In recent years, there has been a movement afoot in the suburbs to provide people with locally grown food. Some is organic or minimally treated. Most of it is not genetically modified. It is fresh and can be purchased and eaten within a day of being picked. We witness this by the growing number of farmers markets and an increase in home gardening. ...

I often hear people proclaim that they hate turkey. Not me. I love turkey and all the "fixings." Many people must agree with me because the University of Illinois Extension Program estimates that 46 million turkeys are eaten each Thanksgiving, another 22 million on Christmas, and 19 million on Easter. My father prepared the turkeys at my house thro...

Planning Thanksgiving dinner for a crowd sounds daunting. I can barely manage dinner for four, let alone a dinner for 24 or more. I wanted to know if professional chefs have a method that would not leave them exhausted and allow them to enjoy the day that's often a large family gathering. So I asked Christy Sharp, who spends a lot of time at our sh...

Recent farmers market visits made me wonder about heirloom and organic vegetables. These products cost more money and tend to be more flavorful, but they must be eaten quicker than their hybrid and non-organic counterparts. Why is that? Heirloom produce Heirloom plants come from seeds that are passed down from generation to generation for at least ...

I was recently reminded of a book entitled Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, first published in 1997. It was all the rage at the time. It contrasted the rich dad who made money through smart investments and entrepreneurship vs. the poor dad who worked his whole life for someone else and never achieved financial security li...

It's National Farmer's Market week! You probably didn't know there was such a thing, but it makes perfect sense if you think about it. It is peak season, so now is the time to hit the farmers market or harvest the vegetables growing in your garden. Many people love growing fruit and vegetables but can't consume everything they produce. Hence the ba...

How do you ever get ready to start your business? When is the time right? What are the steps? There are several variations for this process. Each is likely to yield different results, not all favorable. There is a process you can follow, but depending on your personality and prior experience (which may be totally unrelated to owning a business), yo...

I typed "food trucks" into my search engine, producing over 286 million results. That was way more than I imagined. With numbers like that, it's safe to say that food trucks are more than a passing fad, which makes me happy because I've had some great meals from food trucks, I love the culinary variety, and the price point fits my budget! One of th...

T'is the season…for farmers markets and food trucks. There's nothing like locally-farmed produce and locally-produced goodies. Did you know that Illinois has over 370 farmers markets throughout the state? If you want to know where to go, just click on the National FarmersMarket Directory (https://nfmd.org/ for the whole country, or https://nfmd.org...