Pebs

I completely understand san, I've been sitting here thinking "Damn, now I'm gonna want hot dogs all day and I don't live in Chicago anymore. Bummer

The next time you find yourself in Chicago and are seeking some savory goodness, I recommend stopping at Superdawg on N. Milwaukee. It's a drive-in thats been around for 60 years now and serves one of the best all beef dogs in the city. They serve their dogs with all the traditional Chicago style trimmings, a pickled green tomato, and some killer fresh cut fries. Plus, IMO any place that has a giant hot dog in tarzan costume on its roof is worth checking out. Superdawg 6363 N Milwaukee Ave Chicago, IL (773) 763-0660 ←

Now that the weather is cooling, perhaps a soup buffet party would work for you. There are a vast array of vegetable based soups. You could serve three or four soups with one or two being meat based and the others vegan. Most meat eaters have no objection to vegetable soups. Add a salad and some great bread with some hummus in addition to butter and you'd be all set. And it could all be made ahead and reheated.

I don't know if he ever did it, but I worked with a chef who's last name was Forni. He wanted to open his own catering business. Forni Caters! He and I used to brainstorm about suggestive menu items he could offer.

I bought my hand my hand held vacuum gadget yesterday at Wal-Mart. In Galena, IL. If it's here it's got to be elsewhere. I love it, love it, love it. It was $9.99 as stated including the gadget, with batteries and three bags. Additional bags were around $3.40 for 14 quart sized bags or 9 gallon sized bags. The bags have a little round one way air valve in the upper right hand corner. Once you get the hang of this it works really well. You lay the top corner of the bag on a flat surface, place the suction tip of the gadget over the hole and press the on button until all the air is sucked out. I learned that you have to press enough to have full contact with the valve but not too hard or the air can't get to the valve. The whole gadget is a little bigger than an electric shaver. It's great!

Or give them out for Trick or Treat.

Wonderful soup pictures. I want them all. I made a batch of Chicken Soup last week with liver dumplings. I almost had a soup catastophe. Being frugal (ok cheap) someone had given me a bag full of habanero peppers. Since I didn't want to waste them, I attempted to turn them into hotsauce by chopping them up and cooking them down with vinegar and sugar in my LC dutch oven. Halfway through I had to put box fans in my windows blowing the air out of my house so we could breath. And you can etch metal with the final product. I swear I really scrubbed that pot before I made my stock. But what I must not have done was scrub the pot lid, especially along the edges. When I went to taste my stock for seasoning...wooooh baby did I have seasoning. :shock:I almost fell on my _ss. Fortunately it was early enough in the process that I was able to replace enough water that the end product just had a slight after burn that no one noticed unless I pointed it out. Cindy

There's that guy on Food TV that will dig into some big gooey dish and say "That's Money!" Who the hell wants to eat money? Yummo! I'll take a scoop of quarters please!

I like to make cornish hens for a cheap wow factor meal. You can stuff them with things that make them very memorable and then glaze them at the end with an expensive ingredient added for flair. Wal-Mart has individually frozen small sized birds that I find to be tastier than the double packaged larger ones from Tyson and one per person is perfect. And they are cheap. I also recently made a bracciole dish as a take off on something I saw on Bobby Flay but I used round steak. It was pounded thin, spread with a mixture of shredded pecorino romano, parmesan reggiano, chopped fresh parsley and chopped fresh oregano and minced garlic. Then rolled, tied and grilled to medium rare. I served it sliced in medallions with a roasted tomatoe, garlic and basil sauce. My very fussy, "I know everything about food" ex-chef sister refused to believe it was round steak. Cindy

I can't stand it when people have to carefully inspect every single freakin green bean to make sure it's perfect while everyone is waiting for them to get out of the way. They're beans dag-nab-it! Who cares if you lose .001 oz when you have to pitch one. I also have horrific checkout karma. If there is a line that looks the shortest, I will be the longest wait if I'm in it. But nothing ever struck me as funny as much as this. A tiny little old lady took forever to unload her groceries on to the counter, in part because she was so short and in part because she either had Parkinson's desease or something that made her hands shake. (which isn't what's funny) She waited until everything was scanned and then went into her purse looking for her wallet. It took forever but everyone was patient. Then she took out her credit/debit card. It took forever for her to swipe it. And then when she had to choose debit or credit, hitting the button was near impossible. When she finally nailed it she hit it about 8 times in rapid sucession. It then dawned on us that if she chose debit we would have been there for an hour unless her pin number was 1111111 or 5555555. The horrified look on the cashiers face was priceless. Thank God it was credit and she only had to sign her name.

On reading that recipe, I noted two things that differed from what I grew up with. I don't have the Saveur recipe in front of me but if memory serves me correctly, they made a sport pepper relish that was kept separate from the beef until serving time and then added to the sandwich. In most Chicago Style Italian Beef recipes peppers and gardinera are added to the beef and broth and then slow roasted to add spice to the beef as it's slow roasting. With more served on the sandwich if it suits you. It also appeared that the Saveur recipe called for roasting the beef to medium and then dipping the slices in the beef broth before serving them. Most of what I grew up with was not done that way, it was well done, with the exception of Mamma Fiore's near Grand Ave. in Chicago which served theirs medium, dipped in broth and then smothered in marinara sauce. Cindy

I totally agree Ronnie. This is a great read even if you aren't from Chicago. But having grown up there, I was reminded about things I grew up with that I had forgotten all about and never actually knew the history of. I grew up in the Polish neighborhoods around Milwaukee Ave. and they even did a great job covering the Polish traditional foods that are so abundant in Chicago. And I too agree about the Italian Beef recipe. Now way. But the Begos and Stuffed Cabbage recipes looked pretty authentic. I guess Polish cooks are more forthcoming than Italian cooks. Cindy

The absolutely most infuriating cook I ever encountered was my ex sister-in-law. To set the stage for this recurring nightmare I have to explain a bit about my ex-husbands family. They were obsessively close with one another. That included him, his sister and her hubby (and hubby's parents), my inlaws, his two spinster aunts, and his grandfather. (the latter five all lived together to put it in perspective) They were all super born again Christians that didn't dance, drink, smoke, play cards or go to movies. They had nothing better to do but eat. They insisted on sit down formal dinners for the extended family for every occasion. Seating name tags, china, Waterford Crystal and all. This not only meant the typical holidays, but Valentines Day, St. Patricks Day every birthday in the family, every anniversary and on and on and on. We rotated the honor of hosting these blessed bashes. My sister-in-law married an obnoxious banker whose parents, for reasons that escape me, would not eat oregano or garlic. And they'd faint in horror at any hint of alcohol used to prepare a meal much less drinking it. But they perferred the finer things in life, non of which my sister-in-law could cook. So when it was her turn, she'd invite everyone for dinner at 6pm and upon our arrival, she'd be in the shower singing at the top of her lungs. (hymns of course) The table wouldn't be set, there would be nothing on the stove, and upon exiting the shower and blow drying her flaxen hair and putting on her makeup for an hour or so, she'd make her grand entrance and start giving tours of the latest room she decorated. By that time, the spinster aunts and me would head for the kitchen and start making her wonderful dinner. Usually leg of lamb with no garlic and not a spot of oregano, and at least 4 side dishes that she'd have neatly listed on paper "just in case" anyone wanted to give her a hand. We never saw her in the kitchen until the food was coming out. Then she'd take a gracious bow for all her efforts. And her inlaws and parents would beam approvingly. One time she had church friends over for New Years Eve dinner. Since none of them knew the drill, they all waited patiently for dinner. We got there at 7pm. The made ahead casserole (Chicken Supreme) made it to the table at the stroke of midnight. She returned to the kitchen to make dessert. She had purchased a French Silk pie from Bakers Square. We waited, and waited, listening to the accapella hymns and Christmas Carols she was belting out from the kitchen. At 1:30am she brought out dessert. She was embellishing it the whole time. She had completely covered the surface with mini chocolate chips, one chip at a time. I vowed then and there if I was every still someplace at 1:30am on New Years eve, I'd better be drunk and full. None of us ever went back to her house.

I have the Iowa Road Kill Cookbook. It's utterly disgusting. What's even worse is that I knew someone that would scrape whatever he hit off the pavement and his mother would cook it up. I think the only thing she wouldn't cook was cats.

I'm surprised she's lowering her standards enough to do a show with an American, given that she thinks Americans are so unintelligent and uncivilized. As much as I love Mario, this is one show I intend to pass up.

Bleech!!!! The picture was bad enough. Throwing the word "unruly" in was the frosting on the cake. Or the heave on the plate as it were.

My husband and I had taken a ride into downtown Chicago from our home in the suburbs with our 2 year old daughter who I had just recently finished potty training. Since it was a Sunday afternoon and downtown restaurants weren't very crowded we braved having a fine dining experience with our 2 year old. The meal went just fine. Near the end I decided to take my daughter to the bathroom before the long ride home. Obviously I went into the stall with her. She was at that age where she knew enough about talking to try to mimic mommy and daddy whenever she wanted to feel grown up. So out of the blue she said (as I apparently had said to her on more than a few potty training occasions) "Oh MOMMY. THAT'S OK IF YOU POOPED IN YOUR PANTS A LITTLE BIT" at the top of her little lungs. There was dead silence in the bathroom for about a half a minute. Then I could uproarious laughter coming from all the other stalls. I wanted to flush myself down the toilet. Cindy

Oh man do I feel better after reading this thread. I feel like I'm in group therapy. I can explain away the 5 varieties of steak sauce, 10 varieties of Barbeque sauce and 15 or so spice blends I have amassed. My brother-in-law manages two spice mixing and sauce blending plants for a major food processor and he bestows us with "gifts". But my sudden fetish with making Thai food put me over the condiment top. And I probably should have stepped away from the olive oil and balsamic vinegar store where you could taste everything you were buying. I think I'll go home and reinforce the duct tape holding the refridgerator door racks in place.

What memories this thread conjures up. My mom used to make us Velveeta open faced broiled cheese and tomato sandwiches. She'd take a piece of toast, add a couple of homegrown tomato slices, a slab of velveeta and put it under the broiler untill the cheese melted and formed a toasted skin on the top. Awsome. And the other great thing was Johnnie Massetti caserole which incorporated ground beef, chunks of velveeta crushed tomatoes, canned mushrooms and wide egg noodles. It thrown in an oven proof dish and topped with more velveeta and baked until bubbly and brown on the top. This dish doesn't seem to work with any other cheese. You need that oozing consistency. But I must admit. Velveeta kinda scares me. I mean, how come it doesn't have to be refrigerated until you open the foil wrap. What kind of scary preservatives does this stuff have? Is it really food? Hmmm. Food or not I have some homegrown tomatoes to use up. I think I'll pick up a box on my way home. The broiler awaits.

Jensen I can't believe you were thinking about this topic for an hour and a half either. Perhaps I can lend a different perspective and thereby restore some hope that the world is not doomed to copiously consume simple good eats hijacked by the evil business empire in America. Maybe you'll get some sleep. I think it's all in where you live. I used to live in Chicago. I used to live in NYC. Both boast some of the finest dining and ingredients available in the world. Yes. I admit. There was a real high in purchasing the hot new, old fashioned, back to basics, now labled gourmet, exorbitantly expensive food stuff. Then I moved. I live in a small town in Illinois. One might think I am now denied the finer things in culinary life. But you'd be surprised. Every Friday I get into work (City Hall) and find a dozen "non caged, free range, whatever" eggs in beautiful colors of tan, brown, blue and white on my desk, delivered by the lady who cleans our offices and raises her own chickens. She charges a dollar a dozen. The yolks are deeper and richer than the store bought ones. (We like to call those concentration camp eggs because of the blue stamped serial numbers on each egg.) They are pure joy to eat and taste decidely different. Morel hunting is a community or social event. No one sells them to anyone here except at farmers markets on occasion in the nearest real city. If you have too many you offer them to your friends before they go bad. I know a local venison farmer who supplies the better dining establishements in New York and Chicago. If he knows you know how to handle and appreciate great food he'll invite you into one of his many barns and take you to the chest freezers in the back. I've left with an entire shopping bag of venison tenderloins and roast for a sum total of $25.00. Yes, for the whole bag, not just one roast. And after a darn great conversation with him and his wife while watching them train their prize winning horses as well. I've had neighbors who know I can tomatoes every year bring over boxes of just picked tomatoes because they are going fishing on the Mississippi for a week and they'll spoil by the time they get back. I pay them back with the pounds and pounds of asparagus I pick in my yard each spring. A local meat market purchases as many of the prize winning lambs at all the county fairs in the area that they can and if they know you love lamb they give you a sheet with the dates of the fairs they'll be buying from so you know when they'll have the prize winners in their meat case. It's usually about $6-$7 a pound for all different cuts. I guess what I am getting at is that the huge part of the population that lives between the big cities in this country are living a pretty darn good and pretty darn smart life when it comes to food and quality of life. I now purchase far higher quality meats and produce than I ever did in Chicago or NY for in some cases 1/3 of the price. And until I came here, I'd never eaten much less picked a morel mushroom. I like many people I know make and smoke my own sausage. Some of us even smoke the fish we snag on the Mississippi River. I've had more high quality food experiences than ever before in settings completely different than high end restaurants. I often marvel that the midwest is refered to as "fly over" country. There are communities like mine all over fly over country that are laughing their butts off at that while eating "cageless eggs". I can't wait to tell the cleaning lady she's on the cutting edge of chicken raising. There are some things that big business will never be able to get their greedy mits on. Good neighbors, raising good food, and offering it out of good friendship is one of those things. I wouldn't go back to big city life for all the world. Don't get me wrong. It's great to visit, but I love coming home.

Old Timer Galena hasn't changed much other than three new hotels which were much needed. If anything, many of the larger historic homes and commercial buildings that were empty have been restored over the last 8 years, so it's better than ever. Look me up if you ever get out this way. Just call City Hall. I'm the economic development and finance director. Cindy

Why use food coloring when you can use perfectly good Chambord! The more you drink, the purtier it gets.

From my experience the affect is going to be minimal. I live in Galena, IL and we have much the same dynamic as your community likely does. Chicagoans with second homes that are here primarily during the summer months. There was great concern here when a casino boat and restaurant venue opened 14 miles away. There was a great effort on the part of the hospitality industry in Galena to either lure customers that went to gamble or partner with the casino to provide their customers with lodging accommodations and dining alternatives. Neither happened. The profile of gamblers specifically in the Midwest is quite different than that of Las Vegas or Atlantic City. They want to gamble first and foremost and eat cheaply if they happen to be hungry. Inversely, people who do not gamble are not likely to seek out fine dining at a casino venue in the more rural areas of the Midwest. The casino boat in the Galena area went out of business in just a couple of years. Another has operated for quite a few years on the Iowa side of the Mississippi that has two restaurants. One is a high end steak house and the other is cheap appetizers served buffet style. The buffet is fairly busy. You can walk into the steak house on a saturday night at 7pm and be seated immediately. So rest assured, your worst fears will probably not materialize.

I can share my recent experience on this subject. Living in a community of 3,400 people with an annual visitor count of 1.5 million people, there are a preponderance of restaurant jobs in our town. My daughter took restaurant management and culinary arts in high school and then went on to a year of culinary school. She dropped out after a year due to drugs and alcohol. Upon returning home she went back to work at local restaurants, mostly flippng burgers and making buffalo wings. About 8 months ago, she got a job as the head chef at a fine dining restaurant by shear fluke. Their chef went home to the Philipines to visit and never came back. Hers was the only application they had on file with any culinary school background so they gave her a shot. Much to their surprise, and quite frankly mine, she's put them on the map with the local community and their doing better and better with their weekend visitor traffic as their reputation spreads. As a result of this I have seen a tremendous difference in my daughter. Gone are the drugs and drinking is limited. She's lost the loser crowd she hung around with. And just this last week, instead of only wearing t-shirts and jeans on the line and when she visits the dining room, she came and got all her chef's whites. She feels she needs to project an image that matches her food. I guess my point is, will she ever get rich being a chef? Probably not. It's hard work, hot and the hours are hell. But what it does give her is confidence and self esteem that comes with producing a product that genuinely pleases other people. And some people thrive on that. So being a chef isn't such a bad thing.

The worst thing I was ever served was a birthday cake that my husband's best friend's wife baked for him. Nothing elaborate. It looked ok. Just a simple white 9x13 cake in the pan with chocolate frosting. You couldn't cut through that frosting with a chain saw. And while the cake looked higher in the middle than in did on the sides, the only thing higher was the frosting. Once we finally broke through the frosting thunder dome, the cake inside was more of a gooey slop in the middle. To this day I don't know how she did this to frosting, but I bet NASA would love to know. It would make a great heat shield on the Space Shuttle.