Penny Zimmerman-Wills

Funk’s Grove Sirup Camp is tucked in a grove of towering trees just off a quiet stretch of old Route 66 near Bloomington. At the end of a curved dirt lane sits a modest shingled home and a low-slung brown sap house, which spouts large clouds of steam during the late winter production season. Ancient […]

Twice a week Rosemary Garrett carefully loads about 500 pounds of her freshly picked tomatoes into 20-pound containers and drives them from her home in Chambersburg to Springfield. Garrett is just one of 36 Illinois growers who will be selling produce at the Old Capitol Farmers Market every Wednesday and Saturday from now until October […]

Dottie Washington faced a dilemma. She had dined on a barbecued rib sandwich, tasted a turkey leg, and enjoyed a cheese-filled puff pastry. She had her eye on a chicken burrito that looked too tantalizing to pass up, and yet she hadn’t reached the tables piled high with pizza pies, cheesecake, ice cream, and pasta […]

Nothing says Valentine’s Day quite like chocolate. Rob Flesher knows why. “It’s the food of love,” says the co-owner and sales manager of Pease’s Candy Shops. “There’s a chemical in the chocolate that’s been proven to be an aphrodisiac.” That chemical is phenylethylamine, a substance supposedly produced in the brains of people who are in […]

You could say Dan Heffelmire likes corn. “That’s his life,” says his wife, Connie. “It’s his passion and obsession. He’s out there in the summer trying to create hybrids and hand-breeding corn for the future. His life has revolved around corn. He would do this job if he didn’t get paid.” The Pleasant Plains couple […]

Genda Freeman leads a group of eight people through Schnuck’s supermarket, pointing out an obvious fact of life: if you want to be healthy, you have to focus on fruits and vegetables, not candy and chips. Freeman, a clinical dietitian at St. John’s Hospital, explains how to read nutritional labels on cereal boxes and blocks […]

Taking advantage of the lull between the lunch and dinner crowds, Michael Higgins sits down at a white linen-topped table in the dim bar at Maldaner’s, the city’s oldest restaurant. As co-owner, Higgins spends his time buying, planning, and preparing food. Now he’s taking a few minutes to discuss it. With his glasses, gray mustache, […]

“In Mexico, the men never touch the kitchen,” says Emilio Lomeli, laughing. “It would be considered a women’s place.” Lomeli is sitting in Emilio’s Mexican Food, his restaurant in downtown Springfield. He’s dressed in a white apron, explaining how U.S. restaurants differ from those in Mexico. Lomeli, who spends most of his 12-hour workdays over […]

On a recent night in the Capitol City, two professional women in their 40s sit at a table in a popular downtown watering hole, sipping ruby red liquid garnished with fruit. Across town, a group of young 20-somethings order drinks in a rainbow of colors with names that sound more like song titles or lipstick […]

On a Wednesday morning, Mary Beth Carter is busy dipping chunks of fresh walleye into cornmeal and plopping them into sizzling oil. Her “kitchen” consists of a closet-sized area in a small gray-shingled building in front of her fish market. She serves walleye, catfish, and carp through the three tiny windows of the concession stand. […]