Category: General

My coworker ordered Hecky’s for lunch, and I went in for a whole BBQ chicken. It arrived just as I got pulled into a client meeting, and the scent of that delectable sauce was nearly intolerable. I have no idea what they do to those chickens, but it is so far beyond delicious as to be sublime. YUM.

Sorry, I’ve been trying to get the Oliveto post written and the photos up, but the FTP server has been wonky lately. And I had to go dance my ass off this weekend in Cleveland, so I’ve been busy. But tallasiandude sent this to me this morning:
http://www.devilducky.com/media/46990/
which should be good for a few laughs. Enjoy.

I was just thinking earlier today that there aren’t very many food bloggers (at least, compared to the Bay Area, say) in Chicago, considering how good an eating city it is. And then I read this on Chicago Foodie, in a post entitled GQ: Chicago is the Best Restaurant City in America:
“The irony is that I’ve been saying Chicago is the best restaurant city all along for another reason. I can’t think of another city that has such diversity and authenticity of ethnic restaurants. Almost more importantly, I can’t think of any other city where there is nothing better to do than eat.
BAHAHAHAHAHA! That is AWESOME. And really, true — I came here with two main activities in mind: to eat and to look at pretty buildings. (And because, as the post also notes, people here are less wrapped up in bullshit, and as a consequence are nicer and more down to earth.)

I just watched the finale of Top Chef — thank you, iTunes — and I am greatly relieved to find that Harold did indeed win the competition.
Though on some level I can relate to That Bitch Tiffani and her yearning to have money to travel, to taste food in its local contexts, to pay off her debts, and to finally feel free, the fact of the matter is that she got in her own way. She can be brilliant, if she would just stop trying to bend everyone and everything to her own will.
In any case, Harold is going to run the kind of kitchen I want to eat in: reliably delicious, just innovative enough, beautiful and down-to-bizness. Who wants to join me on a trip to his new place in NYC this winter? ELF? Directah? Boston peeps? Seriously — the more who come with, the more we can taste. Woo!

After my Borinquen breakfast, I went down to Garfield Park to check out what I thought was a farmer’s market. Turns out it is a plant/garden market, so I bought some herbs and heirloom tomatoes and a tomatillo, and a pretty green pot for my cycad. And while I was there, I went to the Conservatory as well to look at all the pretty things. I ended up taking a bunch of photographs, many of which turned out poorly, but here are a few of my favorites:





And though the Sweet Room was empty for renovations, there were still a few food plants in the collection.

a cocoa tree

a coconut palm (i think)

a banana tree
and one very sad, very unphotogenic Kona coffee tree.
And because I am a dork and have an ongoing photo series of my feet in various settings, I leave you with this:

I got a salad from the supermarket for lunch today, and at the very end I had some shredded cabbage & green peas left, and those few bites were by far the best of the salad. I am going to have to make a purple-cabbage and baby-peas salad sometime soon. Yum.

I found this email exchange between me & my friend C very amusing, so I decided to share it with you, the Internet:
C:
Speaking of which, what’d you think of the most recent Food Network Star show? I thought the winner was clear from the beginning, but still disappointing, somehow. I’ll try the show when it actually comes on, I guess.
FN:
I thought it was pretty clear about Next Food Network Star that Guy had it in the bag from the start and it was his to lose. However, I was rooting for Andy, the technique nerd, b/c I would totally have watched that show, plus he’s cute. And I felt bad that the amateur was the first to go — I didn’t think she deserved that. Give that silly cow with the bad highlights the boot!
C:
Yeah, Andy was my fave, too–he was so great with the cupcakes, and in the shared demo where he wacked the shit out of a pile of lemon grass. Most of the time, though, he was too uptight. Bummer. Silly cow w/ bad highlights: francophile girl w/ bikini? God, I could not *stand* her. Yech.
FN:
I don’t know — i was giving Andy the benefit of the doubt, since as a nerdy person myself I knew just exactly how awkward it would be to have to do all that TV stuff at the same time as you try to speak coherent english AND cook something. I remember last season people really got better over time as they got more used to it.
______________________
And then we got distracted by talk of where we are going to eat the next time C hits town, and how he’s adopted my beloved gimlet, and how a place out there in Portland makes them with *silver tequila* — mmmmmmm….

You have to picture me smirking and chomping on a cigar like George Peppard in the A-Team when I say that, by the way. Heh.
I woke up today hungry, so i ate a multigrain pita and a hardboiled egg, which should be plenty to get me through a couple of hours before lunch begins to occupy my consciousness. But i didn’t even make it out of the house and onto the bus before I was hungry again, and I was seriously considering stopping into the KFC that emits such wonderful smells where I wait for my second bus, even though I know it never tastes as good as it smells.
But I held out, figuring I’d just endure the shame and order lunch at 9:30am once I got to the office. And lo and behold, the professional-networking meeting that was held here last night had only two attendees, and so the fridge was FULL of fabulous leftover homemade cocktail nibblies, and I’ve been able to completely address the crisis with deviled eggs, roast-beef and red-pepper-mayo crostini, stuffed mushrooms, crab-goat cheese empanadas, and avocado-egg-creamcheese-caviar spread. I felt like I was at a London hotel, drinking my milky tea and munching on WASPy savories. How awesome is that?
Sometimes the universe really does provide.

Tonight I went to see V for Vendetta (woo!), and when I came home, the air in my neighborhood was scented with chocolate and lilacs, from the factory a mile or two east and the bush next door, respectively. It was lovely. What could be better, really? Yay, spring!

Chicago has just approved a ban on foie gras.
Now, regardless of how you feel about foie gras personally, and I’m not going to get into the debate, this presents a very dangerous precedent. The arguments for this kind of ban are essentially identical to the arguments for banning abortion, and what it boils down to is imposing your own narrowly-defined morality onto the larger community. And once you go there, let’s ban veal, let’s ban commercially-raised meat in general, since all of it is produced by means of appalling cruelty. And then let’s go ahead and ban alcohol, or sodomy, or interracial marriage, because some people believe those things are wrong.
As a society we can all agree that theft or murder are things we ought to officially prohibit. But when you move into areas where our moralities diverge, it is simply not appropriate to legislate behavior.
And even beyond all of this, it is ugly to think that our leaders can more effectively legislate policy on a morally-ambiguous luxury food than on something like, say, elementary education or affordable housing. I hope they dislocate something while they’re patting themselves on the back.
(For something a bit more constructive, have a look here to see someone who’s getting things done instead of arguing policy, and to see how you might be able to make a small difference in art education in Chicago.)