After visiting European sustainable farmer’s markets in 1998, Abby Mandel, chef, author and entrepreneur, returned to Chicago determined to create a similar market in her own city. Green City Market was her brainchild and began as a small startup with nine local farmers in the crosswalk next to the Chicago Theatre with a handful of farmers and only a few more shoppers. The Market quickly outgrew the location and moved to the south end of Lincoln Park, where it currently operates May-October, drawing thousands of visitors and featuring locally grown food and many of Chicago’s most renowned chefs. Four years ago, the Market continued to remain open November-December, first in Lincoln Park Zoo, and later moving to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

Abby Mandel passed away in 2008, but her legacy lives on, spelled out abundantly with the Green City Market Cookbook. The book is a collection of recipes gathered from the Market’s customers, volunteers, farmers and Chicago chefs. (Rick Bayless wrote the foreward.)

Come join us as our trio of culinary leaders give the background of farmers markets in Chicago, the founding and importance of The Green City Market, their passion for the market, and how the cookbook came about including recipe sources and the testing sources. Copies of the cookbook will be on sale. (Approx. $25.)

Bios:
Elizabeth Richter serves on the board of the Green City Market and is co-editor of the cookbook. She is president of The Richter Group, a strategic communications consulting firm serving nonprofits. Elizabeth held executive positions at WTTW/Channel 11, and as an Emmy award-winning executive producer at WLS-TV, she recruited Oprah Winfrey to Chicago.

Sarah Stegner is the two-time James Beard award-winning chef who drew great acclaim to the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago before leaving to open Prairie Grass Café in Northbrook, where she shows her love for, fresh ingredients from her community of local farmers.

Tracy Vowell is one of Sarah’s favorite farmers. A former chef at Frontera Grill, Tracy left to open Three Sisters Garden, a nine-acre farm in Kankakaee, where she and her partner, Kathe Roybal, focus on specialty foods like microgreens, pea shoots heirloom tomatoes and fresh beans.

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Presented by
Elizabeth Richter, co-editor, “The Green City Market Cookbook”
Sarah Stegner, chef/co-owner, Prairie Grass Café, Northbrook
Tracy Vowell, farmer, Three Sisters Garden, Kankakee

Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014
10 a.m. to Noon
At
Kendall College, School of Culinary Arts
900 N. North Branch Street, Chicago
(Located just north of W. Chicago Ave. at N. Halsted St.)
Free Parking in lot on north side of school

Cost of the lecture program is $5, $3 for students
and no charge for CHC members and Kendall students and faculty.
To reserve, please e-mail your reservation to: Culinary.Historians@gmail.com.