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Mid-Week Farmers Market Visits Are The Perfect Brain Break
- Bob Benenson
- 7 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Scenes from Wednesday's Uptown and Green City Market Season Opener
That's me, holding a slab of four-year-old Wisconsin cheddar and literally saying cheese.
I'm not a selfies person, which is why Local Food Forum readers see a lot of photos of farmers market food and very little me. But my wife Barb on Wednesday (May 7) came along on this trip to the season opener for Chicago's Uptown Farmers Market and became my personal paparazza.
Along with the top photo at the stand of Stamper Cheese (Chicago), Barb captured this happy group photo. Uptown Farmers Market is an adjunct to the developing Chicago Market food co-op project nearby. From left are Matthew Ruffi — Uptown Farmers Market co-founder and manager, Chicago Market board member, and head of the Link Up Illinois program (administered by the Experimental Station non-profit) — and Grant Kessler, a Chicago Market board member/founding member and an awesome food photographer.
And one more: That's friend Sebastian Vargo, who owns and operates Vargo Brother Ferments (Chicago) with his wife Taylor Hanna.
Here's Sebastian again with a table full of his amazing variety of fermented foods.
Yep, asparagus season is full on, with big piles at farmers market stands such as those of Los Rodriguez Farm (Eau Claire, Michigan).
Hebron Farms (Vandalia, Michigan), from which I've shopped at other Chicago farmers market, is a new addition to the Uptown Farmers Market lineup.
Since all farmers markets have lots of local food (obviously), one of the major selling points for visiting Uptown is that it is one of the prettiest farmers markets around. Set on a stretch of Sunnyside Ave. that is blocked off as a pedestrian mall, the market is currently decorated with spring flowers such as these fragrant lilacs.
As a result of April's below average temperatures, the leaf canopy of those big trees isn't fully bloomed. But it will surely come in handy during the hot Wednesdays this summer.
Our haul from Uptown Farmers Market: asparagus, a very large cucumber and eggs from Los Rodriguez Farm; that cheddar cheese from Stamper; and a jar of Kimchi-Style Collard Greens from Vargo Brother.
And that was just the human food. Here's Hobbes, the boss of the Benenson residence, enjoying cat grass from Meraki Urban Farm, a microgreens producer in Chicago. Barb also purchased the two little succulents (lower right) from Los Rodriguez Farm.
I almost certainly wouldn't be publishing something called Local Food Forum if I weren't a farmers market fanatic.
So it shouldn't be surprising that Uptown was actually my second market stop on Wednesday: I also made a quick early morning run through the Wednesday opening for Green City Market's flagship Lincoln Park location (their Saturday markets in Lincoln Park and the West Loop neighborhood had previously opened).
The big new-in-season news is in the photo above. Nichols Farm and Orchard (Marengo, Illinois) had only a handful of heirloom hothouse tomatoes along with an abundance of cherry tomatoes the previous Saturday. We can now declare their spring local tomato season officially open.
We've noted before the contrast between Green City's two weekly markets in Lincoln Park. The Saturday session is a true destination market, packed with thousands of visitors. The Wednesday market has more of a neighborhood market vibe, and you can take in the bucolic park setting at a much more leisurely pace.
My Wednesday Green City Market haul: lettuce from Jacobson Family Farms (Antioch, Illinois); amazing English muffins from Dorothy's Bakery (Chicago); purple and green asparagus from Mick Klug Farm (St. Joseph, Michigan); and some of those heirloom Nichols tomatoes.
And last but certainly not least, Italian parsley, spinach and peppermint delivered from Three Sisters Garden (Kankakee, Illinois).
I hope I whet your appetite from this weekend's markets. If I did, click the button below to get Local Food Forum's regional market schedule and make your plans.