Kitchen and Pantry Tent

Ensure organic products are included in your daily cooking by keeping an organized pantry. With a well-stocked larder and the best fresh ingredients,delicious meals are easy any time of day. Walk through the areas of a cooperative panty: the refrigerator, freezer, dry goods and essentials and learn what, how much, how long and where to keep all you need.  Join Jennifer Downing of Nourish, (nourishcooking.com) for this presentation and stock up on ideas, tips, and recipes for your own kitchen.

With a love for everything edible, the kitchen is the place Jennifer Downing is most at home. Her business, Nourish, affords her the opportunity to share her enthusiasm for teaching through small cooking classes, large presentations, and hosting trips focusing on fresh foods. Some of her specialty workshops include home cheese making, preserving, and sausage making. Jennifer’s vast food knowledge and involvement with local food policy organizations informs her delicious instruction. She fills her classes with useful techniques, tips and strategies that help her students nourish their lives and feed those they love. Jennifer lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with her husband, four kids, two dogs, seven backyard hens and a hive of honeybees. In her spare time, you may find her in the garden, reading, and writing about her many passions. To learn more about Jennifer's presentations, see nourishcooking.com or her personal blog, In the Yellow House.

There are few things that taste more like summer than a fresh basil pesto.  But "pesto" can take many more forms than the usual green number.  Stephanie Ricketts, pesto enthusiast, will show you how to make 4 different variations of this delectable spread.  You'll leave feeling inspired by all of the possibilities for one of life's tastiest condiments!

Stephanie Ricketts is an avid food lover. Between working as the Willy Street Co-op's Executive Assistant and Board Liaison, taking photographs at local farms, farmers markets, and restaurants and eating her way through her growing cookbook collection, Stephanie can happily say that most hours in her day are spent working with food. Local food system development, encouraging nourishing food choices and building community by breaking bread are her greatest passions—along with making a perfect pumpkin pie.

This demonstration will introduce people to the simple concepts associated with cheese making and offer them a visual experience of milk being transformed into curds. It used to be that every farmstead made their own cheese. Today many people are surprised that they can make cheese in their own kitchen. This demonstration will offer an opportunity to see how cheese is made and to sample several simple varieties that you can make in your home kitchen.

Linda Conroy is an herbalist as well as whole and wild food aficionado. Since apprenticing on two goat farms some 15 years ago, she has continued to make cheese in her own kitchen. Through classes as well as demonstrations, she has been inspiring other people to make cheese at home.  Linda is the proprietress of Moonwise Herbs, a community resource for earth centered skills, community building and handcrafted products. To find out more visit www.moonwiseherbs.com

Join Award winning chef, Michel Nischan for a delicious demonstration on making grilled stuffed chicken breasts, using Linda Conroy’s Pesto Cheese. Chef Nischan will delight your palate and inspire you to try this elegant dish at home.

Michel Nischan is CEO, Founder, and President of Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit dedicated to creating a more vibrant and equitable food system for all people. As the son of displaced farmers, Nischan grew up with a great appreciation and respect for local agriculture and those who work the land. He translated these childhood values into a career as a James Beard Award-winning chef, author and restaurateur, becoming a catalyst for change in the sustainable food movement. An Ashoka Fellow, Michel serves on the Board of Trustees for the James Beard Foundation, The Rodale Institute and The Center for Health and the Global Environment (Harvard Medical School).