Sugar Beet Food Co-Op

Last year, River Forest's Bridget Connelly and Luna Bay, her all female-run brewing company, launched a line of "hard kombucha," a boozy rendition of the centuries old fermented beverage that contains probiotics, the live cultures found in yogurt and pickles and believed to support immunity, a special concern during this time of Covid-19.

Recently, I toured the cheese selection at Sugar Beet with Joey Stawski, the resident cheese monger, and Lissa Dysart, who worked at Marion Street Cheese Market and now does marketing for Sugar Beet. Together, we tasted several cheeses that might be a little more expensive but that provide fair value along with more flavor and textural dimension than you'd find in low-cost, lower-quality commodity cheeses.

April 19 is National Garlic Day in the United States. For a twist on this day of celebrating of garlic (which we Italian-Americans celebrate every day of the year), consider getting some black garlic. It's fun.