Claire Zulkey's "Funny Ha-Ha" at Hideout tonight is loaded with local literary luminaries who host their own shows around town. more ›

We helped harvest a few weeks ago, and you can join in the fun tomorrow. If you like sweet potatoes (or urban gardening) you won't want to miss this. more ›

During the Chipotle Cultivate Festival, we sat down with two culinary stars who support sustainable eating. more ›

It's a fantasy dream for gardeners and localvores - if only our backyard looked like this. more ›

For the past few years, there has been plenty of talk about Colony Collapse Disorder, a drastic and sudden depletion in the number of honeybee colonies in North America. In 2010, for example, the USDA estimated total honey bee losses to be about 34%, an astounding number. What is currently a huge headache for beekeepers could have an out-sized impact on the food chain if left unchecked. Honeybee populations affect crop yields because the insects are responsible for the pollination of hundreds of the items you expect to see at the supermarket, from apples to zucchinis. The economic impact has been frequently estimated to be as high as $15 billion annually. more ›

We don't spend enough time inside the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. We go fairly often, especially during the winter, since it's the site of the Green City Winter Market, but it's rare that we bother to look at the exhibits. Which is a darn shame, because there are some pretty amazing things to see. Take in the butterflies, see the beautiful nature dioramas, marvel at the wonderful pictures of the Chicago River, and after you're done, sit down for a snack. Why? Because the lunchroom at Notebaert hosts "Nature's Lunchbox," an exhibit on healthy and sustainable eating. 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 ›

Give a hipster a hay bailer and he'll turn himself into a giant Shredded Wheat. (NSFW some nudity) more ›

• Kim Severson of the New York Times profiles Roger Ebert, his new cookbook dedicated to rice cooker recipes and how he still uses the cooker to entertain, despite his inability to eat solid food. [NYT]
• Steve Dolinsky agrees with me, says the little hotties at Take Me Out in Pilsen are the best hot wings in town. [Dolinsky/Vocalo]
• Monica Eng looks at the growing arguments between localvores and conventional food advocates. [Tribune]

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 ›

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 ›

(Ed. Note: This post contains photographs that some readers may consider graphic. However, given the interest in snout-to-tail dining, as well as the educational subject of this post's content, it is our opinion that the photographs are essential component to the story. - C. Sudo) more ›

The Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance has put together an impressive program this weekend looking at the evolution of beef production in the Midwest over the years at Kendall College. "Beef: From Plains to Plate" includes a butchering demonstration; a visit to Naval Culinary "A" School at Great Lakes Naval Station, which is scheduled to close early next year; seminars on feedlots, animal husbandry, and the past, present and future of beef production; consumer confusion over certified Angus beef; the re-discovery of the benefits of grass-fed beef; an oral history on the Union Stockyards; an overview on the differences between kosher and halal-certified beef; and an overview of how ground beef became a household staple. more ›

For the squash novice, we recommend trying the Acorn variety. They are firm, dark-green, and about the size of a cantaloupe. Here are two methods of preparing Acorn squash. more ›

Yesterday Kevin and I went to St. Anne, IL in Kankakee County (where AT&T's 3G service fears to tread, apparently) to attend the Local Beet's inaugural farm dinner at Genesis Growers. It was my third official farm dinner of the year and it was interesting to look back at how the growing season has progressed since that first City Provisions farm dinner at River Valley and the Outstanding in the Field dinner at Kinnikinnick Farm. Back in August it looked like Kinnikinnick's tomatoes would never ripen. Now we're trying to can as many tomatoes as possible and get ready for peppers, gourds and fall root vegetables. 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 ›

Surrounded by dirt, trellises, plants and happy gardeners; you would think we had wandered into a fairy tale about sustainable agriculture. Which, in a way, we had … except this storybook was set in a magical land 20 feet above the ground. On Saturday, Uncommon Ground opened America’s first organically certified rooftop garden at their Devon Avenue location, and they invited Mayor Daley to join in the revelry. more ›

Our Saturday visit to Green City Market resulted in a pirate's booty of fresh produce, planters, milk and meats. The highlight of our visit was the purchase of French breakfast radishes and white carrots from Green Acres Farm in North Judson, IN. June is when radishes just begin to make their way to farmers markets and Green Acres's French breakfast radishes have a crispness when you bite into them and taste best raw with a little bit of butter and salt. Wanting to use all of the purchase, we made a pesto from the radish greens. (Incidentally, radishes will be the subject of a future "Ingredient in Focus" post.) The white carrots were a revelation, with a taste to their greens similar to cilantro. We dehydrated some and used them on tacos last night. more ›

It was around 5 p.m. Sunday when I and the other judges for Cochon 555 gathered around a series of tables set up in the middle of a cavernous ballroom in the Drake Hotel, like a scene straight out of "Top Chef." Any questions about how we were to judge the competition were answered by Cochon founder Brady Lowe. We were asked to judge the chefs on a scale of 1-5 based on three factors: presentation, flavor, and utilization of the whole pig. That last factor was important, since this was a snout-to-tail competition. more ›

Robert Kenner's documentary Food, Inc. is a harsh look at how Americans get their food in the age of factory farms and the tacit approval of their techniques the USDA and FDA. Slow Food Chicago is sponsoring a free screening of the film at 600 N. Michigan this evening at 7 p.m. 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 ›