Why Your Farm Roast Ticket is More Than Just a Ticket

We're just about a week away from the annual Slow Food Farm Roast. It's our celebration of the best of the season. September is the month of abundance in the midwest and I love when chefs, producers, brewers, and folks who love good, wholesome food come together to celebrate the bounty.

The Farm Roast allows Slow Food Chicago the ability to send representatives to Slow Food's conference in Italy, known as Terra Madre. It is here that farmers, producers, advocates, and eaters from all over the world come together to work on issues from climate change to over fishing to how to eat more thoughtfully in a rapidly changing landscape. One farmer who will represent Chicago is named Brian Ellis. He's been farming for Growing Power since he was 15-years-old. Brian grew up in Cabrini Green as both the high-rise and mid-rise housing came down. He's intimately familiar with changing landscapes, and while the world he had known since birth was literally falling down around him, he stepped up and helped create an oasis of a community garden in the center of the chaos for himself, his friends, and his community. I am sure that 15-year-old Brian never imagined that he would be representing black farmers from the US to the world through Slow Food International, but because of your generosity and support of Slow Food Chicago, he will be doing just that at the end of September.

The Farm Roast is more than just a good time (although, let's be clear, it's a really good time). The funds raised allows our Chicago community to connect with communities across the globe to fight for good, clean, and fair food for all.  Resilience comes through connection, and we hope to connect with you over a delicious beer and a slice of pie come September 11th.

-Laurell Sims

Slow Food Chicago Board of Directors

Photos courtesy of Brian Ellis.

Slow Food Chicago Member July Discount Partner Profile : The Chopping Block

Slow Food Chicago Members have just a couple more days to wait before they can take advantage of the July Year of Slow Food member promotion for discounted pricing on any July or August cooking classes (booked in the month of July) at The Chopping Block. We had the pleasure of chatting with their Marketing Manager Andrea Miller to discuss how their classes help patrons get comfortable and gain confidence cooking for themselves at home. This, in turn, lends a little love to our Slow Food grassroots movement of promoting and advocating for food that is good for you, cleanly produced, and fair to all those involved in it's production. Here's Andrea!

What was the idea behind The Chopping Block? How did you start?

The Chopping Block opened at the original location in 1997 as an antique cookware shop and cooking school in a small cottage in Lincoln Park. Shortly after opening, Owner and Chef Shelley Young found that many of her customers needed assistance in selecting pots and pans and other kitchen equipment. The retail portion of the store began to grow as Young and her team of instructors started choosing the best equipment and ingredients for home cooks and carrying those items in the store. A mentoring style of relationship flourished between The Chopping Block and its students, who quickly saw the storehouse of knowledge available in the staff. The partnership worked, and in 2003, The Chopping Block opened its second location in Lincoln Square. The Lincoln Park location was moved to an 8,000 square foot space in the Merchandise Mart in Summer 2005, which greatly expanded the offerings of the school, including the ability to offer customized private cooking events for groups as large as 300 people.

What would you be doing right now on a typical workday?

We are always preparing for our next cooking class or private event. As one of the busiest recreational cooking schools in the country hosting an average of 300 classes and events each month, there's always something going on in our seven kitchens at our two Chicago locations.

What's the best part about your job? The hardest part?

The best part about working at The Chopping Block is being part of a team whose mission is to get the country to cook. We do that not only by offering cooking classes and private events, but by building a community around cooking through our website, social media outlets and instructional videos. Our staff sets up apart from other schools because they truly care about cooking. Shelley has a motto she lives by everyday. Her goal is to create a company environment that her employees' view as "the best job they have ever had."

The sluggish economy presents an interesting situation for The Chopping Block. While Americans are still tightening their belt on eating out, they are cooking more at home. So, while people may be hesitant to spend the money on a cooking class, they greatly value the skills learned at the class. We provide a service that helps people make better decisions about food.

What do you think is the biggest obstacle for Chicago's food systems to overcome?

Getting quality food and education on how to prepare it for more people in need.

How does The Chopping Block's work relate to the Slow Food objectives (good, clean, fair food)?

It's no secret that eating at home is less expensive, healthier and brings families and friends together at the table. It's focusing on those relationships that are created over food that we try to lead by example. We are constantly evolving to fit our customers' needs. With all of the different classes and events we do each month, it can be a challenge to engage each person that walks through our doors. But our staff excels at this! Whether a customer is attending one of our intensive Culinary Boot Camps or out for a fun date night, our goal is to listen to what they hope to get out of their experience and meet those expectations.

What surprising food item or cooking method do you think will trend in 2016?

Vegetables are stealing the show this year, and we've seen that by the popularity of our Clean Eating classes as well as the number of people who downloaded our free Clean Eating: Getting Started Guide.

What's your favorite food related social media account to follow?

It's so hard to choose just one! We love Food52, The Kitchn, Tasting Table and many more.

Anything else you'd like to share?

We also carry food-friendly wines and craft spirits at both locations, and we recently opened a bar at the Merchandise Mart. Stop by for Happy Hour on Tuesdays 4pm-6pm and enjoy select glasses of wines for $7!

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Want to learn more and keep up with The Chopping Block crew? Follow along via the links below.

Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest 

Slow Food Discount Partner Profile : Irv and Shelly's Fresh Picks

For members of Slow Food, you still have time to redeem your discounted order from February's partner - Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks as part of 2016's Year of Slow Food. Irv Cernauskas and Shelly Herman are on a mission to not only support local farms and farmers - but also to ensure that this fresh food is easily accessible to all. Read on to learn more about how they got started and why they keep fighting for good, clean and fair food for all.

What was the idea behind Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks? How did you start?

Our idea was to serve as a partner with local farms to increase the amount of local food reaching Chicago. Farmers often cited the challenges of marketing and distribution, and we thought if we could help on that, they could focus their knowledge and resources on increasing production. We started by visiting farms, and other similar businesses across the U.S. and Canada, then just diving in and "bootstrapping" our own savings and debt to build out our warehouse and website.

What would you be doing right now on a typical workday?

Every day we check in with farmers we know to find out what crops they have available and would be most helpful to their operations to sell to us. We also check our customer orders and make sure we have enough food lined up to fill them. And we make sure our staff has everything they need to get the work done, and help resolve any issues that come up.

What’s the best part about your job? The hardest part?

The best part of our job is the great relationships we have with the families who produce the wonderful food we deliver, and helping our customers make delicious and healthy choices. When farmers tell us how much the support they get from Fresh Picks means to them, and customers tell us how improving their diet has made them feel better, and that their kids are so excited when our deliveries arrive, it makes our day! The hardest part is when things don't go as planned. Like last Saturday, after the wind storm, ComEd lost power to our refrigeration and we had to scramble to protect our food. That wasn't a fun morning.

What do you think is the biggest obstacle for Chicago’s food systems to overcome?

We have to recruit more Chicago residents, to help them see, and taste, the value of local food, and make it easy and fun to vote with their dollars for something better. We have a lot of very loyal customers, but we are just scratching the surface of the potential we see. Big national companies with giant marketing budgets and slick technology challenge our local food system for the attention of consumers.
 

How does your work relate to the Slow Food objectives (good, clean, fair food)?

We are all about making it easy to act on those values.  It can be hard for folks to get to a farmers market or commit to a CSA membership, especially in the winter.  By offering convenience, choice and great customer service, we work to make it possible for more people to have good, clean and fair food a part of everyday life.  Even if they can't meet their farmer face-to-face every week, visitors to our web site can click through a product to see a page with pictures of the families who grow the food, where the farm is located, and descriptions of their practices.  That way they know where there food is coming from, and where their dollars are going, and can feel good about the choices they are making.

What do you think is in store for 2016’s trendiest food item- kale’s successor?

hmmm...my crystal ball says maybe aquafaba. Cauliflower and beef bone broth still seem to be going strong. We always sell out of the bones before any other beef cut!

Why Chicago? If not Chicago, where?

The Central Valley of California, after generations of unsustainable water and soil depletion, and often unfair labor practices, is potentially facing the end of a long run as the green grocer of the nation.  But with abundant water and fertile soil, and a great tradition of family farming, Chicago and our region has a great historical role to reclaim as a center of food production and distribution.  

Is there anything else you’d like us to share about your business?

It is a challenging world out there!  We need all of your members help spreading the word so we can keep on fulfilling our mission.  We are approaching our ten year anniversary and will have an Open House on April 10 at our facility (just off the Edens and Touhy Ave), and we would love to have people come join us to celebrate, sample some delicious chef creations and mingle with farmers.     

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Hungry for more? Follow the Fresh Pick's team via the links below.

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest