Don't Miss the Good Food Festival & Conference: March 13-15

If you are making thoughtful food choices, love shopping at farmers markets and want to know where your food comes from, then the Good Food Festival is for you. Celebrating its 10 Year Anniversary, the Good Food Festival & Conference is the oldest sustainable, local food festival, trade show, and conference in the country - and it happens right here in your city!

As a strong proponent of healthier, whole, local foods and sustainable farmers, I've been involved with FamilyFarmed.org the past few years helping them promote the Festival, and I hope you'll consider coming out this year.

Good Food Festival & Conference
March 13-15 at UIC Forum
725 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago

The Saturday Festival is family-friendly and packed with DIY workshops, CSA farms and celebrity chef demos featuring Rick Bayless, Paul Virant, Erling Wu-Bower and Jason Vincent. If you are a financier or accredited investor, you might look at the Thursday Financing & Innovation Conference which works to match funding with farmers and local food producers to grow the food economy. And if you're a local food business yourself (or know someone who is!), Friday's Trade Day connects farmers and food producers with trade buyers. Friday is also the day for anyone interested in urban ag and school food policy discussions.

Here are just a few of Saturday's Festival offerings to entice you:

• Urban Farm Bus Tour - offsite morning bus tour of four of the city's innovative urban farms
• Good Food Master Class: Brew Your Own Beer
• The Locapour's Cocktail Bar - learn to make your own bitters, syrups and infusions from your farmers market purchases
• Focus On Ancient Grains - we can get back to eating and cooking with heirloom, whole grains 
• Good Food Master Class: Butchery and Home Curing with Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn
• Food Co-ops 101 – I’ll be moderating this panel to answer all your co-op questions
• The Good Food Commons – 59 amazing micro-sessions for you to dip your toe into everything from canning to gardening, to making yogurt to composting and even info on keeping backyard goats!
• Also, gratuitous mentions for baby chicks and BACON SAUSAGE! (Good Food Court)

And of course there's lots of delicious food and tasty samples!

Speaking of eating, Friday night's Localicious party is awesome and pairs Chicago’s premier chefs who value local food sourcing with farmers for an evening of delicious food, craft beer and cocktails! Join me there!

Tickets purchased in advance online are greatly discounted.

Buy online and save: http://goodfoodfestivals.com

Grant Kessler is a food photographer in Chicago, obsessed with eating well, cooking with fresh, whole foods and shrinking the distance his food travels. Grant is marketing director for FamilyFarmed and the Good Food Festival & Conference, spreading the word about their mission and events. He is also a Steering Committee member at Chicago Cooperative. Grant blogs at myfoodshed.com and explores the food system through One Hundred Meals.com.