Sugar Grove isn’t this white-linen-pants-wearing boy’s kind of town, I’ll be attending, instead, two of the most interesting, culinary-wise, and most significant food events of the season.  Next week, on July 17, I’ll be at the Green City Market’s Chef’s Summer Barbecue Festival.  Of course, the Green City Market, with its wonderful selection of fresh, sustainably-farmed meat and vegetables from small farmers and agricultural producers, is legendary among Chicago food lovers, and this annual benefit event helps the Market continue to enrich Chicagoans’ culinary lives. The restaurants and chefs participating in the festival are some of the boldface names of the Chicago food scene:  Rick Bayless, Blackbird’s Paul Kahan, North Pond’s Bruce Sherman, James Beard winner Carrie Nahabedian of Naha, Food and Wine Best New Chefs of the Year Koren Grieverson (Avec) and Guiseppe Tentori (Boka), Green Zebra’s Shawn McLain, and Top Chef Chicago winner Stephanie Izard.  Wow, with this lineup, you know foodies are going to be buzzing like fruitflies to honey at the corner of Clark and Stockton.  Tickets are available online at the Spice House website or at the Green City Market every Wednesday and Saturday.  Check out the mouth-watering reportage, with yumm-o pics (yep, this whole post is unleashing not just my hunger but my inner Rachael Ray!), on last year’s event that was posted at foodie blog www.lthforum.com.

Then, a month later, on August 16, I’ll be motoring to Caledonia, Illinois for Angelic Organics’ Learning Center 10th Anniversary Farm Dinner celebration.  Yes, I shunned Sugar Grove, but here I am planning to drag my white linen pants and Helmut Lang flipflops to where-the-effin-heck-is-this Caledonia.  It’s for a good cause though, since I am a huge fan of Angelic Organics, one of the largest community-supported agriculture farm, or CSAs, in the country.  A CSA farm is a farm that provides its harvest to a “subscriber base”, usually families living in the community or region it is located in, who receive a share of the harvest throughout the growing season.  It’s an amazingly effective method for agriculture/food production as an interdependent eco-system: the farm thrives through its support and connection with a community; the community has access to fresh, responsibly-produced food, on a regular basis, in return.  The Angelic Organics Learning Center is the farm’s educational arm, which provides farmer training, community outreach, and public awareness and education programs.  The event starts off with an optional tour of the farm, then a reception, followed by a six-course dinner, using fresh produce from the farm, from my favorite chefs of the Sunday Dinner Club, and then capped off by a ’smores bonfire.  My dear blog readers, I know- your mouths are agape, your brows are furrowed, you have an Edvard Munch scream dying to get out:  Francis on a farm?  pulling fennel bulbs from the dirt?  roasting marshmallows over a campfire? I promise pictures!  (maybe even a video diary!).  Or better yet, why don’t you join me on the farm?  You can purchase tickets for the dinner here.

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Tags: Angelic Organics, Green City Market