Category > In My Backyard
I'm sure many of you will agree: there are few things finer, really, than spending an afternoon doing battle with weeds in the garden on a hot, sunny day... followed by stretching out in a chair and opening an ice-cold beer. There's something about this ritual that says, your work here is done. Put up your feet. Brewski for yewski. One thing that interests me about beer, besides the fact that it's beer, is that we so often forget …
| A couple of weeks ago, my husband called me at the office to let me know he had just seen something I might find interesting. He was in Urbana, on his way back to his office from running an errand, he said, when he spotted a woman walking down the street. With her chicken. We're hardly strangers to fowl here in Urbana, Illinois. People have legally — and quietly, for the most part — been keeping chickens within City …
Talk about food is everywhere. Never before has there been such wide interest in where food comes from, how it was grown, who grew it, who should have access to which kinds of food, what is good for us to eat and what is not, what can be sold at farmers markets and by whom, what's for lunch in school cafeterias, prisons, hospitals and other institutions, how our food suffers (or might suffer) the effects of weather and resource …
So... the nature of the work that I do, which is primarily managing a large farmers market in east Central Illinois, requires that I get out into the Illinois countryside and visit some of the farms that sell fruit and vegetables at the market. So each spring and summer I hit the road. Here's something I've noticed on my travels: Small-scale fruit and vegetable agriculture is just not very visible in Illinois. When you're on the interstates, you don't …
April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. — T.S. Eliot April has indeed been cruel; the lilacs' leaves are barely budding, and those "dull roots" Eliot mentions better be sharpening up with all this rain falling out of the sky. Sheesh. We could all do with that 75-degrees-and-sunny day that brings about abrupt, overnight greening in Urbana-Champaign, the kind that takes your breath away …
It had been an excellent couple of days in Chicago seeing Mazes and Soundtrack of Our Lives, but the promise of early-vegetable planting weather in C-U for the remainder of the weekend (plus the orange galoshes I found in a resale shop on North Avenue) made getting home Saturday afternoon, a priority in order to prep for Sunday planting. See, the weather is absolutely perfect right now to start a few really early vegetables by sowing seeds directly into …
The best way to be hopeful for the future is to prepare for it. –James Howard Kunstler Every February, my family and I load up the car Clampett-style and trek down to Florida for about ten days. Our reprieve from this year's deeply unfriendly Midwestern weather involved two beautiful beaches and some extended family hijinks. It was excellent. However ... I've noticed that vacation, at least the way we take this particular vacation and the way so many other …
Now, nobody imagines his modest little patch is going to be the greatest thing since copper bracelets, no. But it will be personal, and it will be fascinating, because there is no such thing as dullness when the gardener is going full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes, as it were. –Henry Mitchell Something usually happens around late January/early February that helps me shift into Backyard Mode. Maybe that something is happening a bit earlier this year thanks to …
“How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?” – Julia Child I know, I know. Baking bread seems like something almost akin to sewing your own jeans or building your own car — why bother? There are people around here who can do that for us, and it’s true. If you live here in Champaign-Urbana, you have access to transcendent, locally-owned and operated bakeries. (They’re not true boulangeries, because they sell pastries in addition to …
Food everywhere is an expression of community relations. —Stephen Gudeman Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten — and along with it, some of the best company I’ve ever enjoyed while eating — has been at potlucks (or covered-dish suppers, or bring-a-plate dinners). O, the humble potluck!
Most Recent Food Comments
Looks like you are also all members of the killer sideburns club.
@Annie: Yeah, my bad. That was the best part! Drinking + memory exercises = fun @Rob: According to Ask the English Teacher, “My dictionary says ‘drunk’ is an archaic past tense of ‘drink.‘“ We’re all about the new grammar around here.
“more beer is drank” Awesome. Way to go “editors.“
You left out the best part—you have to REMEMBER your number after the beer chugging! Yeah, I’m a member.
Great article, man. Like you, I didn’t really know Daniel all that well, but I felt the impact of his death. I too was inspired by him and it pleases me to see that he continues to live on in the spirit of the community.
Thanks you guys…I love living in a community that can connect, share, and create through food. It’s inspiring…
<div> A beautiful recap of the evening and thank you for sharing why you find what the Fund is doing is inspiring. I haven’t been able to write too much about my feelings about the community’s loss of Dan yet either, but Dan has also inspired me…
Seth and Justine, thanks so much! Through your writing and your photos, everyone can get at least a taste of what was served up Sunday night. Dan would very much have liked that! As you say, our community is very much “fertile ground,“ and Dan had such…
That is perhaps the best article you have ever written… a love letter to Champaign-Urbana and the people who call it home.
Most Popular Food Articles (60 days)
- The man that was and will always be Flatlander Chocolate
- Taking the work out of pasta sauce
- Time to make the dream a reality
- Flatlander fundraising off to a tasty start
- Learning to dislike corn
- The green of all greens
- Market Watch: July 31, 2010
- Market Watch: July 17, 2010
- Market Watch: August 6, 2010
- Market Watch: July 10
Most Recent Comments
Illinois has simply had no luck at all in these Mizzou games. None. I think maybe we’re do for a couple of bounces to go our way. If we get one or two (or sever or eight) breaks, I think it’s a win.
Jason, Savoy could easily join the CPL tax district, which is probably closer to most Savoy residents than the Tolono library is. But my impression is that Savoy residents as a whole don’t want to pay the cost of the CPL (Tolono’s library taxes are cheaper), even…
Sorry, but I am lagging behind on updates to the map. Also, some construction projects were delayed from their original start date. On a more positive note, I am putting together a map of haunted houses in Central Illinois. I have a few plotted already, and I…
I’ve never gotten the privilege of all the services CPL cardholders get. I just want to be able to go out of my way to drive to the CPL to check out books, pay fines, maybe buy some coffee, and enjoy the library. None of those activities…
These days, there is more to using a library than checking out books. At one time, paying into the Lincoln Trails system probably would cover the expenses incurred by other libraries in the system. Now, with Internet, videos, coffee shops, wireless Internet hubs, etc., I suspect the…
(speaking as a Savoy resident) By paying taxes to support a member of the LTLS, we are paying our “fair share” to use any LTLS library—Tolono, Champaign, Urbana, etc. This is how library systems work. The 6% of CPL’s circulation represented by Tolono users is NOT significant…
I read Timbo’s argument. I think the key word is “speculating.“
I would be interested to hear more about the “word on the street”—how are individual hauling companies fulfilling their promise to recycle?
Timbo makes a smart, sound argument. Reread it.
I joined on 09-09-09 after living here over a year, and having to listen to my dad tell me how his best friend is, like, #27 or something crazy like that, and how said friend never lived further than 50 feet from the Illini Inn while going…
And, I might add, no one is being prevented from using the Champaign library. They are just being asked to pay their fair share if they are going to use it as their primary library.
The equation is pretty simple here. If you want social services, then pay the taxes required to run those social services. These things only work if everyone puts in their fair share. As a heavy user of the Champaign Library, I say bravo to this new policy.
Curtis Orchard is always good for an hour or three, especially if you have rugrats.
What is the increased marginal cost of serving a resident of Savoy or Mahomet? I suspect negligible. What is the increased revenue to be realized by this new policy? I suspect very little. Aside from these financial aspects, what are the most probable results from this new…
Looks like you are also all members of the killer sideburns club.
Thanks for the article, Ben. I was not familiar with this band until now and even though I won’t be able to attend the show on Friday they are now on my radar. A *good* jam band is hard to find, and these folks appear to fill…
Nice article, love the Dead quote in the beginning. If they can get down here to Central FL I’ll definitely be heading out to the show. Some of my friends have finally stopped wincing when I say “jam band.“ I’ve now tried my best at more descriptive…
@Annie: Yeah, my bad. That was the best part! Drinking + memory exercises = fun @Rob: According to Ask the English Teacher, “My dictionary says ‘drunk’ is an archaic past tense of ‘drink.‘“ We’re all about the new grammar around here.
Katie, have the residents of Savoy and Tolono thought about having their taxes raised a little to help their public library expand? That’s a possibility for them. And then everybody wins.
good call on that Herring recording, Josh. Love that version of Exit Music….here’s a clip of the Cinco de Mayo show (from about six months prior). As I recall, this Shakedown went on for roughly a half hour, while getting into the Trampled Underfoot jam in the…
Most Popular Articles (14 days)
- Camp Rantoul Report: August 20, 2010
- Withershins: the hardest working band in Champaign
- Champaign to close recycling drop-off center
- Pygmalion schedule changes, Emeralds and new Erin Fein project added
- The Burlington Coat Factory Mosque
- Meet the new blog on the block
- CU Pride Fest review
- Flatlander fundraising off to a tasty start
- The right thing changes from state to state
- Garbage doesn’t just “go away”
Recent Searches
- derby (118 Results)
- 1592 (7 Results)
- Susan Toalson (3 Results)
- Gabe (4 Results)
- Bond (97 Results)
- Bond (97 Results)
- Gabe (4 Results)
- bond (97 Results)
- bond (97 Results)
- dan schreiber (34 Results)
- gillespie (129 Results)
- Men Against Sexual Violence MASV (1 Results)
- 8684 (1 Results)
- Men Against Sexual Violence MASV (1 Results)
- great cover up doug hoepker (13 Results)
- great cover up (589 Results)
- C-U Circle (32 Results)
- 4130 (1 Results)
- elsinore (123 Results)
- elsinore (123 Results)
Facebook
Twitter
Full Site
Events Calendar
I joined on 09-09-09 after living here over a year, and having to listen to my dad tell me how his best friend is, like, #27 or something crazy like that, and how said friend never lived further than 50 feet from the Illini Inn while going…