One day late because i am still homeless and don’t have kitchen and internet within 5 miles of each other (so not kidding), but I really wanted to be sure to participate in IMBB Orange, because a) it is cool and b) orange is one of the best colors EVER. This is the most orange thing that I make, and given my current circumstances thank goodness it’s also blindingly easy to make. Especially since I scored a box grater at the very last minute for 25 cents at a yardsale yesterday (whew). It is so refreshing and delicious, and goes with lots of different foods as a side salad.
Peel carrots — I used 3 big ones — and grate. Chop a bit of cilantro & add that, squeeze in a lime, sprinkle with salt & pepper, and drizzle with just a bit of mild oil. Toss. You can eat it immediately or let it marinate a little while, either way it will taste sweet from the carrots, sour from the lime and savory from the salt & pepper. Crunchy too, always a plus in my book, and just think of all the vitamin C & betacarotene in this thing.
when diners fail
So today I ducked into the Marquette Inn on Madison for coffee to stave off an increasingly evil withdrawal headache (caused by ATM failure, which in turn caused failure to acquire caffeine this morning due to NO MONEY), and while I was in there I figured I’d have a little soup for lunch since it was starting to SNOW. Stupid snow. I’m only just a little bit bitter that it’s snowing and freezing though it’s almost May, and I would just like to say that Chicago has a bitch of a windchill. Especially near the lake — I am glad I am looking for apartments well away. So anyway — the cream of chicken rice soup arrived, and the first warning sign was that it jiggled. Like jello. Eeew. It was so solid that the saltines rested lightly on its surface, sinking not at all. And sad to tell, it was pasty and bland and in no way delicious. And to describe it as hot would have been generous. Sigh. At least the coffee was okay.
black pepper jack doritos
In the chip dept, I was of course unable to resist these because I love any and all things containing black pepper. These are good, quite spicy and savory, and a nice alternative to regular Dorito flavor crystals, but not very discernably flavored with black pepper. They are decent, but I won’t go out of my way for them again.
perez posole
As promised, the report on the posole at Perez. Yum yum. Six bucks gets you two meals’ worth of savory red-orange broth full of soft hominy and big melting chunks of pork. A shade bland, but squeeze in a few of the lime wedges and magically it’s perfect. With tortillas & hot sauce on the side, along with raw lettuce & onions to add in for crunch and body. Seriously between this and pho I am starting to think that all broth soups should have lime juice in them, I love them so much.
hee hee hee
I’m not the only one who calls it Whole Paycheck. *giggle* (This is an awesome post for many other reasons too, btw.)
well, at least it’s not just me
having horrible experiences in supermarkets. I didn’t notice it being quite so horrible in Boston, in the mainstream markets — maybe it’s that in eastern Massachusetts we are all so lefty and organic we don’t realize it, that even our blue-collar citizens are aware of the perils of processed foods. I wanted to live somewhere different and see what it’s like, and I guess I found out one of the ways it’s different. God help America; we need it.
it sucks having no kitchen
I have been struggling to eat often and well enough, though the meals when I have them have been pretty good. I didn’t realize just how much I rely on my kitchen. Funny story: my pal H packed me off to this empty apartment with a few things from her pantry, and I did one frenzied pass through a crappy supermarket (i had to pee REALLY bad; more on the crappiness of Dominick’s markets in another post). So with these paltry supplies and one skillet, I tried to figure out what I would make. I decided on a couple meals, one of which was a box of Goya rice, a can of octopus, and a can of ranchero sauce. I intended to cook this that night. But I went to see an apartment after work, and by the time I left there I was ravenous — and it’s an hour’s train ride way the fuck uptown to the apartment, and I knew I would be nauseous the whole way because I was hungry. So I looked for a taqueria for a quick bite, but what I found was a Cancun-style seafood place. And I bet you can see the punchline coming…. I ended up eating pulpo ranchero for dinner: rice with octopus in ranchero sauce. I didn’t even know this was a real dish, i was just trying to combine a set of random ingredients in the least weird way possible. Turns out it is in fact extremely tasty. *yay*
When I finally ended up making my version at home, it didn’t really stand up. The rice was fine, and the sauce was much spicier, but the pulpo tasted canned and the sauce was kind of eh. It’s food, but just barely. Oh well. I’m eating the rest of it mixed with some mexican chorizo and eggs, which is a great improvement. I have to stick to things that can be made in a single skillet, which is an interesting exercise that I am eager to conclude.
Screw it, we’ll talk supermarkets in this post. Dominick’s is just overpriced and has crap selection. In the ‘hood up north it caters to its primary demographic with packaged food and more packaged food, with not even a boneless breast of chicken to be found, while near work in the gallery district it caters to *its* primary demographic by being relentlessly yuppie, but the sort of yuppie who doesn’t ever cook. Blech. I went to a Jewel, in Wicker Park, which was better, but still expensive. This one was inhabited by hipster couples, some with infant, some without — oy vey. But at least there were reasonable things to buy. I had a much better time at the indy markets up on Devon, and I think I’m going to stick to the indies and to the occasional Whole Foods run, and only hit the big supermarkets when cornered. I guess Fuck Corporate Groceries is on to something, not just a personal experiment but a straight-up necessity.
in a chinese restaurant on devon
in the Hasidic stretch. Heh.
walking down devon
So on Sunday to while away my day I took a walk down Devon. All of Devon, from Sheridan to Kedzie, which looks on the map to be about 3 miles. The first part is boring, but once you cross Damen it starts to get interesting until it crescendoes in a mile-long stretch of Indo-Pak chaos: restaurants, bakeries, sari shops, jewelers, electronics hawkers, the works. I walked by one storefront marked “sweets and snacks” and got about another block down the street before I realized that it had been jammed to the rafters with people, so I went back and went in. It’s called Tahoora Sweets & Bakery, and I got a boxful of sticky Indian desserts, including some egg-shaped things stuffed with cream and rolled in coconut, a shredded-carrot cake, a giant pistachio-topped fried ball, and one of those greasy-sticky mini-funnel-cake things I don’t know the name of. I also got something called halwa puri, which I saw on pretty much every table in the place. It was a sectioned tray of spiced potato, spiced chickpeas, pickle, raita, some safety-orange stuff that seems to be the halwa (sort of a lightly-sweet relative of cream of wheat, with raisins and almonds, served warm), and 3 big puffy greasy puris. I got mine to go in plastic tubs, because there wasn’t a free table in the place, and I was the only gringo, and it didn’t seem fair for me to take up a whole booth for myself, and besides I was hungry and didn’t want to wait. So I ate on a bench at a bus stop, scooping up potato & pickle in greasy bits of puri and generally snarfing away. I got about halfway through and was full — not bad for $3.50. I forgot to get a napkin so I just rubbed all that grease into my cuticles (which were intensely grateful and looked better that day than they have in months) and went merrily along. It was all so good, and it held me through the whole long-ass walk, and the latter half made an entirely satisfying lunch, as you can see in the picture.
I also stopped at a place called Ambala that sells canisters of salty snack mixes; I had one at H’s that was great, and I tried to get one for myself, but I think I got one slightly different, so that will be fun too. It has shards of potato chips, nuts, dried fruit, spices, yum yum. This place is much more elegant and high-end inside, and has a whole range of sweets. I didn’t buy any because I’d already gotten a boxful elsewhere, but the shopgirl offered me a taste of their mini-funnel-cake treat, which was not glowing-orange and was the only one of these I’ve ever had that didn’t taste like the frying oil was stale. It was fantastic, crispy and sweet and syrupy without being cloying, so i will be going back there for my next batch of sweets.
Then the street morphs into a Muslim section, and then stops briefly in Central Asia (one Turkish shop and Argo Georgian bakery). I got some Turkish sheep’s milk feta and oil-cured olives, and a big yeasty round loaf at the bakery, and cilantro and dill at the produce market next door, so I can have a Baku-style breakfast tomorrow, yum. I stopped at a dollar store and bought the most hilarious shower curtain ever (i’m staying in a totally empty apartment, you will recall). This thing is like tissue paper, and the printing doesn’t line up properly — whaddaya want for $1.19? And then I trucked on through the Hasidic neighborhood, spying Hashalom, reputedly the only Israeli felafel in the city, but I was still full so I’ll have to try it later. And then at Kedzie I went over the river, but saw only Home Depot and strip-mall hell, so I turned around and caught the bus back east. There’s a bunch of stuff that needs more time, not least of these being an African restaurant called Toham (at Newgard & Devon) that claims to have smoked goat, so I will be heading back sometime soon.
moodyburgers
Tonight we went to Moody’s Pub, where there seems to be only one really good way to order: Berghoff beer and cheeseburgers. I asked for my burger well done (I like my steaks rare, and I love steak tartare, but commercial ground beef is just kind of icky when it’s soft and pink), and damned if it didn’t come out fantastically crunchy on the outside and still tender inside, with a nice toasty taste, not at all burnt. The fries were magically crunchilicious too, even when they got cold, which they did rather quickly because we were sitting outside on the patio in our coats, just because we could. I think in terms of taste and overall joy-factor, my heart still belongs to Charlie’s Kitchen in Cambridge, but these Moodyburgers will hold me quite nicely, especially considering that they can be consumed either in a fabulous tree-shaded patio or in a dark divey snug of a bar.