Eating Local

Friday night my husband and I made it down to the hot new restaurant in our town called June. The philosophy of the restaurant is local, organic, sustainable food served in a fine dining setting. To say that the food was good would be an understatement- it was sensational. And the best part for me was how happily they accomodated my food allergies! Not a single complaint from the staff and the chef went out of his way to make sure my entree had a sauce with it since I couldn't eat the sauce offered with it on the menu. I kept telling the waiter I would happy to eat the meat dry, but the chef wouldn't hear of it. How great is that?!

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera with me to take pictures of my meal for you, but I will try to walk you through it best I can. My appetizer was their signaturre beet salad:


Roasted candy striped and yellow beets, pickled red beets micro fines herbs, confited blood oranges, citrus vinaigrette.

My gallbladder especially like that one. :) And the beets were perfectly sweet and luscious. Here is a picture from the Chicago NBC 5 review of the restaurant.


The color alone is amazing, and the three beets each had their own distinctive flavor. If you've never had beets before, this is a great "intro to beets" dish.

For my entree I had to have the chef pull elements from several different dishes to make it "safe" for me to eat. I opted for the Prairie Pride Farm Berkshire pork loin with purple artichokes and mushrooms (can't remember the kind), and fingerling potatoes. The pork was suppose to have an apple sauce on it, but because I am allergic the chef topped everything with an aged sherry vinegriatte, which was a wonderful taste of sweet and sour to go with the meal. Had it not been inappropriate I would have considered licking my plate.

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to get a dessert:

Caramel Panna Cotta, coffee caramel, housemade biscotti doughnuts, grape jam.

It was not friendly to my gallbladder whatsoever because of all the heavy cream in it, but boy was it tasty. And to save myself from getting sick from eating it all I made my husband eat quite a few bites of the dessert.

Eating local is my new focus to go along with my healthy eating, and it is so great to have a restaurant like June in my little city in the middle of a cornfield. My husband and I can't wait to go back there again and discover how great local food truly is, again, and again and again.