I wanted to share with you an email by Vicki from Genesis Growers, It makes me happy to think the winter might be coming to an end.........
We have transplanted the Napa cabbage and boc choi for spring into #4
hoop. The turnips are big enough for us to thin. The spinach has nice
leaves coming on (perhaps two more weeks till we can harvest). The
salad mix will be ready about that same time. How wonderful it is to
have spring in the hoops. An untended hoop is 6 weeks ahead in the
spring. So one can time the advent of spring by what the plants in the
hoops are doing. Last week was Groundhog's Day and Mr. Groundhog saw
his shadow. Six more weeks of winter. In # 2 house, the perennial
mints decided last week to peek up from the ground to greet the sun for
the first time since they went dormant. The moral to this story is
that my mint agrees with Mr. Groundhog - 6 more weeks of winter. We
are on the count down.
I will post a count down to the days we open Prairie Fire, our new restaurant, when we actually get a date. I should have a better idea by the middle of next week. I'm very excited about the restaurant. This week we are working on setting up the phone system; getting the website up and running; and a final round of interviews for our management team. We have picked out plates and glass ware! The tabletops on finished! (I think) We organized the service stations for coffee, ice tea, and bread! The Coffee is Intelligentsia! That was an easy decision.
Jason Pickleman did the menu "design" and I have to say that I am really impressed that he listened to what we wanted and made it work! Any day now the signs should go up on the building at 215 Clinton.
This is just a quick up date for now. Keep you posted!
Sarah
Now with the holiday's behind me I have a minute to get caught up. Just a little news about what is happening here. I'm excited to say that we are installing beautiful wood and glass paneled doors in our private dining rooms space at Prairie Grass. It's been a long time coming for this to happen. It makes the space completely private. I think it is going to look great. When they are up I will post pictures so you can see what we have done.
We took the Prairie Fire painting down and put up a winter photograph scene that is a picture from the Chicago area. It is beautiful and was take by the Artist Mike McDonald. The Prairie fire painting will be moved down to the new restaurant.
Sometimes it's the small things that can make a big difference. I can't tell you how many people commented on the picture change. They like the new one and knew right away that we are taking the other panting down town.
Right now I've never felt so much a part of a community as I do at Prairie Grass. I feel "connected" to the guests, the kitchen staff ( even the front of the house!) and the people that support us along the way.
Thanks everyone for being there! Happy New Year!
Rohit bought this killer case of Champagne for the New Year. It's Dampierre Rose. I loved it and if you were here I would drink a glass with you!.
I wanted to share this e-mail with you from Genesis Growers. I asked Vicki during the summer if it would be alright for me to do that on my blog. She said yes of course. Her e-mails convey a sense of farm life. They give us insight into the "rhythm" that nature imposes on the farms in our area. She understands how to be a part of a community. I feel lucky to receive the communications from her weekly and to have access to her amazing product. I will add the availabilities list on but am not guaranteeing that she will have all the items at Green City Market this Wednesday because chefs might buy them:
"We are but 7 days from the shortest day of the year. Hoorah! Soon we will be heading back up. On the farm, I really notice things like the position of the sun. It now arches low across the sky to the south in a sweeping arch. It is dimmer, far less potency in its rays. the plants notice it as well. They will tilt toward the south just a bit, and those plants who require a certain number of hours of sun just absolutely refuse to develop until they get the daylight hours they require. I have thought about trying a short day onion, like a Vadalia in the winter to see if it would bulb up here in February or March for nice winter knob onions. Perhaps I will try it next year. The experiments are what I love the most. It is my playtime. As a farmer it is nice to have a crop that is not grown so much for its monetary dividends as for its satisfaction. I did peanuts one year in big bushel pots. The pots came in when it got cold out and kept growing. My yield was teeny, but fun. (I am not even a peanut fan, but I did enjoy my own personally grown peanuts.) We are running out of a few items due to good responses from all of you. Thank you. I will post when we are about to run out of an item so you are kept abreast of availability.
Available crops:
Cabbage-Red and Green
Beets
Red
Carrots - available as mixed color bulk also
Specify size: baby, medium or large carrots
Purple
Red
White
Orange
Celeriac
Greens
Small orders of kale and lettuce heads available.
Kohlrabi - last week
Onions-
Cipollini - Red Piata - small orders only - last week
yellow (spanish)
Bermuda - Red Bull
Pie pumpkin
Radish,
Daikon
Red Meat - nicely red - last week
black Spanish
Shallots
Squash, Winter
Acorn
Buttercup
Butternut
Carnival
Kabocha, Green or Red
Red Kuri
Sweet Dumpling
Turnips
Hakurei -last week
Golden Ball
Vicki
Genesis Growers
I just wanted to share some Prairie Grass Cafe humor with you on the holiday. Dan created a drink for today, it is a shot of Corzo Reposado Tequila and we put lime "caviar" with it. They are special Australian finger limes that pop in your mouth. The juice completely contained in the skin so it's the texture that likens it to caviar not the flavor. Hawaiian Red Sea Salt to start. We are here to make the Thanksgiving Experience as pleasant as possible no matter who is sitting at the table!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! At Prairie Grass Cafe for Thanksgiving we have 360 reservations. We needed to stop taking reservations because we do not have enough oven space to cook the Turkeys if we go over 360.
We need to make 58 pies. 55 pies times 6 slices each equals 330. We will also offer chocolate cake. About 10 % of the people ate chocolate cake last year. So I think we are safe with that many pies for Thanksgiving. Now I need to decide, if it will be an even split Pumpkin V.S.Pecan.
Gallery sneak peek (15 images):
View the gallery...
This is really exciting to me. It is yesterday's "Legislator's Tour of Urban Agriculture" that our city farm forager David Rand helped facilitate. David Rand works both for the City and for Green City Market. The tour was taken by about 35 legislators from the state and local levels. They visited three different Urban Farms around the City of Chicago.
Dave said "The goals were to promote the new legislation that was recently passed by the Governor "The Illinois Local Food, Farms and Jobs Act", to prove that real food can be grown in dense, urban areas, and that it ultimately serves the community by promoting health, creating jobs, and enhancing the local economy (and environment). "
Here is a video of their tour made public by WTTW.
WTTW - Urban Farms
