Lady T

The French-born owner of First Evanston Liquors, on Davis Street just half a block west of the Metra/CTA stop, seems to be working really hard to be responsive: new cash-register/barcode inventory systems, annual scouting/buying trips to Europe, careful service and advice. They've been really prompt and knowledgeable about special-ordering stuff for me that they don't carry on hand, and their hard-liquor and beer selections look really nice (probably the proximity to NU is a factor there!). I'm enjoying building a relationship with 'em, even though they aren't nearly the size of Binny's or Sam's. (Disclosure: It doesn't hurt that they're half a block from my home, either.)

Bloody all! Did the numbwits at the FN ever consider that one of the reasons there's such a large Midwestern market for food programs might possibly be that we like to explore other cuisines beyond the ones commonly available to us every day? Has the possibility ever entered their teensy l'il money-driven minds that many of us in the Midwest do in fact speak and read languages other than Central Kansas American, and that the "foreign accents" they want to discard may sound just like home to a whole lot of us? Why on earth would I want to spend my infrequent TV-watching time looking at someone who looks just like me (prettier than I and made up for the camera, of course) and (in Rachael Ray's case, IMHO) doesn't even cook as well as I do? Feh! Midwesterner that I am, I take exception, yet again and still, to the condescending insult to Midwestern intelligence and taste implied by this decision. *Sigh* Rant over.

Attempts to condense Chicago dining down to 'ABC' are doomed, and I wish to goodness writers would knock it off. The diversity and depth of our scene needs the whole alphabet, all the numerals, and probably a few characters that haven't been invented yet (paging ChefG: any linguistics experts on your crew yet?). I'd only be surprised if molecular gastronomy didn't have artists in practice here -- and adherents arguing with detractors to accompany them. The questions of art and comfort and originality Paul raises are fascinating and they argue several different ways, of course, but the bottom line for me is flavor, always. I don't wanna play with food that isn't going to be delicious, and if that means a plain-but-heavenly-tasting saute of chicken rather than a cool-looking but unsatisfying inflated confection with foam on top sitting on a bed of unidentified fried diced riced gene-spliced concasse of nobody-can-quite-remember-what -- then, for Heaven's sake, please pass the chicken! The experience I remember from Trio last year was, first and foremost, of miraculous tastes combined in an amazing sequence and partnered by (bless you, Joe Catterson!) superb wine choices. The playfulness of the shapes/textures/aromas made that succession all the more memorable -- but I would have gone home happy with that exquisite parade of flavors singing in my memory even without the supremely cool presentations.

Tell me you have another source for that greedy supplier's commodity, Ronnie, and tell me you've rejected his price increase and/or terminated his contract. Then tell me you've had a great lunch.

Any combination of chocolate and champagne does it for me.

Cubs fan here -- they of the pre-playoffs collapse. Somebody needs to keep that damn goat at Wrigley Field (supposedly the long-ago origin of our curse). Or maybe kill and roast it. H'm. Roast goat sounds really, suspiciously, good right now. Better check my calendar.

Dayum. I'm headed for the slammer no matter which way I turn: the Oil But No Salt In The Pasta Water cops are after me for certain...hmm. I wonder if the Salt But No Oil In The Pasta Water patrol will spring me out?

Not buying the premise, friend. A straight dollar-value analysis doesn't yield the complete picture: cost/benefit analysis doesn't factor in the fun of cooking, nor the 'pleasure of the chase' to be had in shopping around for the precise quality of the precise ingredients you want to use at the precise price point you want to find 'em. (Yes. It takes time. I choose to spend the time in that way, as recreation.) It doesn't begin to estimate the pleasure of pairing the cool white wine you found for rock-bottom prices last month with the salad you're about to serve. I tend to think of home cooking as vastly higher in quality, but that may be simply because I do it in a way tailored to my taste (so of course I like it!). I also think of it as safer, but industry experts will surely argue that with me. Still and yet: it's to the store and to the kitchen for me, most days, and I like that just fine.

Two series which aren't about food but feature drool-worthy descriptions of characters' meals would be the Robert Parker 'Spenser' novels and the Kate Shugak/Alaska series by Dana Stabenow. I always wind up collecting 'em if they're good mysteries first and include great dinner descriptions. Or lunches. Or breakfasts. Or snacks...

Pretty much the same as in the Julia and Jacques programs: the highest praise I ever saw from him for something they'd prepared was a nod and an "Umph. Good." Maybe a smile. Then it was right back to business, making more great food.

Not to worry. That's what the thread's for, after all. Just give us a moment to repot your rant in a nice ceramic pot, water it gently, and set it on a sunny windowsill... Um. Just kidding. I didn't mean to brag, truly I didn't; I'm enough of a force of entropy in my own home (I'm an editor. Paper breeds catastrophically, not only on my desk, but on my dining room table, the chairs, the TV, the bed, and every other flat surface in the joint.) that it seemed reasonable to assume that my rules were pretty common, if not downright lenient.

That is one thing I've noticed about living alone: nobody's making messes but yours truly, and no complaints if yours truly doesn't clean it up. That said, however, the house rules are: (1) Everything -- everything! -- is in the dishwasher by the time I hit the sack in the evening. (2) The trash is to be out (and empty wine bottles put out for recycling), the dishwasher is to be empty, and everything is to be put away by the time I leave for work in the morning. This vastly reduces the 'ick!' factor of getting up early in the morning and having to face a sinkful that hasn't improved overnight, and it also allows me to hit the market as needful after work and come home to a kitchen which is clean and ready for the fun of cooking dinner. (edited for clarity)

Ah. Chicken livers. Now I know whose blog this is. Delightful!

My bet would be that, in a survey of a statistically large population, the process would turn out not to be as fragile as the food-fearmongers want us to believe. I suspect that the old "everything in moderation" saw comes in right about now, and that common sense (along with the careful supervision of a doctor who knows the mother-to-be's history) truly should govern.

I felt strongly about 6_2_3 and 6_2_5 That image of the alinea coming off a plate -- going beyond or transcending the plate, if you will -- is one that speaks to me considerably, looking in from the outside as a future customer of Alinea (and a former customer at Trio), and having read the entries (or most of them) here at these boards. I can see where chefg would be gunshy of the 'flying saucer' referent, certainly. That model, though, is the one which most speaks to me (so far) of art reaching via food into the customer's moment at the table, and I favor it most of all I've seen. Yet.

There's a thought, actually. I'd love to see an exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art -- or, better yet, the Art Institute of Chicago (particularly because of its attached school! Imagine how tables might look and meals might taste after a couple of generations of design students absorb this kind of thinking as part of their primary training!) -- that documents the evolution of this interaction between what we eat and how we eat it all, and why we want to eat it. Enjoying this thread immensely!

Damn all, but that looks wonderful. Wish I'd been able to keep in touch with the folks who knew where it all was going. Ah well: Only two restaurants barely scratch the surface, Tommy sir. Do come back to town soon, and I'll try to keep up.

I'm in. Where are we going? If Tommy's on/near Delaware, it occurs to me that the Ritz-Carlton has one truly wonderful Sunday brunch. Opinions? Time?

I could do this. But...Tommy never shows up, y'know?

That I will do. Paraphrased from a song that runs through my head now and then: When the hour is darkest Just before the dawn... Somewhere up in heaven There's a party goin' on! Just imagine what kind of a bash she and James Beard and Escoffier and all the other masters of the art are throwing, now and forever...

I've never quite stopped being tense about loyalty cards in terms of the issuers tracking my purchases/preferences and marketing to me. I don't like databases selling my profile to each other for fun and profit. Not all that long ago, though, I started thinking about it in other terms as well, and God knows that eGullet has had a hand in that inward shift: Maybe one of the best things I can do for the American marketplace *IS* to make certain that my demand for fresh, organic, un-screwed-up foods, in wide seasonal variety and at (at least!) semi-decent prices is, in fact, registered. Often. Emphatically. Along with my tastes in wines. Cheeses, too -- including the ones the Department of Ag/FDA's scared to let us import. We can ignore marketing initiatives (snail mail, email, phone, flyers slipped under the door, posters in the laundry room, coupons handed out at the front of stores, you name it) with a happy impartiality...but if those businesses want to remain in business, they don't dare ignore us. Demand it loudly enough, often enough, and spend your food dollar on it, and maybe we can make the market cater more to us!

Fascinating. No doubt they'd be astonished and delighted at the quantity and quality of the raw foodstuffs available. I wonder, however, how happy they'd be at the quantities that reach the table. Remember the feasts and banquets thrown (at least by/for European royalty, anyhow) in those days, and the sheer eye-popping quantity that was consumed? Don't forget the complexity per course of those meals, either, or the 'subtleties' at the end, or or or... Expensive guests, that pre-1550 crowd.

Dinner with Tarka, 7 p.m., Saturday, July 17th: Rushmore, 1023 W. Lake Street The thing a body needed to remember about this past weekend down by Michigan Avenue is that Millennium Park has just opened, and the City of Chicago is throwing a 24-carat, gold star wingding. There are clowns. There's music being played almost anywhere a body cares to look, including the concerts actually planned by the City, and dancing of multiple kinds. There are parades, spontaneous and otherwise. There are kids in wholesale lots running around under the fountains (and the occasional adult as well, being shoved under the water as an antidote to beer). Everybody seems to need to get Up Close And Personal with the town's newest, not-quite-soldered-all-the-way-together ambiguity, known as Cloud Gate by its artist and as The Big Bean by virtually everybody else. The Frank Gehry edifice I've been ridiculing as "the plane crash down by the Prudential Building" -- the Pritzker Pavilion -- turns out to be a pretty damn impressive concert venue, and will rank up there with the best we have in town when the acousticians get the sound balanced throughout the block. What feels like half the Chicago metro area has been wandering around down here, shopping and rubbernecking and dancing and listening, and as a matter of fact, it's a pretty cool time. But Lord, it is crowded. And it is loud. No particular wonder, then, that I railroaded Tarka west on Lake Street, away from this huge amiable scrimmage, to Rushmore, where the food is fine, the wine list is tasty if pricey, and above all, it's quiet. Time for comfort food. We started off with the firm smoky house pate (with all the proper fixings: caper berries, a soft-boiled egg, grain mustard, and cornichons) for me and a small cup of roasted-tomato bisque for Tarka, with a little grilled-cheese sandwich on the side made with Maytag blue cheese (wonderfully homey, dipped in the bisque) and a salad of shaved apples and fennel with pecan bits. The wine was a 2001 Argyle Pinot Noir from Oregon, all fruit and plush, and we stayed with that for the meal. Tarka likes Southern fried chicken, so it turns out, and at Rushmore a nicely done chicken breast -- still quite tender and not overcooked, the crust well-seasoned and crisp -- comes with the classic goes-with's: decent collard greens (Tarka says she liked Varmint's better at the Pig Pickin', though, and how otherwise? Home cooking is always better.), young garlic potatoes (nice texture, I thought), and white sausage gravy (this led to a dissertation on British v. American usages of the word 'gravy', as opposed to 'sauce' or 'jus'). I got two enormous, beautifully cooked trout fillets with a well-flavored mushroom reduction full of gorgeous whole morel mushrooms over more of those garlic potatoes. I was happy, but then morels make me happy anytime and always. Dessert, since we were both full and happy, consisted of a trio of pots de creme, one of which -- the chocolate -- was exemplary, and the other two of which -- vanilla set off with pecan brittle (I think) and a curiously gritty-textured blueberry version -- weren't much to write home about. Maybe the other offerings had...well...more to offer. I will certainly come back again; the place is thinking carefully about its ingredients and merits another try or two at the very least. I mention also for the record: Tarka is a sweetheart with whom the rest of the Heartland should party at any opportunity. When's that curry crawl?

That's the essential point, I think: we've got Goodman and Steppenwolf doing the cool serious stuff, and we also have Bleacher Bums going on at the same time. Second City (and its offshoots) I put in a separate category. It's rather like the kid in the old nursery rhyme: when it's good, it's really really good, and when it's bad, it's horrid. I was born here, and the wide, wide variety still blows my mind. *Edited to add: What we call 'horrid' would be welcomed with thanks in a whole lot of other places where funding cuts have made theater of any kind a happy rarity!*

Ehh, now. This won't do. Many apologies...the hot chocolate was better than that last time I was there.