Kahan, Kinnikinnick and the Misfits
Five old washing machines lined up outside a barn is a strange sight indeed. But when you look inside at the empty tub, you realize that these are really just oversized salad spinners for drying leafy greens just picked and washed in the field.. This is when you know you are on a different kind of farm.
Dave Cleverdon, owner of Kinnikinnick Farm, came to farming after years spent working in the rough and tumble world of Chicago politics getting outsiders elected in a machine run city. He also spent time working in the civil rights movement and did a stint on The Chicago Board of Trade. He calls himself and his workers “misfits with an incredible sense of agency” whenever he considers the kind of person who would take on the work of organic farming.
Dave fell in love with growing vegetables when he bought a weekend house in Wisconsin. The garden he started soon turned into what Dave called “an insane idea” of buying 170-acre farm on the Kinnikinnick Creek in Caledonia, Illinois. The farm started slowly with Dave and his wife Susan living in a trailer on the land as they readied the buildings and let the land show them the way it should be worked. They made mistakes, growing too much variety, planting at the wrong time, and trying to grow difficult crops like corn, eggplant and cucumbers. (too many insects to fight without chemical help). Eventually they got the rhythm right and figured out how to get from seed to market with an efficiency that has kept him busy and growing for 14 years.
The farm’s philosophy is simple: deliver beautiful vegetables to market and compost the rest. Dave takes great care to cool and hydrate all his most sensitive products as fast as possible to keep not only their beautiful color and but also, and most importantly, their superior taste. His arugula has a fragrance and taste that make it practically jump out of a bowl, and his asparagus is so good straight from the ground that it’s hard to stop eating it. Dave’s eye for detail, love of his crops’ freshness, and big personality have made him a favorite supplier to some of Chicago’s best restaurants like Paul Kahan’s Blackbird.
