Evanston Farmers Market

The Evanston Farmers Market, Saturday mornings at Oak Avenue and University Place, will reopen its Home Grown Artist area in mid-June for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, along with monthly chef demos, the Spud Club for kids and many musical groups.

New vendors this year are: Simply MI Farm of South Haven, MI; Thao Family Garden of Richmond, WI; Luciana’s Kitchen, offering everything from empanadas to miga sandwiches, prononos, alfajores and cookies.

Miss Microgreen. Ten microgreens including Broccoli, Savoy cabbage, wasabi mustard and green daikon radish are grown in Lake Forest under natural sunlight, harvested, freeze-dried and immediately bottled. Never dehydrated, they retain their antioxidant density, so that all you need is ¼ teaspoon in milk, yogurt, coffee eggs – even a martini!

Shady Dan's Hot Sauces, Evanston. When your father is an MIT-educated chemical engineer whose spice rack lists the molecular structure in each bottle, you think about hot sauce in terms of maximizing the gain for minimal pain. That is, how much heat is enough to release endorphins and make you feel good without the burn you hate (or the milk to cool it down). Shady Dan’s three sauces vary in intensity. Chili’s Last Stand is a perfect chili-based sauce, 4/10 on the heat scale. Hab Country is 6/10 and habanero-based, for those with tolerance. And Little Shady’s is sweeter, a lot of flavor, but minimal heat, 2/10 ($9 5-oz bottle).

The Naked Truffle, Evanston. offers bold new flavors and chocolate ingredients sourced to put people and planet first. Founder and owner Stefan Markov is a classically trained chef who cooked for the Governeur General of Canada and the French embassy, then at BOKA, Restaurant Michael (now Aboyer) in Winnetka and Restaurant Valor in Glencoe. Taking a step back, he decided to begin working with chocolate flavors he had grown to love, from Tanzania’s acidic and intense cocoa bitterness to Mexico’s spicy and woody notes to the sweetness of Ghana.

MIndful Bakery Cafe, Ravenswood. “Mindful” fits this bakery, because everything it makes is gluten-free and vegan, so you don’t have to think about diet restrictions or allergies before you enjoy their products. The bakery seeks the highest quality ingredients possible, “because we think that life’s too short for cardboard baked goods." And, it is committed to sustainability and social responsibility. All its packaging is biodegradable and recyclable. Leftovers go to local food banks.

-Suzanne Hanney