Bingo no more

Dear Veggie Bingo fans –

We’re sorry to yank the cards out from under you, but due to some unforeseen circumstances we are canceling the remaining weeks of Veggie Bingo,  which was slated to run Wednesdays at the Hideout through September 29. We hope to return soon (or next year) with a bigger and better bingo game in hand. In the meantime, check out hideoutchicago.com and/or veggiebingo.wordpress.com for updates.

Thanks to all for your support and enthusiasm this summer — more soon!

Love,

The Hideout and NeighborSpace

Altgeld-Sawyer Corner Farm

Not sure what community gardening can do for your neighborhood? Here’s a little visual. Before.

And after. This is the lovely Altgeld-Sawyer Corner Farm on, der, the corner of Altgeld and Sawyer in Logan Square. The year-old farm is a collaboration between the youth program at nearby Christopher House, the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College, and the neighbors. In addition to growing vegetables, the gardeners also grow plants to make paper and natural dyes. They have big plans, which you can read more about here.

And here’s what they have to say for themselves, in their own words:

“We as individuals, as a community, started this as an experiment.  ASCF is a safe corner and a place to meet our neighbors where we can work shoulder to shoulder.  A safe place for youth to learn about food and to play!  A place where we can learn how to supplement our incomes with food.  A way to give back to a neighborhood that gives us all so much.  A place where the art can be experienced and practiced — a way to create and support a sustainable neighborhood ecologically and sociologically.  Are you our neighbor? Come on by!”

Nice.

Bingo #10: Night of the naan-wich

The whole city’s got food truck fever of late, and I guess I’m not immune. Last weekend, idling in my car while a friend ran an errand at Chicago and Ashland, I was thrilled when the Gaztro-Wagon pulled up next to me at the light.

Driver Matt Maroni waved at me. I waved back — and then blurted out, “You guys should come to the Hideout on Wednesday! We have lots of hungry people!”

“What time?” he hollered back.

“6 to 8, every Wednesday night! We have bingo games!” I replied. (To self, in head, “Shut up! You sound like such a hopeless dork right now.”)

“We’ll be there!” he shouted. And then the light turned green and he drove away.

Well. Imagine my surprise when he actually showed up. (I did Twitter — or tweet, whatev.– to confirm, identifying myself as “the crazy lady yelling at you out of the Jeep on Ashland.” But, still.) It confirmed my faith in the power of social networking the old-fashioned way, unplugged and face to face. Or at least vehicle to vehicle.

I promised Maroni a hungry crowd and the bingo stalwarts did not let me down. He showed up just as the grill ran cold, and players charged the truck for boar belly naan-wiches and oatmeal pies.

The Gaztro-Wagon isn’t really a mobile kitchen, as city law still prohibits any actual food prep — including simple slicing, scooping, or spreading — from happening on board. Rather, the food is prepared in the outfit’s Edgewater storefront, and then packed up and kept warm on the truck. Thus, the menu is limited to easily transportable fare like the signature “naan-wiches,” high-end fixins wrapped in pieces of chewy naan bread. I opted for a rich short-rib ‘wich served with peppers and pickled red onions. It was fantastic.

And while I saw later on the Twitter that one diner thought the potato, pesto, and arugula naan-wich was bland, Anastasia could not stop raving about hers.

And Beckett gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to the chocolate pie. Or, he would have if his hands weren’t occupied making sure no one snatched it away from him for a bite

So, on behalf of all of Veggie Bingo, thanks very, very much to Maroni and co. for following through on one loony streetcorner request. And, will you come back next week?

Now, oh yes, the bingo! There was a swell turnout for caller Lawrence Peters, who has the distinction of being our first-ever caller last year and is to date the only person in Veggie Bingo history to call a game from the end of the bar, rather than the stage. This time, he commanded the stage, and the bingo cage, dispensing prizes of honey, hot sauce, beer, and vegetables with all the charm for which he is known.

Thanks to the generous gardeners at the Bowmanville Garden, we had lots of supplemental prizes. Jenny here took home a beautiful glass hummingbird feeder (“hummingbirds not included”), and they also provided gardening journals and several environmentalism- and gardening-themed books, some of which we still have and will be using as prizes in the coming weeks. Thanks Bowmanville!

I’m on vacation the following two weeks, but I’m leaving things in the capable hands of the Hideout,  VB assistant Shaindy Robeson, and our all-star callers. On the 25th the bingo stage will be claimed by acupuncturist Claire Mooney and real estate assistant Sarah Frier, who used to team-call bingo at the California Clipper. Our caller the following week, on September 1, is the lovely Megan Larmer, of the Chicago Raritites Orchard Project.

Proceeds from next week’s bingo benefit the Altgeld Sawyer Corner Farm; September 1 we welcome the Peterson Garden Project. Photos and more information on both of those endeavors to come soon.

And …. that’s all for this longwinded post. See you in September!

Veggie Bingo: Road trip edition, part two

Sunday in Youngstown started off appropriately enough with a little light farm labor, as a work crew consisting of me and a four-year-old girl harvested potatoes and carrots from our host’s bountiful backyard. We followed that up with a quick trip to the public pool, whose snack bar, declared our 10-year-old escort, was “the shit.” And then, corn dogs digested and sunscreen washed off, we headed to the Lemon Grove. Game on!

The Lemon Grove is a cute, year-old cafe, bar and gallery/performance space that owner Jacob Harver converted from a long-vacant pharmacy smack in the middle of ghostly downtown Youngstown. As he told the Vindicator last year, “There’s a great misconception in the area that downtown is unsafe. But it is safe, and we have a great community business down here. There’s a resurgence. People are looking for places with character, and downtown Youngstown is full of character.”

We at Veggie Bingo can’t speak to all of downtown, but we can speak for the awesome Lemon Grove. On Sunday night, it was sure full of characters.

Chief among them? Youngstown mayor Jay Williams, above, who hit the trifecta in 2005 when he became the city’s youngest-ever mayor, its first African-American mayor, and its first-ever independent mayor. Mayor Williams was our first bingo caller of the night and he acquitted himself gamely. I even got him to crack a couple jokes!

And, as you might infer from the mention of “our first caller,” we structured this bingo game a bit differently than we do in Chicago. In Y-Town each individual game was led by a different caller, most of them leaders in the local foods, gardening, and community development community. Each took the mike to give a little spiel about their organization, and then called a game, with a little help from me. Above is farmer Joe Pedaline, of Early Road Gardens, who came up with his own veggie-themed bingo categories. “B-7! … that’s BASIL – 7. “

Not to be outdone, Jim Converse, founder of the Northside Farmer’s market, came up with his own list of themed categories, though his were more … action-oriented. “O -70! …. ORGANIZE to work for change! That’s O-70.”

Here, Jacob adjusts the overhead projection while I explain the next game — four corners — to the crowd and to caller Rick Popovich, host of  ”Jazz Sofa” on WYSU who, as one might expect, had a killer radio voice. To Rick’s left is Suzannah, who was wrangling prizes and keeping score for the evening.

Wait, you say … “Keeping score?”

That was the other adjustment we made. In Youngstown, not only did individual winners take home the usual delicious Veggie Bingo prizes — baskets of fresh vegetables, a gallon of maple syrup, loaves of zucchini bread — but each winner also earned a point for the garden of their choosing. At the end of the night, the garden with the most points took home half of the door, with the other half going to Grow Youngstown.

Frankly, I was worried this would be insanely complicated, but it worked out pretty well. Though we wound up having to throw in a tie-breaker round, which put a whole lot of power in the hands of one winner, it proved to be a great way to get the gardeners invested in the outcome and build team spirit. Kudos to Elsa Higby, who came up with this scheme — and kudos to Elsa all around, for wrangling all the callers and the prizes and just generally being a swell leader and hostess.

Here’s one of our big winners, with a basket of farm-fresh produce from, I believe, Red Basket Farm. Many, many thanks are due to all of our prize donors: Northside Farmer’s Market, Charles Hatch, Jubilee Gardens, Landmark Restaurant, Early Road Gardens, Red Basket, Grow Youngstown, Mary June Tartan, and Samie Winik.

And, while we’re at it, I should also thank the other callers, most of whom managed to escape Irma’s camera. In addition to Mayor Williams, and Mssrs. Pedaline, Converse, and Popovich, we had Ted Vagas, of the Men’s Garden Club; Jean Engle, from Treez Pleease; and Presley Gillespie, head of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. You all were terrific!

When it was all over we repaired to the appropriately-named Avalon Gardens for pizza — the only joint in town that was open and still serving food at 9 PM on Sunday night, whch tells you something right there about what Youngstown is up against.

This last visual is, I fear, a bit vacation photo-ey. (L-R that’s Suzannah, young Sophia, me, Elsa, and Mary June.) But, honestly, this trip was a blast — and while it was much about having fun and raising money (which we did, to the tune of about $380), it was also, forgive me, about building relationships. Many of the gardeners and activists who came out on Sunday had never met in person. For them, it was a chance to put faces to names; to make connections and talk a little shop. For me it was a chance to see what other people are doing to advance the understanding and practice of urban agriculture in a community that has a lot in common with Chicago and yet is working with a set of radically challenging circumstances.

It was inspiring, and I hope we get to do it again, soon.

Veggie Bingo: Road trip edition, part 1

On Friday, August 7, my friend Irma and I loaded up a rented Mazda with cards, balls, and cage and hit the highway. Our destination: Youngstown, Ohio. Our mission: Veggie Bingo.

This adventure came about thanks to a probably unduplicable set of international coincidences, but the short version of the backstory is that our mutual friend Suzannah Tartan – born and raised in Youngstown, now a resident of Tokyo, and this summer on a barnstorming tour of the States — cooked up the whole thing as a way of both raising money for Y-Town community gardens and getting Irma and I to come visit her at her mom’s in Ohio.

Halfway between Chicago and New York City, Youngstown was, in its 20th-century heyday, a land of plenty — a booming steel town whose captains of industry built sprawling brick mansions in the hills of the Mahoning Valley. It’s also plenty diverse: in earlier parts of the last century jobs in the robust steel and coal industries drew thousands of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and Greece, and sparked a steady influx of African-American families from the Jim Crow south.

But then, the bottom fell out of the steel industry. In 1977 Youngstown Sheet and Tube abruptly shut down, putting 5,000 people out of work in one day. Over the next few years, the rest of the mills closed, and the population took a dive, from a 1960s high of 165,000 to a current count of 80,000 or so. Today, boarded-up houses and weedy lots share blocks with once-grand Victorian homes and crumbling Gilded Age mansions. In August, the landscape is shockingly lush — as if the forces of urbanization have finally said “uncle” and ceded control of the terrain back to Mother Nature. A CNN Money article from 2008 — appropriately titled The Incredible Shrinking City — gives a snapshot of the city’s roller-coaster history, and hints at some of the innovative strategies for re-investment that, two years later, helped get Irma and I on the road.

Much as in Detroit, and other Rust Belt cities that never quite managed to diversify their economic base, Youngstown has a lot of vacant land. That sign up there? Here’s a closeup.

So, much as in Detroit, though perhaps not on such a sweeping scale, the city’s looking to urban agriculture — farming, beekeeping, orchards, community gardens — as a way to repurpose all that empty land. Grow Youngstown, a nonprofit working to develop community gardens and increase Youngstown’s access to healthy, locally produced food, is one of several organizations in town doing a lot of creative work towards that goal. Currently, they’re working to create a local food policy council; as of August 19 they’d formed a core council of 10, with the goal of seating a council of 21 people by January.

Gro-Yo serves as an educator and marketer for a 70-member CSA that draws on three farms from around the region, and has have drops in inner-city neighborhoods dubbed “food deserts” in Youngstown and Warren. The organization also provides administration, design assistance, and organizing assistance to the Fairgreen Neighborhood Garden (pictured above). This year Fairgreen has 12 community gardeners and 30 beds, plus a cachement system, worm composting, and beehives.  The group’s next big project is slated to be a food and yard waste composting center within the city of Youngstown. And it was Grow Youngstown that Suzannah hooked me up with as a new Veggie Bingo partner. On Sunday, August 9, we staged a superfun bingo game at the Lemon Grove Cafe downtown, raising $380, half of which went to Grow Youngstown and half of which went to a Y-Town garden. But, that was Sunday — I’ll get to that later.

On Saturday, Suzannah’s mother, Mary June Tartan, sent us on a tour of local gardens. Mary June was for years director of housing for the city of Youngstown; now she’s retired and on the board the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, whose Lots of Green program turns vacant lots into gardens, pocket parks, bird habitats … you name it. Their newest and most ambitious project is ongoing in the city’s west-side Idora neighborhood. Idora was once home to an amusement park known as “Youngstown’s Million-Dollar Playground;” now, abandoned homes outnumber habitable ones. YNDC is in the process of tearing down the abandoned buildings and either turning them into gardens or seeding them with native plants in the hopes that the land will one day become integrated into neighboring Mill Creek Park which, at 2,800 acres, is the second-largest urban park in the country.

We also checked out Jubilee Gardens, a growing project affiliated with Youngstown’s Second Harvest Food Bank. At Jubilee we could only peer through the fence at what looked like a bumper crop of corn and other veggies, but we also stopped by a lovely, open little garden on Baldwin Street, near Wick Park. Here, the gardeners were raising chard, kale, broccoli, peppers, and more. I couldn’t resist taking some beauty shots:

We also stopped by the Northside Farmers’ Market, both to shop and to tell people about the next day’s bingo game. Of course, we were out of flyers by then, so our marketing strategy consisted of going around to every stall and telling the vendors about it, while waving our one grubby flyer around for visual interest. But, it seemed to work OK. About half of them, to my shock, had even heard whispers about it already.

The market is another small but heartening Youngstown success story — when he started it up  eight years ago, manager Joe Converse had to go out to area farms and buy produce to re-sell himself in the city. Now, a dozen or so farmers and producers set up every Saturday outside the Unitarian church on Elm Street, and the market accepts food stamps and WIC coupons, which helps them draw a racially and economically diverse crowd. And, frankly, made me wish farmers markets in Chicago sold pulled pork sandwiches.

This post is long enough already, so I’ll save the actual excitement of Veggie Bingo — with the mayor! — for tomorrow. In the meantime, I just had to squeeze in this last shot. Which says probably all there is to say about why supporting community gardening and healthy local food systems are worth driving seven hours across I-80 in a day.

Photos (top to bottom): Center for Working Class Studies, Youngstown State University; random Web postcard; stu_spivak; Elsa Higby. All else that follow by author.

Bingo #9: Beef, bread and bingo

This photo doesn’t really do it justice, but it was crowded this week at Veggie Bingo.  Perhaps a detail shot will help?

Like I said. Crowded. Kudos to all the creative bingo-ers who carved out playing spaces on every window ledge, bench, and kneecap they could find. And apologies to all who had to snack on mustard and relish sandwiches — we had no idea we would be feeding half of Chicago and, well, our hot dog budget only goes so far.

I can’t say for sure what the magic factor was that brought everyone out to celebrate August 11 with a few hearty rounds of bingo. But our caller Cleetus Friedman may have had something to do with it. Cleetus is the owner of City Provisions, a sustainability-minded catering and events company which stages a series of super  farm dinners each summer, for which sweaty city folk pile into a biodiesel bus and head out to the country to drink local beers and learn about different farms and artisanal producers. He’s also really funny.

Or, maybe the attraction was Sarah Kavage? I wrote about Sarah (above left, covered with flour) and her Industrial Harvest project for the Reader last week. That story can be found here — but, in a nutshell, she is a Seattle artist and urban planner who’s in Chicago for the summer to execute an elaborate art project that involves trading on the wheat futures market, buying 1,000 bushels of commodity wheat, having it ground into flour, and then giving it away to all comers. It’s a project that connects the dots between the financial markets, the history of Chicago and the Board of Trade, and the food we eat, and I think it’s really cool. She set up shop at Veggie Bingo this week and dispensed 50 pounds of all-purpose to the bread-baking masses.

But, whatever the attraction, we sure seemed to have a lot of  happy winners in the house. Sylvia Schmeisel, from the Lurie Garden, was superexcited about her six-pack of Krankshaft Kolsch from Metropolitan Brewing.

Kelli Cousins took home the grand prize of a bag of fresh produce from Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks — and a bonus bag of chard and basil on top of that, donated by Kent Lambert, who gardens at a garden in Humboldt Park’s Growing Pride network of gardens, the beneficiaries of this week’s bingo monies.

Did I mention that Cleetus brought some prizes too? Ryan — or, Brian? — above took home $70 worth (seriously) of local, sustainably raised beef. Ryan/Brian could not stop talking about how stoked he was to win a big ol’ box of MEAT. At the end of the night he gave me a hug. Thanks Ryan/Brian! Come back soon and maybe you’ll win a pig or something. Veggie Bingo is nothing if not flexible.

I neglected to get the name of this winner, but she took home the extra-special grand prize. Cleetus, among his many projects, is in the middle of opening up a City Provisions deli at 1816 W. Wilson in Ravenswood. He hopes to open by the end of the month and, as a gesture of faith in his construction timeline, offered this ginormous bag (made from a recycled coffee sack), which the lucky winner gets to bring to the deli and fill with $50 worth of food. Cleetus, seriously — you rule.

So, it may have been hot and crowded, and the hot dogs may have been scarce, but everyone seemed to be in high spirits. I know I was.

Next week we welcome country singer and washboardist Lawrence Peters back to the bingo mic. Lawrence was our guinea pig last year, gamely calling the first Veggie Bingo ever, before we’d figured out what the hell we were doing. This one should run more smoothly. We hope. If nothing else, he won’t have to perch on the end of the bar with the bingo cage.

Bingo next week benefits the Bowmanville Garden in lovely … Bowmanville! Don’t know where that is? I’ll have more on the garden up soon, as well as a recap of last weekend’s crazy-fun  road trip to teach a crew of politicians, gardeners, farmers, and a jazz DJ how to get their bingo on in Youngstown, Ohio. Stay tuned.

Bingo #8: We defeat Prop. 8!

OK, not really. But still — the mood at bingo was giddy this week as the California Supreme Court struck down that state’s irrational and bigoted ban on same-sex marriage. “Just as soon as this bingo thing is over, we’re running off to get gay married!,” hollered a jubilant Edward Thomas-Herrera (left, at the bingo cage).

Happily, Edward and his partner David Kodeski managed to keep it together to push through a great round of bingo classics, with games that included some old friends the “tortoise” and the “martini glass” as well as newbies like the “roman numeral 10.” (“You know — it’s an ‘X’.. with extra lines around it.”) and, of course, the “8″.

Here, Chris shows off his jar of pickled peppers from the Fulton Street Flower and Vegetable Garden.

And here’s an action shot of our grand prize winner, whose name, unfortunately, has escaped me. Those veggies are hot off the Fresh Picks truck — big thanks to Shelly Herman and Paul, the FP driver, for making sure we got our delivery in time, despite the fact that they things were running very late on their end. Support your local, organic delivery service! They go the extra mile. Literally.

This week also saw the return of the extra-large frankfurters. Did you know that Vienna Beef franks come in several sizes? You wouldn’t know just by looking at the boxes, which, at Restaurant Depot, are distinguished only by one teeny little number. These above are the #4 franks. Your regular hot dog-sized franks? Those would be #8s. Learn something new every day.

Here, hungry people patiently queue up to get their hands on one of those monster dogs. We threw up the tent at the last minute, when it looked like we were in for hours of showers — but then the storm passed, leaving us just with wet benches and, well, a very attractive blue tent taking up a lot of space.

Next week’s bingo benefits the Humboldt Park garden club Growing Pride (more about them later), and we have a new caller in the mix — the multitalented Cleetus Friedman, of City Provisions farm dinners and catering fame. Cleetus also has a secret (or, maybe  just secret to me) background in improv and stand-up. Or, as the Sun-Times called him, “the finest politically incorrect white Jewish ambisexual hip-hop artist around.”  Cleetus made soup for us earlier this winter, and he’s just an all-around good guy.

And, if that weren’t enough, Sarah Kavage, whose Industrial Harvest project I wrote about for this week’s Reader, will be on hand to talk up her project and distribute some of her flour. Got a question about the futures market? The history of the Chicago Board of Trade? The vomitoxin specs for commodity grade wheat? She’s your lady.

And, now, I’m off to beautiful Youngstown, Ohio, to lead a Veggie Bingo fundraiser to benefit Grow Youngstown. In the Mahoning Valley area on Sunday? Come on by!

We’ll be back next week with tales to tell from the road. Until then, then.

7000 South Merrill Community Garden

I managed to round up a bit more information about the garden at 7000 South Merrill, which is, as the sign would indicate, affiliated with O’Keeffe Elementary School — though it half a block south of the actual school grounds.

According to one of the gardeners, the garden has been working with two ecological organizations, including the Midwest Ecological Landscaping Association, to conduct training and gardening sessions with the team of community and student gardeners. Earlier in the summer, they planted cherry tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, and peppers.

Next up: Compost bins, which are being built with the help of garden specialist Lynn Dement, working with student gardeners from the school.

On Sunday, July 18, students planted a special tall grass and flower arrangement for the memorial service for an O’Keeffe student; they also installed this memorial stone. There’s a great deal more about Troy Law, who was murdered four years ago, along with his mother, in this Tribune story covering the memorial service. Warning, it is grim — though also quite moving.

The Tribune story also gives a good feel for the garden, a place that reporter Nara Schoenberg describs as “something of a refuge in a deceptively quiet and well-kept neighborhood plagued with drug dealing and gang violence.

“Maybe because of the way they were introduced to the garden,” she writes, “Troy’s former classmates have a special attachment to it. Gangbangers respect the garden, and neighbors pick up after themselves. The O’Keeffe students have taken their role seriously, she says, even telling teenagers what is and is not allowed in their space.

“You can sit here, but don’t smoke,” the grade school kids say emphatically, and the big kids listen.”

I love that.

Bingo #7: The return of Cowboy Jim

Last week saw the return of one of our most popular callers from last year, Cowboy Jim Cooper, who is perhaps better known as the bass-playing third of the band Baby Teeth. Jim claims to “live to call bingo!” — and last week he was all winning patter and corny jokes. The crowd ate it up!

Also eaten up: The array of amazing treats baked by Anastasia Hinchsliff as supplemental prizes. The monies from this week’s bingo go to benefit the garden she runs at Oscar Mayer Magnet School, and she pulled out all the stops to make sure her people both showed up and were well fed. From left, those are some triple-salted caramel cupcakes, four loaves of ciabatta, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, and a mixed-berry pie.

Let’s get a closer look at those cupcakes, eh? Note the salted-caramel tuiles — or “flames,” in the coinage of one of her kids — shooting out of the top. Girlfriend is one mad baker.

We had a full, and rowdy house, inside and out — and the threatened thunderstorm somehow passed us by.

And, two Bens on the grill are apparently better than one — especially as ravenous bingo players, unsatiated by the cupcakes, scarfed up our entire stash of hot dogs, sausages, and tofu pups in something like an unprecedented 40 minutes flat. Slow down there, people — there’s plenty to go around.

This coming week sees another returning caller from last year, the ever-excellent David Kodeski (who was also a grand prize winner earlier this summer!). Last year he team-called with the charming Diana Slickman. This year one of the BoyGirlBoyGirl boys joins him on the stage, the dapper Edward Thomas-Herrera (aka “World’s Most Famous Salvadoran-American”).

Proceeds from this week’s bingo go to the 7000 South Merrill Community Garden, in South Shore, about which I will have more to say as soon as I do a little research.

In the meantime, two bits of exciting news:  Last week Veggie Bingo was featured in the Sun-Times, in a nice piece by reporter Misha Davenport. And, this weekend, Veggie Bingo is hitting the road! We’re taking the balls and heading to Youngstown, Ohio, to lead a few rounds of bingo at a fundraiser organized by Grow Youngstown, a driving force in that city’s efforts to promote greening and urban ag.  The MAYOR of Y-Town is slated to be our first caller. I’m a little nervous.

Come out and talk me down this Wednesday from 6-8 PM at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia. See you there!

Bingo #6: Dogs and tiaras

Or, should I say,  Night of the Two-headed Bingo Caller?

Those callers, Sheila Sachs and Jen McLaughlin, acquitted themselves with expected style, bringing tiaras and a team sensibility to the bingo stage.

They also brought visual aids! Useful, as some of their games were masters-level complicated — like the double-header “little ‘O’-into-tortoise” combination that left more than a few gamers abandoning their cards in favor of their beers.

Luckily, they were able to enlist some helpers. Amanda took charge of making sure the patio people understood the game of the minute. (Here, she models “martini glass.”)

Camille took charge of Arthur — not pictured, as he was being a Bad Dog. Barking not helpful, Arthur! We’re not going to give you your own bingo night!

We had excellent weather and a solid turnout on behalf of Pilsen’s  Jardin de las Mariposas. I’m sorry I failed to get a picture of garden delegate Virginia, who took the mike for a minute to say a brief, heartfelt thanks on behalf of all her fellow Mariposa-ites.

Next week’s bingo sees the return of Cowboy Jim Cooper of Baby Teeth. He’s practicing his patter as I type. And, he’d better be because when I say “next week?” I mean “today.”

Proceeds benefit the Garden Project at Oscar Mayer Magnet School, a two-year old initiative about which garden organizer (and Hideout bartender) Anastasia says: “The sole purpose of the garden is to allow kids to make their own decisions: What seeds to plant, where to plant, how the garden is to appear. Our gardens do not look perfect and some of the plants not even be in the right location. But that is part of the joy of watching kids ages 3 to 15 get excited about plants and gardening.”

So come out this wee — er, TODAY — and discover the Joy of Gardening. And Bingo. Did I mention Anastasia’s making ciabatta, berry pie, and triple-salted caramel cupcakes as prizes? Well, I did now.

See you soon!