Green City Market Chef's BBQ!

Every summer in Lincoln Park, Green City Market holds their fabulous Chef’s BBQ which features over 100 amazing Chicago chefs and their restaurants. Can you imagine?! I was there for the first time this year and absolutely loved it, so I thought the foodie in you should probably have a look.

Each chef/restaurant offers dishes that feature items from Green City Market. You probably already know how much I love this farmer’s market.  I try to get to it on Saturday mornings whenever I can. It’s so much fun.The Chef’s BBQ is all about eating local, supporting the market, their farmers and producers. All good things. That being said, it’s also a blast!  It’s $100 per person and I know that sounds like a lot to spend in one night, for me it is anyway, but I ate fabulous dishes from some of the best chefs in Chicago (and possibly on the planet) and it’s a fundraiser for the market so that helped me to justify the cost. So worth it!

Stephanie Izard of Girl and the Goat was there serving up goat tostadas (sadly, they ran out before we could try them), Carrie Nahabedian of Naha made an amazing wood-grilled chicken souvlaki, Mindy Segal of Hot Chocolate was dishing out crazy good icecream and Paul Kahan from Publican (also Blackbird, avec and Big Star) made fresh tortillas for his beef and blood sausage tacos:

I mean, seriously.  Look at that thing.

Sola gave us Kaluha pork, banana bread and crispy shallots. WOW!

With all of the excitement going on, I managed to forget to take pictures of most of the food I was eating.  But I did get a shot of the adorable Ina Pinkney of Ina’s:And also this guy whose booth consistantly had a line in front of it a mile long, which we happily waited in.

Yes that is Rick Bayless and yes he smiled at me (blush!) and yes his grilled squash with poblano cream, spicy serrano salsa and cilantro tacos were to die for.

Our taco was the very last taco of the night, and that seemed to make it even more special than it already was. So sad for the people in line behind us who watched us devour it and then lick the plate clean.

Oh my goodness. These hickory smoked baby back ribs with white corn bread and coleslaw from Lockwood were fall-off-the-bone crazy good!

676 Restaurant and Bar offered this lamb bacon, prairie honey and pea shoots spoon-y thing…..which was fun and tasty!

I’m guessing she’s the goddess.

Well, she’s a goodess to me anyway because she gave me some of these really yummy homemade pickles, and she let me take a picture of her chest! 

Hopefully some of you Chicagoans were there that night to experience this.  I actually ran into some of my foodie friends!

Hi Brett and Jen!

And we also ran into my friends from Edible Chicago, a magazine that is the voice of the farm to table movement.  Again, forgot to get a photo, but so nice to see you both!

Awww, I feel bad for the poor little guy up there too…….but boy was he tasty.

I went to this spectacular event with my friend Holly, whose brother Roger is the chef/owner of Socca Chicago and had a booth there.

When we arrived, Rog was wrist deep in swine.

He was offering a dish of smoked red whattle pig with pickled vegetables on grilled bread which was hands down, one of the best dishes of the night. SO YUMMY. And I’m not just saying that becasue he’s practically family.

Hi Hol!  Isn’t she cute? And so fashionable.

It was wicked hot on this late July evening, but not to worry (we didn’t!) because we had so many fun cocktails like these to choose from to make us forget we were melting.

The portions were really generous, so the sad part was that it was virtually impossible to sample everything.  But let’s be clear, I tried. 

Thank you, chefs. YOU ROCKED IT.

I really hope I’ve inspired you enough to get a ticket and go to this event next year if you’re in Chicago in July.  Such a perfect summer night.  It was definitely a highlight of my summer, second only to seeing this beauty on my way out: