Sunday Morning at the Wicker Park Bucktown Market

Yesterday morning I headed out to the Wicker Park & Bucktown Farmers Market.  This area of the city can get so very busy on a weekend afternoon but it is quite relaxed at 8am on a Sunday.   The market is set along a tree lined sidewalk, it is very charming.  While it is petite, the vendors are fantastic.  Everything looked so fresh and yummy.

The flower stand was the same lady from the Lincoln Park market... her flowers are beautiful.  And the way to the market Dan suggested that we don't get peonies this time.  As we were walking by her display he changed his tune and picked out a small bouquet of white peonies; they smell fantastic.

The scene at this market is pure Wicker Park- hipsters, middle aged artists, hippies, young families... it so diverse.  But the produce stole the show.  The first vine ripened tomatoes of the season, perfectly ripe berries - yum.   The park is really cute with lots of nice spots to enjoy your banana nutella crepe or pan au chocolat.  And then there is of course lots to see and do in this area- a few of my favorites are posted here.

Bon week-end!

Hope you have a lovely weekend filled with things that make you smile!

Urban Garden: Spring Crops

There are a lot of options for edible things that will grow well in an urban environment; a few containers, a few seed packets and you can have quite the pretty, edible balcony.  You can enjoy a homegrown dinner with the twinkling lights from the skyline for your backdrop.

We planned our garden this year to allow for a spring crop and then a second planting for summer crops.  We might even do a final round of things for fall.  Many of the things that are great for a spring crop, because they do well with cooler temps and have a short growing season, are also excellent candidates for a container garden. 

A few of my favorites from this spring season were:

• Arugula
• Cherry belle radishes
• Lettuce mix/blends
• Parsley

These all had a short growing season, have low space requirements and were super low maintenance.  You can grow quite the yummy salad in a medium sized container that will fit on the smallest of city balconies.

Now that spring is over we have moved on to our summer crops... more on that very soon.

Preserving a taste of spring

Rhubarb is fast becoming a favorite of mine.  We had a little bunch from our CSA last week and not having the desire to bake but also wanting to make sure that it was used before going bad led to rhubarb jam.  I used a martha recipe, adding some vanilla bean seeds; a half batch gave me enough for a jar for enjoying now and three little jars to freeze.  That jam will taste so awesome in January. 

Guitar 1

Tonight is my first guitar class.  I am not going to lie- I have this dream of playing guitar/singing fun songs with my family in our waterfront vacation home after a day filled with jumping off the dock and sailing a sunfish.  The talent show scene from Dan In Real Life is so sweet... maybe this future family of mine will completely copy this and have a talent show too.