daniellewiley
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Posts posted by daniellewiley
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Our daughter's preschool teacher recommends Pizza Metro on Division. I haven't tried it yet...
Oh yeah, Pizza metro rules. Like I said, I am probably forgetting something. But that place rules. I like to just sit in there and absorb the atmosphere - all old school Italians. And the pizza is awesome. And cheap. When my then-fiancee (now wife) was in the hospital, the food she most wanted me to bring her was Pizza Metro pizza.
Would we be ok going with two little kids? (two LOUD little kids?)
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Just made a reservation for tomorrow night - I'm excited! I'll be sure to report back...
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Our daughter's preschool teacher recommends Pizza Metro on Division. I haven't tried it yet...
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So.... we've been here for nearly three weeks now.
We tried a thin crust from Art of Pizza - mediocre.
We tried deep dish from Lou Malnati's in Lincoln Park - mediocre - Michael disliked the sauce. I didn't mind the sauce, but found the sausage uninspired, and just wasn't blown away.
Tonight we ordered a deep dish sausage pie from Pequod's. The crust wasn't flaky enough, IMO. I liked the sauce, though it was heavy-handed. I loved the burnt cheese on the edges. The Pequod's salad was damn good (but that's another thread). This is getting closer, and we'll order again, but I'm still not feeling it.
Will we ever find something perfect?? Next up are Gino's and Uno or Due.
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There's so much to eat, see, and do, especially if you're willing to hop on a train or bus (or taxi). What are your particular interests in food and merchandise? For example, there's a great medium-high-end resale shop just off the Brown Line that Ms. Alex always makes a point of visiting, but I don't know if that's your thing. Others may say a Chicago dog or Italian beef is quintessential Chicago and a must-eat; I say, not so much. <ducks quickly to avoid a barrage of sport peppers being fired from across the big lake>
It may not be dockhl's thing, but I sure would like to know about that resale place. Details, pretty please?
As far as things to do, the Architecture Foundation has great walking, bus, boat and bike tours.
I'd love to know about this place too - we just moved to Chicago and are on the Brown line. Sounds like a great place!!
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Here is another pic of the fish with Dylan Wiley. She was on my sous chef on the fish. She seasoned it with salt and pepper, stuffed it with green stuff( thyme) and lemon.
Dylie LOVES to cook. The fish was an especially exciting project for her because we never cook it at home. I'm deathly allergic! Randi was a great cooking teacher, and Dyl had a blast helping with the preparations.
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We have had a babysitting disaster, so my plans are changed. I can't make any of the Friday events.
Is someone willing to take over as lead on the culinary archive trip? This shouldn't involve anything more than letting them know we have arrived. Also, I will likely have to bring both kids Saturday.
Tammy - is that going to be a disaster??
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Sadly there is but the one bottle. Since there may not be enough to go around, any thoughts as to how it might be an ingredient?
YES!! Look what I just found:
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It's an interesting concept. I've just posted a question on the forums there about how credit card payments are handled, given that they use PayPal to disburse collected funds. PayPal requires that you have a premium account in order to collect credit card payments, but it looks like those payments get effectively "laundered" into one direct combined transfer, which would hopefully eliminate that problem.
I had planned to handle this on a case by case basis, collecting money on-site from people arriving Friday night and Saturday morning, and asking those who wouldn't be arriving until later to make arrangements to pay in advance. But I'm certainly open to exploring other options.
One of the things I liked about this is it lets everyone see how the money is dispersed. That way, we can try to figure some of the logistics out ahead of time.
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Destroit, Foie would be AWESOME. :-)
All, we had some discussions off-list about how to collect money in advance and make sure it is dispersed properly for the shopping ventures.
I just read about a new service that is still FREE!! because it is, well, new.
What do you all think?
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Here are aa bunch of cute ones, made by Tana Butler, a former eGer:
http://www.cafepress.com/gastrogear/
They are all available in kids sizes.
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I'm happy to head up another side or a chicken dish - Sparrow Meat has FABULOUS chicken - I really like BBQ'ing them whole, and would be happy to oversee that.
I'll also need numbers ASAP for the Culinary Archive trip. I need to coordinate that and they'll need a rough estimate of the number of people to expect.
Oh, and Michael is a no go again this year. He'll be up north at a golf outing for work. :-(
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my favorite chicken salad is fairly simple but tasty. Leftover roasted chicken breast (usually roasted with lemon and garlic), pulled instead of chopped, finely chopped onion, a lot of chopped celery and chopped and seeded cucumber, salt, pepper, celery seed. Dressed with homemade lemon mayo.
Best way to eat it is piled in the hollow of a really ripe avocado, with some sliced ripe tomato and wheat bread on the side.
Yum, I love chicken salad in an avocado half (crab salad too, actually). I chop my chicken very fine and add mayo, salt, pepper and lots of celery seed.
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Taste and texture is strictly up to preparer. Each recipe can be adjusted to increase or decrease ingredients according to individual likes. The only non-variable is the main ingredient as it's already portioned to feed 6. I split all entrees anyway.
From what Danielle has said, they seem very time consuming.
Only if you make it complicated. It's not perfect nor do I reply totally on this concept. It's far better than fast food, cheaper than a restaurant, and I get to choose which wine to have with dinner.
Me again.
I think I said it before, but from what I've read, quality of the ingredients varies from franchise to franchise. That said, there were tastes and textures that could not have been strictly up to me. The main sauce ingredient of three of my entrees was a condensed cream soup. I don't care for the taste OR texture of this, but it would have been impossible to change it. Also, I had a problem with the texture of the chicken breasts - something I could not have done anything to fix or avoid. Something I COULD have changed was the inclusion of dried herbs. The quality of the ones I have at home are much better.
And, I don't think I complicated things any (making the final prep more time consuming). Because I looked upon this as a bit of an experiment, I did all final cooking to the letter of the instructions on the sticker.
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I discussed my experience upthread (and linked to the section of my blog that discusses it ad infinitum), but to reiterate:
I like the concept. It's nice to have homemade meals waiting for me in the freezer. And, I enjoyed the night out with friends.
But, the franchise I visited (Dream Dinners) featured processed, poor quality food. The recipes were not terrific, the spices were stale-tasting and many of the dishes required quite a bit of time to prepare (36 hours to defrost, marinating, mixing, over an hour in the oven, etc.). With that much time and my own, better ingedients, I'm much better off doing it myself.
When I finally get moved and have some more time to myself, I plan to have a night at my house to do this with friends. I think it would be fun.
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Danielle, if I may bluntly cut to the chase: what aromas are sexy to you when on someone else's lips?
Wow, that's some question!
I think a smoky quality is pretty sexy, probably stemming back to my college days of dating musicians and various other barflies. That would point to scotch, right? Though that isn't one of my favorites.
maybe i should just give him cheap beer and a cigarette.
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OK, I'd like to make some romantic cocktails tonight
, and I am looking for suggestions. Basically, the sky is the limit, as my bar is rather empty, and no matter what I make I will need to be buying supplies. -
We have the very same shelves - Hold Everything??
We've used them all over the house for various items, from cookbooks to kids' toys. Pretty versatile shelves...
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I was taken for a meal to a fairly decent Asian/fusion restaurant in the area - I can't remember where or the name. All I remember is that the table had a piece of butcher paper on it so that our server could write her name on it with a flourish. I was quite taken aback: have never seen that anywhere else. The food was pretty good. And you have that great middle eastern market downtown, right?
I think you're talking about Mon Jin Lau, which is one of my all time favorite restaurants. I frequently picked it for my birthday dinner when I was a teenager and in college. They were doing Asian fusion before fusion was a word.
Unless they've changed things drastically in the last few years, Mon Jin Lau doesn't do the "write on the paper tablecloth" thing. They've got more class than that.
One expects to see such things at semi-upscale (and not oversaturated) chains like Macaroni Grill. Perhaps it was a place along those lines?
I was at Mon Jin Lau Saturday night, and our waiter absolutely wrote his name (Sebby) on our table!
The food was very good, though.
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Yay, I'm glad to finally put a face to the name, blog, and faucet.
(Kathy helped me out with a faucet project I had to write for work.)
Really enjoying this blog - your school lunches are particularly inspiring. I have such issues with those!!
I do have a question with the pizzas you send with Ryan. You said you reheat them in the toaster oven. How do you keep them warm? Or do you just reheat them to defrost and he eats them cold? I like the pizza idea. Dylan loves pizza.
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I've got some ice-cube-sized containers of purreed, roast duck/duck skin /duck fat for our baby in the fridge, and I cant resist stealing one every once in a while, made some awesome fried rice with one of them mixed in.
wow. In my next life, sign me up to be YOUR baby!!
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Has Dax done cheerios? Max tried this weekend and was choking a bit. the little bugger has no teeth, so i think it's harder? not sure. maybe I need to try again. he just really really wants finger food.
pirate's booty is a good idea...
We tried Cheerios recently, but he couldn't really pick them up well. I think he just dropped them all, and didn't manage to get any in his mouth. He has 2 teeth (one just erupted in the last few days), but they can't really do much.
There's also those teething biscuit things. I seem to remember someone posting about English rusk biscuits.... Must look for this...
We did cheerios tonight. He couldn't pick them up very well, but enjoyed them when I gave them one at a time. He didn't choke at all tonight.
I also gave him an Earth's Best teething Biscuit. He LOVED it.
I tried putting a cheerio in the palm of my hand for him to pick up with his fingers and he leaned over and ate it out of my hand like a dog.
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I gave Mr. Max some roasted cauliflower last night and was rewarded with a super gassy baby who slept terribly.
He does love real food though. He'll only eat the jarred stuff if I make it super-thick with multi-grain cereal.
Mr. Dax (I get a kick out of the fact that Danielle and I have boys about a month apart with rhyming names) just had his first "finger" food. He doesn't really have the pincer grasp thing yet, but I was nibbling on some veggie chips (like Pirate Booty) while fixing lunch, and he was getting antsy, so I handed him a chip. I wanted to get the camera, but figured I'd stick close by in case he had any chance of choking. Though these little puffy chips probably melt away even quicker than cheerios.
I get a kick out of it too!
Has Dax done cheerios? Max tried this weekend and was choking a bit. the little bugger has no teeth, so i think it's harder? not sure. maybe I need to try again. he just really really wants finger food.
pirate's booty is a good idea...
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not only that-- but throw in the food delivery options and one can see why
New York is such an amazing city for food options!
Every neighborhood is a pretty good place to live here.
What about the suburbs?? If you could pick any suburb (one with an easy commute to Manhattan), which would you pick, based on the food alone?
Are we counting outerborough locations as suburbs? Because some of them have some pretty good food in their own right...
Sure! I won't know all of the details till tomorrow night, but looks like we'll need to be somewhere within an easy commute to midtown. (yay!!!!)
All of my college friends are in Brooklyn, so I'm certainly considering that, but with the kids and the dog, I'm wondering just how much is feasible within the city limits. The food thing is really important to me, obviously. My parents are pushing Long Island HARD, but I didn't like growing up there, so I don't know that I'd like it now. Other people are saying Jersey, or Stamford, CT.
There are so many variables!!
Butter - Chicago
in The Heartland: Dining
Posted · Edited by daniellewiley (log)
Our dinner a few weeks ago was phenomenal as well. We had many of the same dishes that Ron had. I'm so glad he got a great shot of that BLT In Hand - we ate ours too quickly!
My pics are up here with some commentary: Butter Pictures
I'm still working on my writeup, but I'll be sure to share it once it's done.