The Green City Market Harvest Celebration

This year, I have the honor of being a part of the host committee for the annual Green City Market Harvest Celebration--and I want you to be there.  All of you.  The single most important event of the year, the harvest celebration is filled with delicious chef tastings, market inspired cocktails, and local wine and beer.  Attendees can also bid on live and silent auctions, featuring:

• Weekend experience on Burton's Maplewood Farm including a farm dinner, culinary adventures, and a chance to tap your own maple syrup.
• A day in Frontera Test Kitchen for two including opportunities to create, prepare, and taste recipes from Top Chef Master Rick Bayless.
• Weekend get-away including a Kentucky Bourbon tasting and Goat Cheese excursion at Capriole Farms.

This event takes place at Mettawa Manor, the beautiful country estate and gardens of Ms. Donna LaPietra and Mr. Bill Kurtis.  Easily one of the most gorgeous areas in Illinois.

The house and grounds were built in 1927 as a family compound. Donna and Bill are only the second owners in the manor’s rich history and have been working for the past eighteen years to refurbish some garden areas and create new ones. The centerpiece is a walled English-style garden with forty-foot perennial borders on either side of a sunken lawn that leads to a spring walk and rose room centered on an old fountain. Outside the east gate is a golden garden and an orchard/meadow bordered by a fenced potager, cutting garden, and circular herb garden. The sixty-five-acre property has two ponds, a woodland tree house, a fifteen-acre prairie, a parkland of specimen trees, and is surrounded by a newly reclaimed oak-hickory forest. The most recent additions include a bronze garden, an ornamental lily pool, aqua-theatre, a three-tiered mound, a grass labyrinth with central fire pit, and a tree house overlook. This year’s Open Day will be celebrated with activities and festivities throughout the grounds.

As stunning as the scenery is, the food is even more magnificent.  Some of the best chefs in Chicago (which really means best chefs in the world) will be serving food inspired by the harvest.  The lineup includes:

• Judy Contino - Bittersweet
• Paul Fehribach - Big Jones
• Jason Hammel & Amelia Tschilds - Lula Cafe, Nightwood
• Kevin Hickey - Four Seasons Hotel
• Sandra & Mathieu Hall - Floriole Bakery
• Stephanie Izard - Girl and the Goat
• Flora Lazar - Flora Confections
• Allison & Rob Levitt - Mado
• Mark Payne - Ritz-Carlton
• Brad Phillips - LM Restaurant
• Pat Sheerin - Signature Room at the 95th
• Bruce Sherman - North Pond
• Nancy Silver - Snookelfritz Ice Cream
• Sarah Stegner & George Bumbaris - Prairie Fire, Prairie Grass Cafe
• Liz Tokarczyk - Limelight Catering
• Randy Zweiban - Province

Other than taking a stroll through the beautiful country, and knowing that no one is eating better than you, you'll be helping helping a great cause.  Of course, benefiting the best farmer's market in the country is admirable, but you'll also be helping me make amends.

I have been living with a shameful secret for the last 13 years.  In February of 1997, I assaulted Bill Kurtis.  It was a young and foolish thing to do, but there were extreme circumstances.  Cirque Ingenieux, one of the greatest spectacles I've ever seen, was visiting Chicago at the Rosemont for one week only, which overlapped my birthday--the perfect present.  It isn't often that there is something awesome to do during one of the most frigid, foul months of the year.

The only downside of the show is that it was long, especially for a 12 year old.  After the show's conclusion, I escaped my seat as quickly as possible, and went outside to be greeted by the winter air, which was refreshing after being in a furnace fueled by the crowd's body heat.  Then, I had to stretch.  And we all know, kids don't look when they stretch (or when doing anything really).  This is when, I backhanded Bill Kurtis.  The same Bill Kurtis hosting the harvest celebration; the same Bill Kurtis that beat Michael Phelps in a race.

My brother immediately stepped in and informed me of my folly.  I would never have dared stretch, had I known Bill Kurtis was standing near.  I apologized as best as a stuttering 12 year old could, but that doesn't always guarantee forgiveness from a king.  The only thing left to do was run.

After years of shameful exile, I met Bill again at the 2009 harvest celebration, shortly after winning a berkshire hog.  We shook hands, and looked each other in the eye.  He didn't recognize me as his past assailant, but I was still nervous in his presence.  My guilt had not yet been relinquished.  

As good as it feels to finally come clean about the past, I would feel even better if you came to the harvest celebration and made me look good in front of Bill Kurtis.  Show him that I'm not such a terrible person.  It's an unforgettable night of beautiful country, wonderful food, and great causes.  If interested, please contact me, or buy a ticket from the Green City Market administrative offices by calling (773) 880 - 1266.  If you're not available October 17, donations are gratefully appreciated.