Willie Nelson (and filmmaker Johnny Kelly) show us a farmer who shifts to industrial farming, learns to regret it and returns to the land. more ›

A few weeks back, we got a chance to have a long chat with Ann Wright, Deputy Under Secretary of Agriculture for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. Wright was speaking at the Family Farmed Expo, promoting a new USDA initiative, "Know your Farmer, Know your Food" that works to promote local and regional innovations in American agriculture. Wright was an advocate for organic and sustainable agriculture and an agriculture advisor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid before she was appointed to her current post, and has been at the USDA for almost two years. We talked with Wright about what the federal government can do to promote sustainable agriculture, the USDA's sometimes-troubled history with small farms and her belief that large-scale change in the way we farm and eat has already begun. more ›

The Chicagoist garden plot at the Peterson Victory Garden is winding down for the fall. All of the various root vegetables are popping out of the ground, the last of the green beans are coming in and we're harvesting tomatoes left and right. more ›

From the inbox: Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks, the popular service that provides farm-fresh foods to customers via CSAs and weekly produce boxes, has been awarded an $81,000 grant by the United States Department of Agriculture's Small Business Innovation Research Grant Program to "increase the fair trade supply of local food." more ›

Last time we checked in with our Victory garden, it was nothing but a bare patch of recently-planted soil. We were quite worried that, due to our spat of early-June monsoons, the garden would be washed out and our plants would drown. Despite our trepidation, almost everything turned out just perfectly. This weekend, we harvested our first crop of French breakfast radishes and transplanted some tomatoes and jalapeno peppers, per the suggestions of some readers. The only failure was our carrots, which didn't seem to sprout at all. more ›

Last month, I bought a garden plot at the Peterson Victory Garden Project. It's been amazing to watch the project get underway. Less than a month ago, the space at the corner of Peterson and Campbell was a vacant lot, filled with concrete, irregular gravel and standing water. But after tons of work, gravel, mulch and sweat, the garden is looking beautiful. Over a hundred raised beds have been built and filled with soil, and planting has begun in earnest. more ›

If Mario Batali can commit to Meatless Monday, it’s quite possible anyone can. Recently the meat-intensive celebrity chef announced that all 14 of his restaurants will offer Meatless Monday options. Way to go Mario! And why wouldn’t he go meat-free? Sure, a gooey salty pepperoni pizza will always hold a place in our hearts, but vegetarian food is diverse, healthier, and freakin’ delicious. more ›

Director Robert Kenner spent a sizable portion of the budget for his Academy Award-nominated documentary Food, Inc. on legal fees vetting his findings in order to protect himself from being sued by agribusiness giants in any of the thirteen states that have food libel laws. The film, narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, examines corporate (or "factory") farming in the United States and concludes that much of the meat and produce produced by these farms have costs involved that are unhealthy to the environment and the consumer. In an age where we can catch E. coli just as easily from a tomato purchased at a supermarket as we do from tainted beef, Food, Inc. is a sobering look at how we've come to this point and how large agriculture giants such as Monsanto and Smithfield have gamed a system intended to protect the consumer for their own means and go after critics like Kenner, Pollan and Schlosser in court (Kenner invited Monsanto, Smithfield and other large agribusiness companies to film rebuttals of his findings, but refused). Food, Inc. makes its television debut this evening on PBS. Locally, it airs at 9 p.m. on WTTW-11.1. The film will start streaming on PBS.com tomorrow. more ›

With a huge hand clutching a glass of Austrian sparkling wine, David Cleverdon slowly gestured across the seemingly endless verdancy surrounding us like a compass searching for True North and said, "You're catching us at the beginning of a transition. Tomorrow, trucks will be coming to the farm and tearing up the land as we start laying the ground work for the future of Kinnikinnick Farm." more ›

Joining a Community Supported Agriculture program is a great way to cut out the middleman and get just a little bit closer to your food supply. more ›

As every committed localvore knows, the best way to get fresh local produce (aside from a farmer’s market) is to join a CSA. A CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a farm that has decided to sell directly to the public. By investing several hundred dollars in the spring, you can receive deliveries of fresh produce throughout the summer and fall. However, some of us aren’t ready to commit several hundred dollars up front to the cause of fresh produce, or we might not be around in the summers. But we still want to help out local farms, and we cringe a little every time we pick up shallots shipped all the way from Uruguay at Whole Foods. more ›

If green is the new black and localvore is the word of the year, then what does it mean when eating locally is not only not necessarily better for the environment, but could actually be worse? An article in the NYT challenges the notion that "fresh" and "local" add up to "green." The article presents data from UC Davis's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program. Tom Tomich, director of the program, told the NYT that... more ›

Since splitting from the Ghetto Gourmet, Efrain Cuevas has fashioned a cottage industry for himself. Between "Cook the Vote", a "singles only" underground supper club, private catering and cooking classes, and his own "Ghetto Gourmet"-style undergorund dining club 24 Below, Cuevas has become increasingly busy on the local dining scene. A dinner Cuevas planned two weeks ago brought about some backlash. Cuevas planned a birria dinner involving a goat he would personally slaughter and butcher.... more ›

Now that we’ve recovered from the sugar crash, we can tell you about some of the things we found during our visit yesterday to the National Confectioners Association’s All Candy Expo at McCormick Place, which ends tomorrow. The industry-only event draws 20,000 visitors to town to sample over 2,000 gums, candies, and snack foods. New products and trends within the industry are also unveiled with all the accompanying sizzle to prospective retailers and wholesalers. The... more ›

Do you remember when Olestra came out? And how it was going to make snacking guilt-free, since it replaced the fat in your favorite snacking products? We do. And we also remember how we decided that the guilt was better than the nasty side effects from eating those potato chips. Thanks to The Bleeding Heart Bakery, now we can snack guilt-free once again, since everything in the bakery in 100% certified organic. Not only... more ›

Chicagoist hasn't ever eaten horse meat. We don't really have a moral objection to it, any more than we have a moral objection to eating veal, lamb, chicken, frog legs, fois gras, and on and on; we just haven't eaten it. more ›

It's coming. A fish virus so deadly to our aquatic friends that it could have a serious impact on the $4.5 billion commercial and recreational industry in Lake Michigan. The disease is call Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS) and luckily poses no risk to humans. The virus has seeped into northern Lake Huron, just 20 miles north of where it merges with Lake Michigan. Based on the articles we are reading, this could be seriously bad... more ›

Chicagoist walks down Division Street every day, so we were intrigued last month when posters like the one above appeared in the windows of an empty restaurant on the corner of Division and Hoyne. Other posters lauded the benefits of organic food, asking "Is that a locally grown, certified organic, sustainable farmed zucchini in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?" and had the lyrics "When the Moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...." We put two and two together, determined some sort of organic pizza place would be moving in to the space, appreciated the clever pre-opening marketing and left it at that. more ›

In news that sounds more like it came from Homaro Cantu's kitchen than from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, scientists have developed a flavor wrapper for food that protects the food from E. coli bacteria and tastes good as well. more ›

On a recent road trip out to St. Charles, Chicagoist believes we spotted no less than three Portillo's restaurants on I-64. Being a sucker for a killer breaded chicken sammich and an equally lethal chocolate shake (their fries ain't bad neither), we yearned to pull over for a little anti-diet naughtiness. It's turning out to be a good thing we didn't, for on Friday Portillo's recalled 3,703 pounds of roast beef. The pre-sliced, fully-cooked roast... more ›

Can the Lincoln Park Zoo finally catch a break? The last two years haven't been kind to the zoo, despite the opening of the fantastic new Regenstein Center for Apes and the African Journey habitat. Three of the zoo's elephants died, ultimately causing them to give up trying to keep the pachyderms in Chicago. Two gorillas and a camel also died, then another small monkey had to have an arm amputated after an accident. These incidents, especially the elephant deaths, led to widespread criticism from animal rights groups. Then if that weren't bad enough, three langur monkeys died in May 2005 after eating leaves from a yew tree that shouldn't have been near their habitat in the first place, and then a gorilla bit a zookeeper the following July. more ›

The days of keeping that big state university as a "safety school" while holding out for the Ivy League or that pretty campus on the beach (oooh, Pepperdine) may be over for Illinois students, at least in the short-term. more ›

On April 2, when we move our clocks forward one hour to adjust for Daylight Saving Time, two counties in Indiana, Starke and Pulaski, and six in the southwestern corner of the state won't do anything, just like they have done for years, effectively switching them from Eastern time to Central. But this time they'll stay for good. more ›

In what now seems to be a grim, depressing and all-too-frequent ritual, Chicagoist has the regrettable task of informing you about the deaths of two more residents of the Lincoln Park Zoo this morning. Our hearts are heavy yet again, this time for dearly departed lowland gorilla named Mumbali and, somewhat predictably, our dear pachyderm friend Wankie. more ›

Eight to 10 members of the infamous Hyde Park monk parakeets gang were kicked out of three nests they'd constructed on power-line poles in the 5000 block of South Dorchester on Tuesday. ComEd said the parakeets' early-morning screeching parties and attempts to pay rent with holly berries and bird seed were just a couple of many reasons for the eviction. more ›

Smell that? That's the sweet smell of grape-flavored bird repellant. O'Hare is in the process of auditioning various techniques to keep birds away from planes, and right now they're trying machines that spray "grape-scented mist that was distinguishable even in the wind Wednesday from the strong odor of jet fuel vapors." Eech. Just thinking about artificial grape stank makes us shudder. more ›