Come spring, thoughts turn to vegetable gardens and flowers. It’s also a time to focus on crisp, fresh salads. At a recent Easter brunch, the Caesar salad was served in a glass – with the dressing at the base and tall romaine lettuce leaves and shaved parmesan “planted” in the glass. It was a wonderful reminder that spring was just around the corner and a great way to serve a salad – portable, visually pleasing and fun to eat.

That’s the way salads should be – fun, full of flavor and nutritious to boot. A great way to add interest (and nutrition) to your salads is to try a different type of green. The traditional, common iceberg is making way for the rich, deep greens of kale, arugula, collards and spinach. The richer and deeper the green, the more nutritional. The stronger the green, the better it does lightly sautéed or cooked in a quiche. [Related: All About Arugula, Spinach and Kale]

If you’re not used to stronger-flavored greens, try shredding them in a salad – either by hand (called chiffonade and done by rolling them together and slicing thinly with a knife) or with a food processor. Stronger flavored greens marry well with a strong vinaigrette or dressing. That’s the secret to a great salad – plenty of flavor, whether in the bacon vinaigrette added to a fresh spinach salad or the Cajun-flavored croutons in a Caesar salad. You can also boost flavor with a shake of Italian seasoning, feta or blue cheese, or freshly ground pepper, just before serving.

Here are some spring salad recipes to get you started on the season:

Creamy Caesar Salad in a Glass

Mixed Greens With Snow Peas, Grapes and Feta

Sauteed Kale and Garlic

BONUS! Only Online

Wilted Spinach Salad With Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

Eclectic Salad With Maple Ginger Walnuts

Vegetable Pasta Salad With Cucumber Vinaigrette

And as long as consumers yearn for the burn, Southern Illinois horseradish grower Jeff Heepke will bring the heat.

Horseradish has held its own in a fickle culinary environment, gracing prime rib, shrimp dips, holiday tables and a growing list of saucy formulations designed to tantalize adventurous taste buds. In fact, the International Herb Association crowned horseradish the 2011 Herb of the Year, citing its rich historical roots and diversity – Armoracia rusticana, as it’s known in the botanical world, has also served a variety of chemical and medical uses. [Related: Horseradish History and Other Pungent Particulars]

Nationwide, roughly 24 million pounds of horseradish roots are ground and processed each year to produce some 6 million gallons of prepared horseradish. Illinois grows the lion’s share: Collinsville-based J.R. Kelly Co. is the nation’s top supplier, marketing an annual 10 million to 12 million pounds of roots, thus earning the nickname “The Horseradish House.”

Heepke, a 31-year-old Edwardsville grower who sells directly to “grinders,” is the fourth generation of “a horseradish family” that took root with great-grandfather George Willaredt. Heepke took up the family mantle roughly a decade ago and today farms 200 acres of horseradish, at about 7,000 pounds to the acre, as well as corn and soybeans.

The Illinois Horseradish Growers Association includes close to a dozen farms in Madison and St. Clair counties, ranging from five to 500 acres of production. The area lies within the “American bottoms,” a Mississippi River basin with soils rich in potash, a nutrient that feeds healthy horseradish production.

It’s a hardy crop that requires a hardy and patient soul to produce.

“It will grow anywhere – it depends on how hard you want to work to harvest it,” Heepke notes. “We harvest any month with an ‘r’ – from September to April, when it’s large enough to harvest. Historically, we have a mild winter here, though sometimes, you have to put an ‘r’ in May to get your harvest finished.”

The lengthy, labor-intensive harvest requires Heepke to hire an average 20 workers a season. The unusual crop requires some unusual production techniques: He builds his own equipment from salvaged potato harvesting machinery.

Once they’ve harvested the horseradish, Heepke and company remove the green tops and save the smaller roots for next year’s “seed.” Remaining roots are cleaned, packed on pallets and stored at an optimal 28 degrees before being loaded onto refrigerated trucks for shipment.

Heepke sells under contract to grinders in Ohio and Wisconsin and on the East Coast. “We pretty much have it sold when we plant it.” Demand remains steady season to season, as does the horseradish community.

German immigrants began growing horseradish in the region in the late 1800s, passing their growing methods from generation to generation. Heepke notes a gradual decline in the number of area growers over the years, but those who raise the root are committed to the crop.

“Producers don’t get in and out of the market,” he relates. “Once you’re in, you stay in. When you’re ready to retire, that’s when more acres become available.”

Maryland-based Tulkoff Food Products is a major buyer of Illinois horseradish. Phil Tulkoff, who runs a business begun in in the late 1920s, markets processed product to restaurants and other food service outlets. Tulkoff reports industry growth has been “slow and flat” amid a lagging economy, but notes an occasional inquiry from a customer looking to incorporate horseradish heat into a new sauce, dressing or cheese.

The company’s own offerings include a standard “Tiger Sauce” – a sandwich-friendly mix of horseradish and mayonnaise – and “Deli Style,” which Tulkoff likens to “Tiger Sauce on steroids.”

“It will make your nose kind of open up,” he muses. “The hotter cocktail sauces seem to be what people are looking for. People are asking us to make cocktail sauces that have two to three times the horseradish we normally put in. They’re looking for the heat.”

“I was just a farm kid, 23, showing cattle at county fairs,” Besse says. “I went off to college, graduated in May 1981, started teaching and coaching, and got hurt in October.”

She was running the family combine, harvesting corn that was difficult to pick up due to a windstorm, when the farm machine stalled. She jumped off and tried to unplug the combine head, but her leg became tangled. Like the undertow of an ocean, the combine spun her around, and her leg came off at the knee.

“I landed on my face, rolled over and pulled myself over to the combine steps. I was running wide open on adrenaline,” Besse says. “There was no crying. Not a tear.”

All she could do was wait on her father, who had gone to empty the semi truck.

“Dad eventually got back, got out of the semi, ran over and wrapped his belt around my leg,” she recalls. “Then he went to the neighbors and called 911, and brought me back water.”

She relives the tragedy as if it were yesterday, though it’s been 30 years.

Helping Farmers
Besse shares her experience often with other farmers as a volunteer for AgrAbility Unlimited, a statewide program that helps those in agriculture who have disabilities. The organization, created in 1990 as part of a national initiative, was originally funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant. A joint program of the University of Illinois Extension and the Easter Seals Central Illinois, it now seeks private funds to stay in business. The group was recently turned down for another USDA grant.

The organization, which has helped more than 800 farmers since its inception in 1991, is operating on a skeleton budget, says Chip Petrea, AgrAbility’s client service manager.

“We’re using donations from groups such as the Illinois Farm Bureau, GROWMARK and Farm Service
Agency to keep going. We’re not sure what we’re going to do for the long term.”

Petrea knows first hand how the program can help farmers. He was in a hay baler accident in 1978.

“I got hurt before [AgrAbility] got started, but I see how much we can help farmers,” Petrea says. “It’s not a stretch for me to do what I do to help farmers. We try to point them in the right direction after something happens.”

A total of 27 to 30 farm fatalities occurs in Illinois each year. According to Petrea, a recent survey found an average of 5,000 farming-related injuries each week cause U.S. farmers to miss at least a half-day of work.

Happy Endings
Besse, who is now working on a book about her experience, first learned about AgrAbility from an article in a magazine.

“I called the 800 number, and they helped me get a Gator for the cattle,” she says. “We decided I could utilize it to do baby bottles and haul feed buckets.”

Not long after her accident, her father sold the herd of Angus cattle. She says that devastated her as much as the accident itself.

“I eventually left the farm and spent 15 years working for the Rock Island Arsenal in the civilian personnel office. It was a culture shock, working in an office,” she says. “I left there and spent a year mowing at a golf course, regrouping and ended up getting back in the cattle business – this time dairy.”

Her love for cattle helped her find her partner, Ron Paaske. Today, the two run Brierwood Farms.

“I’ve always loved cattle, and on my way to work at the Arsenal, I’d drive by a dairy and see a guy milking his cows,” says Besse.

“One day I was getting coffee, and he (Ron) was sitting at the farmers’ table. He poured me a cup of coffee. That went on for a couple of days and finally I said, ‘Who are you?’ And he replied, ‘I’m the guy with the cows. Stop down sometime.’ Well, I did, and the rest is history.”

Finding Hope
In October 2008, a semi-trailer truck broadsided Randy Miller’s grain truck, breaking his neck though not severing his spine. These days, he’s back to farming.

Petrea met with Miller in the spring 2009 to help him research new options, such as upgrading an older tractor with accessibility steps and using air-powered tools. Petrea also helped Miller get a reverse-facing camera and monitor for his combine cab so he didn’t have to strain his neck turning around.

But Miller says the biggest thing AgrAbility did was to give him hope.

“They showed me examples of people who had overcome their disabilities to continue farming,” says Miller, 43. “That’s what I needed. Chip came and visited me early on.”

Miller isn’t confined to a wheelchair – he uses a cane – but initially doctors said his chance of moving anything again was less than 3 percent.

“I still keep getting strength,” he says. “My left side doesn’t have the motor movement I had, and my foot drags sometimes, but I’m still farming. My brother, Marvin, helps me with the heavy lifting.”

Miller raises corn and soybeans on 440 acres in Chenoa.

“I’m blessed,” says Miller. “I’m up and mobile and still able to farm.”

AgrAbility Unlimited
For more information about the program, visit www.agrabilityunlimited.org or call (217) 333-9417.

“We’re very famous for our chocolate, vanilla and strawberry malts,” says Tony Jamin, who bought the restaurant in 2004 with his wife, Patricia. “The recipe was perfected in 1937, and Al Berg bought it. We’ve been making the same malts since then, and we’ve added many more sandwiches and dinner items to the menu.”

A native of Holland, Jamin was trained in the culinary arts in Germany and France, where he worked in several high-end restaurants. When he and Patricia bought Al’s Café & Creamery, they created a one-of-a-kind dining destination that fuses American and European cuisines.

“We’ll do a Scandinavian month, for example, with Scandinavian dishes, and in October we have Oktoberfest and serve German specials,” Jamin says. “We have a very family-oriented, relaxed atmosphere with ’50s and ’60s jazz music playing. Anybody can come eat here, whether you want a sandwich or steak and shrimp.”

One of the café’s best-selling entrees is the Roasted Salmon Mediterranean, a salmon filet pan-seared in garlic, tomato and white wine, and topped with sautéed shrimp. It is served with roasted potatoes and fresh seasonal vegetables.

”Our Finnish Pork Chop is also very good,” Jamin says. “It’s one-inch thick and comes with fresh vegetables, homemade mashed potatoes and Scandinavian-style red cabbage, which is sweet and sour made with lingonberries.”

Jamin likes to create new recipes and experiment with new dishes, and then ask for feedback from customers.

“We make a Danish Bleu Steak with bleu cheese melted on top,” Jamin says. “I never thought people would go for it, but it has a really interesting flavor. Then people started trying it, and it has become a big hit on our menu.”

Al’s Café & Creamery, 43 Du Page Ct., opens at 11 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday with seating until 8 p.m. (9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday). It’s closed on Mondays. For more information or to make reservations, call (847) 742-1180 or visit www.alscafe.com.

Illinois is home to 91 wineries and 450 vineyards encompassing 1,115 acres of grapes across the state. In 2009, the state produced 357,000 gallons of wine. Learn more about wine and wineries with these facts:

• The full economic impact of wine and wine grapes on the state of Illinois in 2009 was $319 million.
• The wine and grape business in Illinois employs 2,064 people full time.
• More than 200,000 tourists visited wineries last year.
• The foot-stomping method is still used in the production of many ports.
• Only 20 of the 400 species of oak are still used to make oak barrels for aging wine, the average tree age being 170 years.
• White wine becomes darker in color as it ages, while red wine becomes lighter in color.
• Wine contains more chemical compounds than blood.
• Thomas Jefferson was a wine connoisseur and selected wine for the first five presidents.
• Dom Perignon, credited with developing the champagne-making process, was blind.

Learn more about Illinois Wine Trails.

Sources: 2009 Illinois Wine Economic Impact Study

I haven’t seen them since their placement in storage, but I vividly remember the livestock-related hats, their logos and names of feed mills. They tended to be the ones with the flip-down, fuzzy ear coverings for those farmers who brave the cold to care for their pigs and cows.

Grandpa’s hat collection says a lot of about farm history, agribusinesses and their tradition of free hats, and about livestock. Truth is, lots of farmers wear farm hats. But farmers wearing hats with logos of livestock feed companies are fewer these days.

If you haven’t been down a secondary road in 25 years, or maybe have never been on one made of gravel or unstriped blacktop, you’ll be surprised to learn how few farms raise livestock. In fact, not even half of Illinois farms do. Beef cattle can be found on 23 percent of Illinois farms, primarily in the northwest, western and southern parts of Illinois, where some hillier land is better suited for pasture than growing crops. Pigs, dairy cattle and chickens are found on fewer farms yet.

Most children’s picture books – at least the romanticized kind where every farm has a few cows, muddy pigs and big red barns – are generally as outdated as eight-track tapes. When these audio relics were popular, about seven in 10 farms raised pigs and cows in my gently rolling western part of the state. Today, cattle are on fewer than four in 10 farms in my area. Fewer than one in 10 farms has pigs.

The Illinois livestock industry is shrinking while the industry has grown nationwide. Though the number of farms has declined over the years, the quantity of livestock and number of farms raising them has declined more rapidly.

The state’s livestock farmers face increasing regulations, foreign competition and a growing not-in-my-backyard mentality. Economics of scale, profitability, industry integration and farm lifestyle also contribute to the change.

Illinois’ shrinking livestock industry has been visible for years. Most woven-wire fences that used to bind almost every rural property have been removed or fallen into disrepair because they serve no need to contain livestock. Many old concrete-floored open lots and livestock shelters, including barns and open-front buildings, have become storage spaces or parking lots for machinery. The numbers of veterinarians and feed mills have declined and now serve large territories. Some previous pastures instead grow corn and soybeans.

The farmers who still wear the livestock hats are passionate, motivated business people who have made investments in facilities and technology, increased efficiencies, and developed marketing plans. They are significant to the family farmers who choose to focus on growing the state’s major crops. Livestock farmers are the No. 1 customer of corn and soybeans, which are primary feed ingredients.

Hats off to them.

About 17 miles northeast of Springfield, Elkhart Hill rises unexpectedly from the flat prairie to an elevation of 777 feet above sea level. Nestled at the foot of the 600-acre hill is the tiny village of Elkhart.

The town was founded in 1855, but its roots date back to 1819, when settler Richard Latham built a home at the foot of Elkhart Hill, along an ancient American Indian trail.

Elkhart once attracted some of Illinois’ early movers and shakers, including a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, who would stay in the area while traveling the rural circuit. Two of Lincoln’s close friends, Illinois Gov. Richard Oglesby and John Dean Gillett (“Cattle King of the World”), settled in Elkhart.

“For a village this size, we’ve had more than our fair share of interesting subjects,” says Gillette Ransom of the Elkhart Historical Society (and direct descendant of John Dean Gillett).

Along with interesting human history, Elkhart Hill is home to natural history, unique plant life and virgin woodland. The Elkhart Historical Society is committed to preserving and sharing both.

Among the society’s most popular events are the wildflower walks held every spring on private land still owned by the Gillett family. Led by botanist Bill McClain, the nature strolls spotlight a dazzling display of diverse wildflowers, culminating with a blanket of Virginia Bluebells.

The organization also hosts an annual bird walk where birdwatchers can spot as many as 40 species of migratory birds.

A fall historical tour highlights the hill’s manmade treasures, including the John Dean Gillett Mansion, two historic cemeteries, an Illinois landmark bridge and the St. John the Baptist Chapel, the state’s only privately owned church.

History is also well preserved in Elkhart’s delightfully dainty downtown. Friendly shopkeepers offer unique gifts and antiques in carefully restored buildings dating to the late 1800s, while cafés and bakeries introduce old family recipes to new generations.

The quaintness continues at the town library. Built in 1904, the library features original wood bookshelves and reading tables, and a story as interesting as its architecture. In 1888, Lemira Gillett (wife of John Dean) promised to build a library if the town would stay “dry” for three years.

“It’s a little gem,” says Dr. Margaret “Peggy” Lee, village trustee. “It’s like stepping back in time.”

Thanks to its location on historic Route 66, visitors from near and far have been enchanted by Elkhart.

Road warriors often stop for a made-from-scratch lunch in the whimsical Wild Hare Café, located in a building that was once the town bank.

“I think they’re looking for the authentic, rural America,” says café owner Andrea Niehaus. And this village by the hill delivers authentic charm. As Niehaus says, “Elkhart is like a page from a Norman Rockwell calendar.”

5 Ways to Experience Elkhart

1. Shop and dine in historic downtown Elkhart (but not on Mondays when shops are closed).
2. Take an art class at Dragonfly Art Studio or a cooking class at Central Illinois Events.
3. Spend a weekend at The Brick House, the guesthouse on the Old Gillett Farm.
4. Enjoy an “Enchanted Evening” of music and wine on the sprawling lawn of Cro’Hurst Mansion or an interesting dinner and lecture.
5. Discover the latest Elkhart events online at www.elkharthistoricalsociety.org and www.elkhartillinois.us.

There are hidden deserts across Illinois – food deserts, that is.

The Healthy Food Financing Initiative – a partnership made up of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Treasury Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services – has mapped low-income communities without ready access to healthy and affordable food across the state. These areas are known as food deserts.

At least 33 percent of these areas’ residents live more than one mile – or more than 10 miles in rural areas – from a supermarket. The goal of the initiative is to develop and equip grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores and farmers’ markets with fresh and healthy food.

Macomb, Pekin, and parts of Bloomington and Peoria are in identified food deserts.

To learn more about the Healthy Food Financing Initiative and to find food deserts across the country, visit the food desert locator on the USDA website.

• For small plants: Cut the bottom out of a large cardboard box. Tape together the box-top flaps, then cut along three sides of the top so that a hinged lid remains. Set the box over the plant, keeping the lid closed at night and open during the day.

• For large plants: Set four stakes – each several inches taller than the plant – around the plant’s perimeter. Drape the stakes with a frost cover, burlap or an old blanket. Don’t let the cover come into direct contact with the plant or it will transfer the freezing temperatures to the leaves. Remove the cover during the day.

If a frost catches you by surprise and you don’t have time to construct either of these guards, move a patio chair over a smaller plant and drape the chair with your frost cover, burlap or blanket for a quick solution.

University of Illinois students have new equipment to help them learn about food quality.

Quaker Oats donated a high-temp pasteurization unit to the university’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences’ Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. The ultra-high-temperature processing unit allows students to see the effects of the thermal process on food safety and quality.