New from Fresh Taste:

Good Food for All is a new blog and resource space for all those in the Greater Chicago foodshed and beyond wishing to learn and engage with others in the local food movement. This collaborative space is dedicated to news, updates, events, and innovative ideas related to local food.

‘Foodshed’ is a concept coined to represent where a given population’s food comes from and how it gets there. The focus of Good Food for All is the Greater Chicago foodshed, which includes all of Illinois, in addition to parts of Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

If the capacity of our foodshed were fully used and its products dedicated to the Chicagoland market, it could provide a very considerable portion of the region’s food needs, a healthy working landscape, and a significant stimulus to our economy.

It’s just past our first anniversary in the house here and it finally feels like we’ve arrived someplace.

Some weeks ago there was a NYTimes story about a 17-years-running monthly neighborhood potluck “supper club” in New York City. I shared it with a few neighbors here. They shared my interest and last night we had our first dinner. We had positive responses from about 20 of the 28 households we invited, which we thought was pretty good. And by the miracle of potluck, we had entrees, salads, fruit, veggies, and desserts, all totally unplanned. A success by all accounts. At several points through the evening I thought, “I should get up, get around, see all of what and who is here.” Sort of “conference” mode kicking in. Each time followed immediately by the realization that there was no need to rush. No plane to catch. We all live here. And the party’s just beginning. At home.

In a year of busy comings and goings, we’ve met a number of our neighbors, but almost all the conversations seem to take place as one person is just about to walk or drive off to something else. After a night a just hanging out with folks, I came home last night thinking, “What a bunch of good and interesting people.” This morning I’m remembering that this “good people” view shows up over and over again in a volume of favorite life stories my Dad wrote down a few years ago. So the new party feels a lot like the continuation of an old party. Home again.

Terra Brockman, founder of The Land Connection to save Illinois farmland, sends out one of the first signs of spring around here: an invitation to RampFest.

Ramps are the first edible greens to appear in our Midwestern forests each spring. They are in the allium family (along with onions, garlic, and leeks), and were called chicagoua by the native Miami and Illinois peoples. This was also the Indian name for the Chicago River, along which ramps grew abundantly. In the late 17th Century, French explorers began referring to the area at the mouth of the Chicago River as “Chicago.”

The foliage, stems, and bulbs can be used raw or cooked — in salads, soups, on pizza, or in sandwiches. They are especially good in omelets and quiches. Many chefs say that ramps are the best-tasting member of the entire onion family.

We live six houses from the River, on land once held by the Miami people. My guess is that it’s probably not a great idea to go foraging for this sort of food along the cleaner-than-it-used-to-be, but not as clean as it should be, Chicago River.

Even so, it’s good to be thinking about fresh food, garden and growing. We’ve got several inches of snow that might just disappear this weekend and a bungalow landscaping workshop tonight.