Geneva Green Market: Geneva, Illinois – A Local Food Green Farmers Market

The 2010 FamilyFarmed Expo is a mere week away. It’s been coined as “The Midwest’s Premier Local Food Event” and may eventually become the nations local food event at the rate it’s growing. The Expo is spread out over three days of carefully crafted events that are designed to connect local family farms and artisan food producers to connect with consumers and trades business.

The Expo kicks off on Thursday, March 11th as the first ever Farm to Fork Conference takes place. This conference was put together along with FamilyFarmed and the University of Chicago Business School. This daylong conference has been designed to educate investors and farmers. Also, food processors will learn about local food opportunities.

Friday is another packed day that will feature a local food trade show. A screening of the movie Fresh that is being sponsored by the Geneva Green Market, NFP and concludes in the evening with the highly anticipated Localicious Party.  This year in conjunction with Expo will also be the 5th Annual Chicago Food Policy Advisory Council Summit (CFPAC); Growing Healthy Food Systems: Block by Block.

At the summit learn, strategize and connect with others who are all Growing Healthy Food Systems, Block by Block!

- Activate your neighborhood council
- Contribute to a policy-working group
- Share a delicious meal
- Hear from Roots of Change President Michael Dimock

Working Groups Sessions include (descriptions and facilitator information available at familyfarmed.org):

•    Greening the Food Desert
•    Healthy Food for All
•    Chicago Storm water as Resource
•    Land Use Policy for Urban Agriculture in Chicago
•    Food Access/Farmers Markets
•    Healthy Corner Stores
•    Youth and Good Food
•    The Illinois Fresh Food Fund & Civic Engagement 101

Michael Dimock, President of Roots of Change (ROC),  This will offer a great opportunity to hear from a leading policy expert from California and learn how we can encourage similar policy initiatives in Chicagoland!

The ROC network includes a dozen foundations, 400 hundred innovative nonprofit, business and government leaders, 25,000 Californians, and 10,000 residents of other states. Since 2007, ROC has injected or attracted $6.9 million to spawn a future-oriented agriculture and food production chain in California appropriate for the 21st Century. In 2008-9 ROC managed the San Francisco Urban-Rural Roundtable, which led to Mayor Gaven Newsom’s Executive Directive on Healthy Food for San Francisco. This groundbreaking policy has reoriented city policy and planning to focus on hunger, urban agriculture and healthy, sustainable and regional food sourcing for city institutions and restaurants. A second ROC-supported Urban-Rural Roundtable began in February 2010 in Los Angeles to support Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s intention to create a healthy food policy for that city.

Locally sourced light breakfast, hot lunch and snacks will be provided for CFPAC attendees.

Consumer Day is on Saturday. Featured will be cooking demos from celebrity chefs, educational seminars and an interactive Kids Corner.  Exhibitors offer a wide selection of local food, gifts and useful information to help you eat locally and healthy year-round.

Online registration is still ongoing through Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 ~ There are a variety of ticket options available. Save $10 by registering prior to the event! To register visit Brown Paper Tickets or

Location: UIC Forum 725 West Roosevelt Road, Chicago IL 60607

Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production.

Typically, members or “share-holders” of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer’s salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm’s bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing. Read more

Micheal Pollan was recently a featured gust on on point with Tom Ashbrook, discussing his latest work –  Food Rules.

Pollan says that inspiration for his latest work came from a doctor-actually, a couple of them. ”They had read my last book, ‘In Defense of Food’, which ended with a handful of tips for eating well: simple ways to navigate the treacherous landscape of modern food and the often-confusing science of nutrition. “What I would love is a pamphlet I could hand to my patients with some rules for eating wisely,” they would say. “I don’t have time for the big nutrition lecture and, anyway, they really don’t need to know what an antioxidant is in order to eat wisely.” Pollan listened.

Listen to the complete interview On Point with Tom Ashbrook: Michael Pollen on food rules for a better life. Pollan’s previous works include “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. “Second Nature” and “A Place of My Own” and is a regular contributer to the New York Times Magazine.

Karen Stark has a challenge for all suburbanites: eat only locally produced meats, grains, fruits and vegetables this Thanksgiving.

It certainly sounds like a daunting task until Stark, a Geneva mom and coordinator of the town’s winter farmers market, explains that within a 100-mile radius of the ‘burbs you can find farmers raising free-range turkeys and beef, growing sweet potatoes and pumpkins and milling flour for biscuits and pie crusts. Cast the net a little wider and you can enjoy wild rice from Minnesota and cranberries from Wisconsin bogs and chestnuts from Michigan. (read more)  …”Give thanks for food”.

Who: Terra Brockman, Author
What: Book Signing
When: Saturday, December 19th 2009
Where: Community Winter Market at Inglenook Pantry, 11 N 5th St Geneva IL 60134

Terra Brockman was raised in central Illinois, where four generations of her family have farmed. Terra’s younger brother, Henry, grows 650 varieties of vegetables on about 12 acres (between Peoria and Bloomington). There, he and his family with apprentices have bucked the traditional agribusiness conventional wisdom by farming in a way that’s sensible, sustainable and focused on producing healthy, nutritious food that doesn’t damage the land.

Terra Brockman tells the story of her family and their life on the farm in the form of a year-long memoir that takes the reader through each season of life on the farm.

For more information about Terra Brockman or her book, please visit her website at www.terrabrockman.com

Community Winter Market at Inglenook Pantry
11 N 5th St
Geneva IL 60134
630-377-0373
http://www.genevagreenmarket.org/directions

What: Slow Food Harvest Potluck &  Fresh, The Movie

When: Sunday, November 15th; 4:00 -- 6:30pm

Where: Country Garden Cuisine 3n369 Lafox Rd, Campton Hills, IL 60175-7636  

Celebrate the foods of fall and join Slow Food City’s Edge for a harvest potluck supper and screening of the movie FRESH!

Please bring your favorite slow food inspired entree or side dish to share with your friends and neighbors. Fresh, the movie celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system.

Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision of our food and our planets future. Fresh addresses an ethos that has been sweeping the nation and is a call to action America has been waiting for.

We invite you to learn more about Slow Food City’s Edge, share good food with your neighbors, and understand the importance of eating healthier, locally grown food and how you can participate in this movement.

***In the spirit of Slow Food, please bring your own flatware, plates and cups.
More info at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/88203

Cost: $7.50 -- Covers  refreshments and dessert (to be provided by Inglenook Pantry).

What: Food Inc. (www.foodincmovie.com)

When: Monday, November 16, 7:00pm – 9:30pm

Who/Where: Judge Family Chiropractic 2422 W. Main St. -- Suite 4A St. Charles, IL 60175 (map)

Judge Family Chiropractic will be hosting a screening of Food, Inc. at their office on Monday, November 16th. The movie starts at 7:00 p.m., but come in at 6:30 p.m. to visit the various vendors before the movie starts. For more information call their office at (630) 707-9314 or email Angie Marchand at angie4maximizedliving [at] yahoo [dot] com.

What was formerly known as the Geneva Winter Market, has become the Community Winter Market sponsored by the Geneva Green Market, NFP. You’ll still be able to purchase fresh, local food throughout the winter. Once the Geneva Green Market has ended for the season, the Community Winter Market is scheduled to be open from 9 am through 1 pm on Saturdays, starting November 7. It will be located at 11 N 5th St, Geneva IL 60134.

On Saturday, November 21st, the Community Winter Market will be hosting its annual Thanksgiving Localvore Challenge. The vendors will have the majority all the ingredients you will need to eat an entirely local Thanksgiving dinner. Sign up early for local free-range turkeys.

Irv Pavlik will be a feature musical guest at the Thanksgiving Festival,  Saturday November 21 and Holiday Festival on December 19.  Check out his music on youtube http://www.youtube.com/irvpav

On Saturday, September 19, 2009, the Geneva Green Market will hosting a free outdoor screening of the “Fresh” for the Fox River Valley: Elgin, South Elgin, St Charles, Geneva, Batavia and Aurora, IL at the RiverPark , 75 North River Lane, Geneva IL.  The Geneva Green Market, Not for Profit membership and sponsors invites the public to come at 5:00 p.m. to get settled in with blankets and to consider a localvore picnic. The screening will start at 7:30 p.m. Desserts will be available for purchase by the Inglenook Pantry. Proceeds from the dessert sales will go to the Geneva Green Market, NFP. To learn more please go to www.genevagreenmarket.org/calendar/.

This movie put a smile on your face with the understanding of how the conventional agribusiness machine works, because you will know you don’t have to be any part of it. The hope and inspiration will have a lasting impression. For our health, our children and our future. I highly recommend the whole family come, watch and be inspired. Karen Stark, Geneva Green Market, NFP

The screening is for the purpose of educating the general public on the importance of eating healthier, locally grown food. Those in attendance will learn why this is such an important movement and how they can participate.

Thank you to the following for helping in bringing this movie to the Fox River Valley. Batavia Environmental Commission, blue haven Capital LLC – Geneva, Natural Resource Committee, Geneva, Pure Prairie Farm, Batavians for Clean Energy and & Conservation, Diane L. Peterson Klean Kanteen & To Go Ware, Slow Food City’s Edge, Conservation & Garden Dept. of Batavia Women’s Club, Orenda International, Unitarian-Universalist Society of Geneva, and Spiritual Green Connection.

Date: September 19, 2009

Time: Sitting starts 5:00 pm -- movie will be shown at 7:30 pm

Location: RiverPark, 75 North River Lane, Geneva IL, 60134

In the event of rain on the 19th, the “Fresh” showing will be moved to September 26th at the United Methodist Church in Geneva, IL.

Rain Date: September 26th, 2009

Time: Doors open at 6:30 pm -- movies will be shown at 7:30 pm

Location: United Methodist Church, 211 Hamilton Street, Geneva, IL 60134

On Saturday, September 19, 2009, the Geneva Green Market will hosting a free outdoor presentation of the documentary “Fresh” for the Fox River Valley: Elgin, South Elgin, St Charles, Geneva, Batavia and Aurora, IL at RiverPark in Geneva. The GGM invites the public to come at 7:00 p.m. to get settled in with blankets. Desserts will be available for purchase by the Inglenook Pantry. Proceeds from the dessert sales will go to the Geneva Green Market, NFP.

The event is part of our on-going commitment to food education, it’s free and open the public – this film focus’ on the importance of eating healthier, locally grown food. Those in attendance will learn about the importance of local food and how they can incorporate this into their daily lives and participate locally in their communities – from backyard gardening, family farms to farmers markets. It will be a lively and fun evening for all!

• Who:      Geneva Green Market
• What:     Fresh, a documentary film
• When:    September 19, 2009, seating starts 6:30, screening at 7:30 p.m.
• Where:   RiverPark, 75 North River Lane, Geneva IL, 60134
• Cost:      Free