As part of a new collaboration between chef Sarah Stegner and gardening maven Jeanne Nolan, North Shore residents can feast on rare garden delicacies starting with the Serpent Gourd of Sicily this summer and fall. 

Stegner, a James Beard Award-winning chef and co-founder of Northbrook's beloved Prairie Grass Cafe, is teaming up with Nolan, founder of The Organic Gardener to help their community better understand the terroir of the North Shore, and the culinary heritage of its residents with a series of special dishes using rare, locally grown heirloom veggies of the season. The gardener and the chef will choose vegetables that are culturally significant to North Shore residents, and bring them from farm to table within just a few square miles of the restaurant. 

Stegner and Nolan met more than 20 years ago through legendary sustainability activist and Green City Market founder Abby Mandel and bonded over their commitment to locally sourced sustainable foods. 

 “I feature local produce within the four-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and source directly from farmers when possible,” Stegner said. The chef’s local focus ensures fresher produce that retains more of its nutrients, and reduces reliance on fossil fuels to transport the food. Stegner supports farmers whose land management practices she thinks are exemplary.  

“When customers hear about my relationship with farmers, they often ask whether I’ve heard of a specific vegetable their grandparents grew, or something they remember from their childhood,” she said.  The chef loves seeking out vegetables her customers ask about and that evoke a sense of nostalgia. But sometimes they're very hard to find.  and that led Stegner to reach out to her friend for a collaboration.

Nolan founded The Organic Gardener in Northbrook in 2005 and has since installed over 1,000 gardens at people’s homes and businesses.

“Having beautiful, nutritious vegetable gardens shouldn’t be limited only to people with spare time and able bodies,” she said. 

Her full-service team can provide as much support and education as their clients need, from planning through harvest. They start by visiting a new client’s backyard with a sun tracking device to see which areas of the yard receive full sun and can support garden beds. Next they evaluate any physical limitations the client might have, and are happy to custom design gardens that, for example, don’t require bending down. And once clients choose their crops from an extensive plant list, Nolan and her team grow their seedlings in a Northbrook greenhouse and plant them in clients’ gardens.

 “We stake vegetables that need support, we bring and install the cages that go around your tomatoes, we bring and program the irrigation system, we prune and weed, and we inspect for slugs, molds, aphids, and anything else that can go wrong, and we treat for those with methods that are non-toxic and pollinator safe,” she said.

Nolan loves how much joy her gardens can bring to adults, but she especially appreciates that her clients’ children grow up knowing the lifecycle of plants, how pollinators and plants interact, and where their food comes from. 

While a garden center can tell you which seeds grow best in Zone 6a (the Chicago area), Nolan knows which greens, squash, cucumbers, and beans thrive best in our soils and show the greatest resistance to pests. 

Through rigorously testing different varieties of produce in over 1,000 local gardens and tracking her results, she has become an expert on the terroir and microclimate of the North Shore, and she uses this expertise to help her clients — many with less than green thumbs —  grow amazing and successful backyard crops. 

“We make having a beautiful and productive garden easy,” she said, noting that her team can even do harvesting. One client was recently floored by the sight of bespoke garlic bundles harvested from their garden and hanging on hooks in their mudroom, ready to share with friends and family. 

“I’ve always admired Chef Sarah’s knowledge and passion for the terroir and culinary history of the North Shore,” said Nolan.

During one of Nolan’s visits to a special event at Prairie Grass Cafe, Stegner paid homage to the region's indigenous history with a dish pairing mushrooms from Chicago’s Four-Star Mushroom Farm with Red Lake Nation Foods Wild Rice that is grown and harvested by the Ojibwe people of Minnesota.

While the Potawatomi were the dominant tribe in Chicago, the Ojibwe also lived around the Great Lakes and established commercial cultivation of wild rice and maple syrup production. 

“Sarah didn’t just serve a meal featuring ancestral rice still produced by indigenous people, she educated those enjoying the meal about the culture of the region’s first inhabitants, because she understands the connection between people’s foods, their history, and the land,” said Nolan. 

Inspired by Stegner’s anthropological approach to serving delicious food, Nolan offered to grow any unique vegetables that Stegner wanted to feature at her restaurant. “We don’t generally grow produce for restaurants, and it’s not part of my business, but I’m so inspired by Chef Sarah’s desire to share information with people on the North Shore about rare and culturally significant delicacies, I offered to grow something for her if she wanted to feature something really special,” Nolan said.

The allure of the Serpent Gourd

In Stegner’s kitchen, she’s peeling a nearly 2-foot long chartreuse colored gourd. It’s called cucuzza, or Serpent Gourd of Sicily and she learned about it from a Prairie Grass Cafe customer of Sicilian descent. 

“One of our regular diners who lives in Skokie told me that he spent every summer on his grandfather’s farm in Ciminna, Sicily enjoying figs, olives, prickly pears, and cucuzza, and he asked if I’d ever tried cucuzza,” she said. 

Stegner hadn’t, so her customer, Vito Brancato of Skokie brought her one that he grew in his garden designed by The Organic Gardener.

 “My grandfather Domenico Rizzo of Sicily brought cucuzza seeds to the United States in 1976, and all of my Sicilian relatives have been growing them here since,” Brancato said. “When I hired The Organic Gardener to build my garden beds, I gave them a photo of my grandfather’s trellis, and they built a replica in my garden. It’s perfect. Whenever I look at the cucuzza growing there, I feel connected to my family and my heritage, and I’m so proud to be able to put cucuzza on my dinner table.”

Stegner loved the Sicilian gourd, noting that “it cooks very quickly and has a nice texture. It’s fresh tasting and rich, like a combination of cucumber, cooked eggplant, and olive oil. It’s silky. It’s really one of the most delicious vegetables I’ve ever tasted.”

Brancato had only ever tried his family’s cucuzza dishes, so having a new interpretation by a James Beard Award-winning chef was revelatory. Stegner poached the vegetable in a heirloom tomato sauce with locally grown knob onions, Chesnok Red hardneck garlic, and fresh basil.

“Don’t tell my mom, because she’ll get the wooden spoon out, but Chef Sarah’s was really special,” Brancato said. 

He told her he wished more people could try it, but cucuzza is popular only with Sicilians, isn’t commercially available, and Brancato couldn't possibly grow enough for a restaurant on his small backyard trellis. That’s where Nolan came in. 

Stegner called Nolan and told her about her moving conversation with Brancato. She explained that she wanted to feature the ancestral foods of the people who have settled the North Shore. 

“People bring foods and produce with them from their countries of origin, and these foods and food memories are such an important part of their stories,” Stegner said. 

Starting with cucuzza, she will partner with Nolan to feature these unique ingredients,to tell people’s stories, and help preserve and amplify their food traditions. Almost 750,000 people in Illinois identify as being of Italian descent, and nationally, between 1880 and 1930, approximately one out of every four Italian immigrants to the United States was Sicilian. 

“We don’t know the number of people of Sicilian descent living on the North Shore, but it’s a wonderful culinary heritage to honor. You can’t see, touch, and taste cucuzza and not understand why Sicilian-Americans went to the trouble of bringing it across the ocean with them,” Stegner said.

On Nolan’s Northbrook farm and her nearby greenhouses at The Organic Gardener’s headquarters, the otherworldly 2-foot long squash hang from vines soaking up the August sun. 

“If we don’t pick them soon enough, they grow to 3-feet long and they’re as big around as baseball bats,” said Nolan. Stegner says they’re still delicious to eat at that size, but you have to remove the seeds when they’re that large, so the chef prefers to pick them at 2 feet long. 

For Nolan, cultivating these rare vegetables is less a commercial venture than a cultural and educational opportunity. 

“This project is borne out of our love for the culinary history of the North Shore,” she says, “the diaspora and stories of the people who live here, and the unique educational opportunities we’re enjoying by sharing ancestral foods.”

Stegner said she welcomes North Shore residents to tell her about more ancestral foods they find deeply meaningful. “Jeanne and I haven’t decided which vegetable to feature next, since there are so many great ones on our list, and we continue to receive suggestions. I’m truly enjoying hearing how meaningful these foods and stories are to the people who reach out to share their stories with me.”

Dishes featuring cucuzza will be available at Prairie Grass Cafe Saturday 8/16, Thursday 8/28, and Friday 8/29 while supplies last. To make a reservation at Prairie Grass Cafe call the team at (847) 205-4433. 

To reach The Organic Gardener to learn more about their custom-built and expertly tended gardens, email info@theorganicgardener.net.