Henry’s Farm

I just finished a wonderful book I’d like to share with you. It’s called The Seasons on Henry’s Farm by Terra Brockman, and it details a year of food and life on a sustainable farm located outside of Evanston. Henry is Terra’s brother and he has been a staple at the Evanston Farmers Market for years, in addition to having healthy CSA program to boot (Henry’s Farm).

The book chronicles a year that starts in November with the planting of garlic, and ends after the Harvest one year later. This book is chock-a-block full of good planting/gardening techniques and amazing seasonal recipes, however it reads like a novel and her family plays the cast of characters. Terra revisits stories about growing up on the 3rd generation farm, holiday traditions, canning with Grandma etc, in addition to the detailing the mania of running an organic sustainable farm. It’s a great read. Oh, and I just planted some garlic in my community garden plot. Thanks Henry.

GreenNet Potluck

GreenNet is Chicago’s premier online source for all things community gardening. They also throw many events throughout the year in addition to sponsoring the popular One Seed Chicago. Tomorrow night they are holding their community gardener networking potluck at the Garfield Park Conservatory. Come on down with some grub, and meet your fellow local gardeners. There will be a panel presentation discussion as well as door prizes and a raffle. Check it out!

Poll

Help support Logan Square Kitchen

Many of you know of, or at least have heard of the Logan Square Kitchen. It’s a fine establishment that opened their doors to the public over a year ago. And ever since then, they have run into countless red tape. It’s a space that acts as a shared kitchen (a nice big commercial kitchen that is), open to whoever wants to rent it out at the reasonable hourly charge. There is also an event space in the front of the space that can also be rented out. A cool business model, that is good for the community, oh, and did I mention their space is rated LEED Gold?

And they need help. The city has been yanking their chain over zoning and licensing issues for many months, essentially curtailing any consistent business. If you have a spare moment, please visit their website to learn more about the business. I’ve posted two links: one to their blog and the other a great article on LSK from the Chicago Reader. Thx.

LSK Speaking Up

Bread and Circuses (from the Reader)

-derek

Pumpkins!

Ok, so Halloween is over (thank god), and now your sitting there in your sugar induced coma thinking to yourself “I have 3 jack-o-lanterns rotting on my stoop, what do I do with them?” Well look no further than this exact blog post!

A couple weeks ago, my girlfriend and I took a little road trip up to Royal Oak Farms in Harvard, IL. We barely made it for the last week of apple picking, but it was high season in the pumpkin patch. They had so many different varieties of pumpkin that I had to buy a couple to cook with. We finally settle on a medium Cinderella (which is so pretty it looks fake), and a Peanut pumpkin (a variety that has strange peanut growths growing on the outer layer). Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to rip them open and start cooking.

So instead of dressing up and trick-or-treating, I was in the kitchen and cooked the following: curried pumpkin and parsnip soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies and of course roasted all the seeds (in addition to making the last of the Cortlands into applesauce). In other words, I went pumpkin crazy! And you should too. Here are some great links for you to check out about pumpkin history, recipes, varieties, etc. Enjoy.

-All about pumpkins

-Leftover pumpkin? Six ways to use them

-Pumpkin history

-derek