The company says heavy rains have forced it to cease harvesting its crop in Downstate Morton -- which may lead to a shortage during the holiday season of those recognizable orange cans.
But relax, people. You can still bake your pumpkin pie and eat it, too. A pumpkin is a gourd -- as are those oodles of beautiful winter squash with the poetic names (Kabocha, Hubbard, Delicata) crowding the store bins these days.
In my freezer, I have a Ziploc bag full of the cooked flesh of a red Kabocha squash. I bought the squash in early October from farmer Vicki Westerhoff (below) at Green City Market, for our story on farmers' favorite Thanksgiving recipes. Westerhoff is a something of a squash expert -- she grows between 11 and 18 varieties of winter squash on her St. Anne farm -- and her recipe for custard-filled squash is delightful.
In my first attempt at Westerhoff's recipe, however, forces out of my control prevented me from keeping a close eye on the squash -- or, more accurately, the clock -- as it baked (long story; just know it involved my two daughters). The beautiful, majestic squash collapsed on me in the heat, the filling spilling out across the baking sheet. Dang.
But it still tasted delicious, so I scooped all the flesh from the skin anyway, collecting it in a bag and popping it into the freezer. And next week, I'll be making pie with it.
Westerhoff says the three best substitutes for the canned stuff are the Blue Hubbard, Long Island Cheese and Butternut squash (though she assures me my red Kabocha also will work well).
"I would dare say other than a super pumpkin connoisseur, no one would know the difference," she says. "In fact, I think they work better than pumpkin in a lot of ways. The texture is smoother and the flavor is just really good."
So wherever you would have used canned pumpkin, try substituting a squash of a different stripe. It won't be the same old pie you're used to, but I don't think you'll be disappointed, either.
By guest blogger and local freelancer Leah A. Zeldes
Our condolences go out to the family of Josephine Minelli and to generations of Chicago-area Italian-food lovers. The matriarch of the Minelli Meat and Deli family, fondly known as "Mama Minelli," died Tuesday at age 99. By all accounts, she lived a life as robust as her marinara.
Until an ambulance took her away from the stove two years ago, Mrs. Minelli was still making meatballs at the family store -- up to 200 pounds at a time, all by hand. The shop, at 7900 N. Milwaukee, Niles, is the third in a series of food stores she and her late husband, Philip, first opened in 1957.
The first Minelli store stood on the corner of Western Avenue and Lexington Street in the Little Italy neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, dispensing Italian groceries, 10-cent beers and shots. In 1970, Mrs. Minelli and her three sons -- Lenny, John and Alfred -- expanded to a full-service Centrella grocery and Italian specialty market in Niles, and began making prepared foods, beginning with Mrs. Minelli's meatballs, which she insisted should be made by hand.
Thirty-seven years later, Mrs. Minelli presided over the grand opening of the newest location, a deli and butcher shop in Oak Mill Mall, where her grandsons Mario Minelli, Lenny Minnelli Jr. and Ozzie Caccavella continue to offer the locally celebrated meatballs as well as house-made Italian beef, sausage, salads and other foods prepared from Mama Minelli's recipes.
Born in Montefalco, Italy, near Naples, Mrs. Minelli immigrated to Chicago in the 1920s, where she met her husband and reared her family on Taylor Street. Before opening the grocery store, she worked at the Ferrara Pan Candy Co. and the National Biscuit Co.
Though she spent the last two years in a nursing home, St. Matthew Center for Health in Park Ridge, Mrs. Minelli daily entertained large groups of visitors and continued to take a lively interest in the family store.
Visitation for Mrs. Minelli will be held from 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday at Skaja Funeral Home, 7812 N. Milwaukee, Niles. Funeral services begin at 9 a.m. Monday at Skaja, followed by Mass at St. Isaac Jogues, 8149 W. Golf , Niles, and interment at Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery & Mausoleums, 1400 S. Wolf, Hillside.
Putting together this week's story on four Illinois farmers and their favorite Thanksgiving recipes ranks up there as one of my favorites. Vicki Westerhoff, David Cleverdon, Tracey Vowell and Marty Travis -- they are some good eggs, and with fascinating back stories to boot.
They were all gracious enough to share their recipes during what is typically for them a busy, busy time -- and if you don't try Travis' cornbread recipe, you're missing out.
Speaking of, I missed a few resources for local food during the winter months in our listing, but the Local Beet, of course, has me covered.
Here, after the jump, are two more recipes from Cleverdon we didn't have space for in the section that make clever use of squash and greens. The rolls, his great-grandmother's recipe, have been in Cleverdon's family since the late 19th-century.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to make good on its promise to boost local, sustainable agriculture. Last week, as part of the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program, it awarded the Illinois Department of Agriculture more than $435,000 to help make locally grown produce more widely available, part of $49 million in grants nationwide.
The dollars will fund 28 projects statewide. Among them: Chicago's Green City Market will get $25,000 to develop its youth project, printed materials, a e-newsletter and a vendor survey; the Illinois Specialty Growers Association will get $20,000 for its annual organic growers conference, and nearly $84,000 will go to CBS Broadcasting to roll out a "Buy Illinois, Choose Illinois" ad campaign.
Mon dieu! Eight years of developing and delays aside, the Chicago French Market continues to surpass our expectations, and it's not even opening until mid-November.
The European-inspired, year-round indoor market, which will encompass 15,000 square feet in the Ogilvie Metra station, has added 16 more local vendors to its roster. They include Delightful Pastries, whose Fat Tuesday paczki are, for lack of better words, the bomb (that's proprietor Dobra Bielinski in the photo below); Fumare, a purveyor of cured and smoked meats; and Saigon Sisters, two sisters (and their mom) cooking up pho, banh mi and other Vietnamese items.
We admit -- we're not familiar with the bulk of these vendors, who also will offer tacos, Korean food, Belgian fries, freshly squeezed juices, baked goods, popcorn, seasonal produce, vegan food and flowers.
What will President Obama and other leaders nosh on as they discuss the world's weightiest issues at the G20 Summit, opening today in Pittsburgh?
Well, that's top secret, silly. But what we do know is that there will be plenty of locally grown produce on the menu, about 5 percent of which was plucked right from the 600-square-foot rooftop garden (part of which is pictured below) at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center -- which no doubt should please the commander-in-chief and the missus, who've made it clear that local, sustainable agriculture is a priority.
Metcalfe says she got word they would be hosting the summit about three months ago. For the past week, she, chef de cuisine Robin Rosenberg (who flew into Pittsburgh Wednesday from Levy's innovations kitchen in Chicago) and about 40 other chefs have been going "nonstop" to get the grub ready. They expect to feed 4,000 over the next two days.
They have to keep mum on the menus, per White House rules, but Rosenberg says the world will be covered, culinarily speaking.
"We have about four different dietary laws we have to follow -- kosher, vegan, Hindu, Muslim," he says. "We have products from all over the world coming in just to satisfy everybody here."
For lunch, the chefs will offer oh-so-trendy bento boxes with deconstructed salads and sandwiches.
White House staff members already have toured the rooftop garden and are "just crazy about it," he says.
The Levy staff also will be sourcing from about 20 farms in the region.
"It's a big day for the Green City Market," says Allen, who got the news via an early morning e-mail.
Ann Wright, the USDA's deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, was just in Chicago last week for the Chefs Collaborative National Summit, where she detailed some of the "Know Your Food, Know Your Farmer" intiative, which includes these farmers market grants as well as a farm-to-school program.
Allen says a good portion of the money will go toward setting up a scholarship program for farmers who sell at Green City Market to attend seminars and conferences that will help them on their way to becoming certified organic or sustainable.
The market is requiring that all of their participating farmers and producers be third party-certified by 2012.
"For some of these small family farms, we know it's a big ask, and since I took on this position last May, I really wanted to find ways to provide outreach to help them," Allen says.
The USDA funds also will help the market promote its electronic benefits transfer program -- which was on hold this past year -- for customers on the federal food stamp program.
"We're hoping to encourage folks on limited incomes that Green City Market is a place where they can come and educate them about nutrition and eating better," Allen says. "I don't think eating better is a luxury that should be available to certain parties and not others."
In all, the USDA awarded 86 grants totaling $4.5 million to farmers markets in 37 states.
Other tidbits from the Chefs Collaborative national meeting, which ended today:
Paul Kahan and Twitter don't mix. "For me personally, I hate it. It's a waste of time," he said.
Kahan on chubs: "If you've never had a warm, smoked chub, it's probably the greatest thing you'll ever eat."
Neither Rick Bayless nor his spokeswoman, Jen Fite, have any tips for folks trying to figure out the best time of day to hit Xoco. "All I know is, it's always busy," Bayless nearly (but not quite) lamented. "We have no tips! We don't know!," Fite says.
A farmers market just outside of the White House gates will welcome its first customers on Thursday and state-inspected meat processors this week can start shipping their meat across state lines.
Those two bits of welcome news are part of "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food," a federal intiative announced today in Chicago to promote local, sustainable agriculture.
Ann Wright, deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, detailed some of the programs kicking in this week or very soon -- all approved under the 2008 Farm Bill -- at a national summit of chefs, purveyors and other food industry types at Kendall College. Those programs include farmers market promotion grants and a farm -to-school program.
The USDA will launch a Web site Friday that will serve as a sort of "one-stop shopping site" detailing the various USDA programs and grant money available. "Those eligible to compete for these grants are those working for local and regional food systems," Wright said.
"It's a USDA-wide effort to create new economic opportunities by better connecting consumers with local producers and starting a national conversation about the importance of understanding where your food comes from and how it gets on your plate," Wright said.
Wright could not put a dollar amount on how much will go toward the "Know Your Farm" program but said there are $65 million in grants being announced this week alone.
The weekly White House farmers market will run "well into fall" and will feature produce from local farms, but Wright did not know just how many vendors will call the market home.
At the time, he and his family were relatively new -- but very devoted -- to the locavore movement. They were regular farmers market customers, they were getting versed in freezing, preserving and other storage techniques, they'd even ordered half a cow. Gardner chronicled this on his blog, Vital Information, and on the chat site LTHForum.com, in between his day job as a business background investigator.
Last year, as Gardner felt the "eat local" momentum gaining steam, he and Michael Morowitz, a friend from LTHForum, started toying around with a site that could serve as a local food clearinghouse. They launched the Local Beet early this year.
In that time, the Local Beet has picked up quite a following as a go-to resource for when you want to find a farmers market or locavore events around town.
And on Sunday, the group will host a farm dinner -- The Thing To Do these days if you're into eating local -- at Vicki Westerhoff's farm in Downstate St. Anne (Gardner has been a CSA shareholder in Westerhoff's farm for several years now).
"It's great to get out of the city. How many people get a chance to spend some time on a farm?," Gardner says.
Gardner has become a sort of poster boy for eating local. He walks the walk but in a non-threatening, regular Joe sort of way, showing the rest of us that it can be done, but not berating us when we don't.
"It's not like a religion. It's not something where you have to do it this way and if you don't you're a sinner," Gardner says. "Today, for example, I bought some Italian cheese at Bari. My wife and I, if we buy some imported cheese once in a while, it's not going to infringe on our principles or make us less of an advocate."
Gardner will be at the dinner; see for yourself what we mean. The event is only 40 bucks and a scenic 90-minute drive from Chicago.
Go to thelocalbeet.com for more details on the dinner and to buy tickets.
Sun-Times Food editor Janet Rausa Fuller is always thinking about her next meal.
Lisa Donovan
For almost 20 years now, reporter Lisa Donovan has been hitting Chicago's neighborhood markets and restaurants not only for the
best grub at the best prices but also as a way to understand the city's melting
pot.
James Scalzitti
As Rhoda Morgenstern would say, food is the first thing Sun-Times Wire Service reporter James Scalzitti remembers liking that liked him back..
Sun-Times Food editor Janet Rausa Fuller is always thinking about her next meal.
For almost 20 years now, reporter Lisa Donovan has been hitting Chicago's neighborhood markets and restaurants not only for the
best grub at the best prices but also as a way to understand the city's melting
pot.
As Rhoda Morgenstern would say, food is the first thing Sun-Times Wire Service reporter James Scalzitti remembers liking that liked him back..
