Food: October 2007 Archives

This week's selection was a suggestion from an old friend we ran into at a party a couple weeks back. The time was closing in on midnight and most everyone else had left for the evening. We would interrupt the conversation to say our goodbyes, then return to the important discussion of beer. Our friend looked at us and said, "If you like IPAs like you say, you've got to try 'Racer 5' and let...

El Cubanito, a Cuban sandwich shop on North Pulaski, has only been open for six months, but owners Alberto and Laritza Ramos have been getting "Judy at Carnegie Hall"-level raves from the usual suspects for their Cuban sandwich. The combination of the "LTH effect" and Logan Square Cubans longing for a taste of something they can call their own have reached such a fever pitch that Alberto Ramos told Chicago Magazine's "Dish" newsletter that he sells 400 Cuban sandwiches a day. We visited El Cubanito just before lunchtime Saturday and asked Alberto Ramos about that claim. He only backtracked slightly, telling Chicagoist that while he's not certain of the exact number, "it's a lot."

Northwestern is among forty North American colleges and universities in the running for PETA's most vegetarian-friendly campus, to be awarded next month (if you're so inclined, you may vote for Northwestern or any of the other nominees here). The nominees were compiled by students throughout the US and Canada and tallied by PETA2, the animal-rights organizations youth activism arm.

File this under "things that make you go, 'Hmm'". In last week's "Friday Buffet" installment we told you of a fine wine auction held by the auction house Hart Davis Hart. The auction turned out to be pretty lucrative for both the sellers and Hart Davis Hart. The two-day auction sold all 1646 lots offered, for a total of $4.6 million in sales. Among the notable highlights of the auction (read the list here) was...

Speaking from experience, pet owners can often go overboard in treating their pets as "a part of the family." Just the other night we treated Emmy to some slices of duck salami and Fleur de Maquis cheese from Pastoral's new Loop location. We've also been known to bake our own dog biscuits. Which makes a story we read in today's Sun-Times warm us even more. Ted Lownik, a part-time Barraco's pizza deliveryman, has been delivering...

When lasted we checked in, all was not "love they neighbor" on the corner of Winchester and Thomas. Neighbors of the Inner Town Pub were angry about the drunken and sloppy behavior of the bar's patrons and wanted Alderman Manny Flores to do something about it. This week's Chicago Journal has a nice little wrap-up of what's happened since. Bar representatives, upset neighbors and Flores have been meeting on a monthly basis to improve...

On the subject of hot dog stands, it's the little differences that separate the ones we like from the ones we don't. Growing up on the Northwest side we had the good fortune (although as teenagers we never realized it) of living near some of the best, like Bemo's on Fullerton; the recently closed Toots Drive Thru at Central and Montrose; Duke's, just up the street at Central and Bryn Mawr; and Jimmy's Red Hots on Grand and Pulaski. A visit to Jimmy's over the weekend showed us how much a neighborhood can change in over twenty years: compared to our memories the intersection today could pass as a suburb. But the muffler man at the auto parts store on Grand still lords over all he surveys, and Jimmy's is still doing business the way we remembered. A hot dog stand like Jimmy's doesn't stay in business for fifty-five years by serving up bad red hots.

It’s easy to miss A Mano on the street despite the restaurant’s name hanging above the front door in bright in bright red lettering—because it's tucked under Bin 36 like a secret clubhouse. Owner Dan Sachs and Chef Jon Caputo opened up the new rustic/authentic Italian eatery under their original mainstay, but when we attended a media preview a few weeks ago, it was clear the two want A Mano to stand on its own.

Gone largely unnoticed among the other notable tax increases proposed by His Elective Majesty to plug the gaping hole in his 2K8 budget is the whopping $13.1 million increase to the liquor tax. The proposed increase will add 8¢ to a six-pack of beer, 7¢ to a bottle of wine, and 24¢ to a liter of hard liquor. Fittingly, this isn't sitting well with the beer wholesaler lobby. The Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois are...

Some things to do this weekend, and into next, as an excuse to dress in costume. Rare and fine wine auction house Hart Davis Hart is holding an auction of private collections from both coasts today from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. at Tru. The auction is free to attend, but anyone taking the time to head to Tru and not eat is an idiot, quite frankly. Lunch today at Tru is fixed-priced at $75....

We told you it was happening; now it has, and both the Food Chain and The Stew stopped by to take their respective looks at the new Pastoral in the Loop. Food Chain asked owner Greg O'Neill about the popularity of fancy cheese: "People have the sense that 'if I’m going to be bad, I might as well be bad with something good.'" Indeed, my friend, Indeed. Handlebar owner Josh Deth has been all over...

A little snort of scotch is enough to shake off the chill of this weather. Martin Duffy, the "Master of Whisky" who can find a whiskey for any form of food, will be on hand at Mrs. Murphy's and Sons Irish Bistro this evening. Duffy is hosting a four-course dinner, each course paired with a different whiskey. We've included the menu here for your perusal (as always, in Adobe PDF format). The dinner starts at...

Today marks a new beginning at 620 N. State St. At Pizzeria via Stato, chef David DeGregorio streamlines the menu focus of Osteria via Stato to Roman-style thin crust pizzas featuring artisanal ingredients, small plates, an all-Italian wine list, an emphasis on seasonality, a smoke-free environment and casual seating (read: no reservations). To complement the new menu, wine director Adam Seger has crafted some inventive cocktails, including a "honeycrisp apple-sage-black pepper gastrotail" martini using his...

When we were younger and less discriminating about our beer, we considered it a point of pride to be able to drink every draft selection at a bar. When we made it through every tap at Hopleaf (back when it was only a bar; how many of us can remember that?) we stopped taking on that challenge. Then we started hanging out at Skylark with frequency. With only a couple handfuls of selections, a beer...

Last weekend we were at Bridgeport Coffee House restocking on their "Stockyard" blend when we noticed a blend we hadn't seen before, "Ravenswood Roast." We asked owner Mike Pilkington when he started making blends honoring north side neighborhoods. "I'm not" was his answer. He then explained that the "Ravenswood Roast" was part of a new fundraising arm of his wholesale business. The idea began in spring, when a customer came into the shop inquiring about...

For this week's exploration of the (hopefully not dirty or seedy) underbelly of Chicago's restaurant scene we thought we would look into a few of the establishments that LTHForum recently named as 2007's great neighborhood restaurants.

From the "things are tough all over" department: As if the folks at Jays didn't have enough to worry about with its recent bankruptcy filing, now two former executives of parent company Ubiquity Brands filed a lawsuit Friday claiming that they were fired in a corporate restructuring "without cause". Former Chief Financial Officer William McManaman and Chief Information Officer Gary Rietz claim their terminations are a violation of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection...

Halloween is approaching and for one lucky segment of the population, this means loads and loads of free candy. We speak here of those younger than 14, the lucky group whose costume descriptions don't usually start with "sexy" and whose only goal is to fill up their pumpkins as they trick-or-treat around the neighborhood.

Marina Café on Jackson Harbor is one of many restaurants on the South side we'd love to recommend to readers without hesitation, but can't. We're convinced that tables without a reservation would be hard to come by if this restaurant was located at Monroe Harbor or North Avenue Beach. We also suspect that, if it were in one of those locations, Marina Café's owners and management would place a bigger emphasis on restaurant basics. As such, we can't eagerly endorse their combination of Creole and Caribbean for lunch or dinner. We were hoping that yesterday's jazz brunch would see them raise their level. But the food was still hit-or-miss.

Last week, after making our soup, we found that we still had a fair amount of mushrooms in our possession. We put them in a container, into the fridge and didn't worry too much about them for a few days. Eventually, we realized that they had to be used. We considered a fried rice kind of meal with mushrooms or a tomato sauce, but neither of those things quite did it for us. So we...

Before we go to the listings, we want to bid farewell to the Tribune's Kevin Pang, who's heading over to the Tempo section. But he leaves the food beat with a profile of Peter Engler, the city's foremost expert on mother-in-law sandwiches, street food and other south side cheap eats. Shaw's Crab House concludes this year's edition of their "Royster with the Oyster" festival with their annual tent party at their Hubbard Street location tonight....

We have food on the brain today here at the Chicagoist offices. Now that it looks as though the worst of the bad weather has passed, you should go out and toast its passing by eating a cupcake.

Not a single Chicago restaurant made it onto Esquire's list of the best new restaurants of 2007, chosen by Esquire Food Critic John Mariani in the magazine's November issue. MenuPages suggests that Mariani has a thing against Illinois restaurants and that's why he didn't choose any Windy City restaurants either this year or last. Time Out Chicago critic Heather Shouse takes it a step further and essentially accuses him of being unethical in how he...

The November issue of Chicago Magazine is on newstands, and the cover story is, simply put, open for discussion if you're a gourmand.

It's Wednesday, which means around this time we wait with bated breath for Chicago Magazine's Dish e-newsletter to find our inbox. And, in what's shaping up to be a week of notable restaurant closures, we can add Chinatown's Mulan to the list. It comes to us as a shock, but not a surprise. Kee Chan (Heat Sushi) hasn't been involved in the day-to-day operations here for months.

If you don't like hoppy beers, just scroll past — this week's installment isn't for you. Just trust us on this. It's been a solid thirty minutes since we drained the bomber of Three Floyd's Fantabulous Resplendence X Anniversary Ale (known only as "X" from here on out), and the spice from the hops is still lingering in the back of our mouth. Speaking honestly here, we feel as though we've been intubated by ale....

The wait for brunch at Milk & Honey is going to be longer than usual for the next two-plus months. The lovable dodo is closing its current location at 953 N. Damen on Oct. 28 and moving down the street to 2003 W. Fulton. Their goal is to re-open by early 2008.

Forced to choose between stepping inside Macy's or taking a bullet to the head, some of the more retentive opponents of the department store giant would wrap their mouths around the barrel like John Malkovich in In the Line of Fire. With the confirmation on last night's WGN Evening News and in this morning's Sun-Times that Macy's and Oak Lawn-based Cupid Candies have reached an agreement to manufacture one-pound boxes of Frango mints for local...

Today Chicagoist launches "Current Conditions." In this new weekly feature, we'll be taking a look at the most recent health inspections of a series of restaurants on file at the city Health Department, so you don't have to.

Being in the heart of the Flyover Zone, we can only live the Pinkberry phenomenon vicariously through the eyes and words of our partners-in-Ist while we wait for a Chicago location to open. When that happens, the company's founders should have some serious cash backing their play. Pinkberry's founders are expected to announce later today that they've raised $27.5 million in initial venture capital. Much of the financing was acquired by Maveron, a venture capital...

According to a new study done by former grad students at UIC, students who received candy prior to filling out teacher evaluations rated professors higher than those who didn't offer candy. We know...totally shocking, right? Benjamin Jee and Robert Youmans studied 100 students in three UIC psych classes. Students who completed an evaluation sans sweet encouragement gave the professors an average rating of a 3.85 out of 5, while those who received mini Hershey’s bars...

This year's edition of the Great American Beer Festival is in the books, and Illinois breweries racked up an impressive 16 medals. Both Pabst (their corporate headquarters are in suburban Woodridge, so they qualified as an Illinois beer company) and Goose Island took home four medals each. Pabst earned respective gold and silver medals for Lone Star and Old Style (American-style cream ale or lager), and repeated the feat for Old Milwaukee Light and PBR...

Things are tough all over, especially at Jays Foods. Last Thursday, the longtime local potato-chip king filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in four years, amid claims that the company is "struggling financially" and facing an "acute liquidity crisis caused, in part, by a sharp, unprecedented rise in commodity prices" including corn oil, fuel and packaging. Ubiquity Brands, Jays' parent company, claims $20 million in debt to unsecured non-bank creditors.

Twenty new restaurants, including Chicagoist favorite Smoque, (chow pictured) were named Great Neighborhood Restaurants (GNR) today by our favorite (and the only) Chicago-based culinary discussion board, LTHForum. LTH members give the yearly awards to restaurants they believe "contribute to their neighborhoods' and the city's character by offering outstanding food, an authentic experience of their ethnic culture, and/or a welcoming (or in some cases, belovedly cranky) atmosphere for guests."

First item on the agenda is a month away, but a classic case of the early bird getting the worm. The Northern Illinois Branch of the International Wine & Food Society is sponsoring a seven-course dinner November 10 at Bonsoirée. Bonsoirée will do the cooking; IWFS is bringing the wines. Cost is $120 per person, and advance reservations (highly recommended) can be made here. This weekend is going to be a cold one to ride...

Ah, Phil Vettel. When the Tribune's restaurant critic isn't busy with finding bargain brunches or busting restaurants on the use of wine doggy bags, he's a stickler for a clean fork. Vettel writes in today's Tribune that in future dining excursions to restaurants "with ambitions higher than, say, hash house" he's insisting on a fresh, clean fork with every dish. His reasoning being that any restaurant that places hospitality over profit margin would not dare...

It may have been delayed, but fall is finally upon us. What better way to celebrate it than to put on comfy slippers, elastic pants and a heavy sweater whilst slurping a rich and hearty soup? Even before the temperature dropped Chicagoist was gearing up to make a creamy mushroom soup. It was fortuitous that the day we made it was also the day that the median Chicago temperature fell by a whopping thirty degrees....

Chicagoist has long been a fan of Southport Grocery and Café, helmed by chef/owner Lisa Santos. The small, specialized shop and bakery also has a take-out/eat-in menu for adults as well as a handful of dishes especially for kids. This menu section, nicknamed “For Our Little Ones”, has a variety of foods for $5 that include breakfast and lunch options. It’s ideal if your kid wants noodles for breakfast or pancakes for dinner. Choices range...

We don't think much of eating food a couple of days past its sell-by date. To us, those little numbers are an approximation, not a hard and fast rule. Glencoe residents Ross Marks and Charles Farinella also followed this logic, but on a much larger scale. They bought 1.6 million bottles of Henri's salad dressing that were about to expire, re-labeled them with a new expiration date, and tried to re-sell them. Not surprisingly, they...

It's hard not to stumble across a food blog while browsing the web. Two recent newspaper articles shine a light on the positive and negative aspects of the rise of food blogging. The front page of the Sun-Times' food section this morning is all about LTHForum, from the origins of their formation, their wide coverage of neighborhood and off-the-beaten path eats, the immediate response that can make or break a restaurant, and their overall influence...

One of our favorite seasonal beers at Chicagoist was Goose Island Oktoberfest lager. Our major issue with the beer was that the brewery always ran out of it by early September, right before Oktoberfest celebrations were just starting to kick into high gear. Besides, Goose Island's forte isn't lagers, anyway. With the exception of 312, they're all about brewing bold ales and bitters. We were caught slightly by surprise when Goose Island retired their Oktoberfest...

Translation: Kobayashi was defeated again! (We couldn't resist busting out the Japanese for the headline.) Chicago's very own Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti managed to out-chew not only the reigning chicken-wing-eating champ Joey Chestnut, he also licked the hot-dog legend Takeru Kobayashi. Bertoletti inhaled a whopping 4.1 pounds of chicken wings in eight minutes during the "Wedges & Wings" eating competition held in Las Vegas yesterday. Chestnut downed an equally impressive 4.05 pounds, while Kobayashi wolfed...

Artisanal booze geniuses at the North Shore Distillery have taken flavored gin to new and delicious heights: Rhuginger No. 6, a limited edition gin, is simply fantastic.

Bottled water has become something of an unlikely scapegoat in recent months, with corporate watchdog groups pressuring major conglomerates to come clean about how their waters are sourced and our own city council looking at a tax on bottled water to help close the deficit in next year's budget. Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. the watchdog group Corporate Accountability International, 12th Ward Alderman George Cardenas (who proposed the tax on bottled water in August), members...

The commercial above is the newest entry by that winning combination of McDonald's and Leo Burnett. It's gotten such a response that Jay Leno and Ellen Degeneres have asked about having Quincy Eaton, the pint-sized cross between Ozone and Radio Raheem who stars in the video, on their respective shows. Surely Eaton can teach Ellen how to pop and lock. The commercial also extends the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame for "The Cha-Cha Slide."...

Southwest Side Alderman Lona Lane (18th) isn't feeling like chicken tonight, chicken tonight. She's introduced an ordinance to amend a four-year-old pigeon ban to include chickens. The ordinance would make it a crime to "import, sell, own, keep or otherwise possess any live chicken" in a district zoned for residential use. It would also require a separate food establishment license for those who want to slaughter chickens. "I was alerted that some of the people...

Coming just days after it hosted an epic dinner in honor of Charlie Trotter— with the guests being some of the best chefs in the country (and some from across the pond, too)—Schwa is closing. Time Out Chicago's Heather Shouse has has the big scoop on the TOC blog: Per [Chef Michael] Carlson’s wishes, we won’t divulge at this time the reasons behind the closing, but will relay that he is determined to return to...

Angels will get their wings this Saturday night at Custom House. From 6-9 p.m. Shawn McClain's South Loop steakhouse is hosting a fundraiser to benefit Blue Sky Inn. Frequent shoppers at area farmers markets might be familiar with Blue Sky Inn for the work they do with their transitional work program, "A Taste of Success." The program hires and trains homeless youth in baking pastries, which are then sold at farmers markets and through catering...

Normally, the last thing Chicagoist wants to do on a hot Saturday afternoon is put on “business-casual attire” (that basically goes for any Saturday afternoon, really). But when it’s for a champagne reception at Charlie Trotter’s, it’s not a problem. And when said reception includes the opportunity to see some of the most influential chefs from around the world, well, we’re there. In case you haven’t heard — with all the media hype going on,...

In yesterday's Tribune, John Kass discovered the existence of "freegans." Like Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens trying to describe the Internet, Kass ridicules the movement as "equal parts youth, privilege, guilt and Al Gore's wackier environmental pronouncements mixed with bits of what your socialist professors told you in college but you can't remember, exactly" while theorizing (via his assistant) that most freegans embrace the philosophy because "(i)t's all about getting dates."

There are three Cocina Cocula locations in Chicago. The closest one to us is a short — and, for yesterday, hot — bike ride away where Pilsen blends into Little Village. We've often passed Cocula on our way to our favorite haunts in La Villita, but with the sound of sirens in the air all around yesterday, we figured it would be as good a place as any to cool down and have a nosh....

Here's something to cleanse your palate after checking out this afternoon's diversion. We were checking out the weblog of the Illinois Winemakers' Alliance and came across this YouTube clip from Alton Brown's "Feasting on Asphalt." In the clip, Brown visits Baxter's Vineyards in downstate Nauvoo, where he and owner Brenda Logan (whom we interviewed yesterday) proceed to get Brown's cameraman feeling good on some of Baxter's selections. The kid's just pounding them back, God bless...

You know what today is, don’t you? It’s golden beer’s 165th birthday! Yes, 165 years ago today, on Oct. 5, 1842, Joseph Groll, a young brewmaster in Plzen, Czech Republic, discovered a technique for brewing golden beer, otherwise known as the pilsner, or Pilsner Urquell, which is the brand name now. Prior to 1842, most beers had a darker, murkier consistency and a sweeter taste. Lore has it that the citizens of Pilsen were fed...

On a recent Monday night, Chicagoist stopped in to Piccolo, the new panini-bruschette-gelato restaurant on 859 N. Damen. The place was empty, save for the two people working behind the counter. And while we can't hold it against them — Mondays aren't known for being a big dining out night — it set the tone for a meal that was most frequently commented on with, "huh?" Which isn't to say that Piccolo is bad, because...

Award-winning food and drink writer Fiona Beckett will sign copies of her new book Food, Wine & Friends at the House of Glunz in Old Town this evening. The event runs from 5-7 p.m., and there will be a reception with wine and hors d'ouevres. Cost is $20 for the reception, $40 for the reception and a copy of the book. All you amateur sommeliers should be making a beeline to Sam's Wine & Spirits...

Governor Blagojevich signed into law late Wednesday HB 429, which brings into balance the amount of wine wineries in and out of Illinois can sell directly to consumers, but prevents out-of-state retailers and wine clubs to sell product directly to customers in Illinois. HB 429 goes into effect June 2, 2008. Under the terms of HB 429, smaller wineries with an annual production yield of under 25,000 gallons may sell directly to consumers with the...

Some of you foodies may have heard that Alice Waters, the godmother of the American localvore and slow food movements, is in town this week. If you don't have reservations to Saturday's sold-out farm-to-table brunch at North Pond Restaurant, you can still catch Chef Waters at Green City Market at 9 a.m. Saturday, where she'll be signing copies of her book The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. She'll...

*This post contains spoilers about last night's Top Chef finale. T.S. Eliot wrote, "This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper." Our Top Chef world ended last night with a whimper from Dale, and two big bangs: a huge whoop from Hung as he was named the winner, followed with an explosion of confetti released from the ceiling of the studio. Chicagoist received a invitation to attend the...

So we’ve been watching the baja fish taco revolution with a wary eye. Thanks to the Tribune's Kevin Pang we even have the bracelet, which makes for a great conversation piece for people with their minds in the gutter. The other night we were hungry for some tacos and thought that some fish tacos would be a fitting meal. However, rather than go out to Carbón and buy them, we decided to make them at...

Just in time for the playoffs, no less. Using actual lettuce to spell out the words "fresh salads," a billboard near Clark and Addison has been transformed into an ad for McDonald's premium salads. The ad was created by Leo Burnett and follows their successful "sundial" ad campaign, which used the Golden Arches logo to cast a shadow over various breakfast items. The ad company worked with a horticulturalist on this billboard, which is capable of allowing the lettuce to grow from small sprouts to verdant foliage, and presumably to be safe from pecking by birds, squirrels, and Cubs fans who might mistake the ad for another patch of green on which to micturate.

Naming the best bartender in Chicago is like trying to find an identical pair of snowflakes. Everybody has a favorite bartender and ours, a gruff, lovable fellow who told stories of Old Town's grittier days and always had a dram of bourbon at the ready when we walked through the door of our local watering hole, was recently fired from his job for refusing to serve Jaeger bombs to a group of Captain Awesomes who...

Yesterday, Northfield-based Kraft Foods announced it reached a deal to sell its Fruit2o bottled water and Veryfine juice brands to Sunny Delight Beverages Co. In announcing the sale, Kraft said the brands no longer fit with the company's long-term growth strategies, even though the brands generated $135 million in revenue.

Rather than go out to participate in last Sunday's national toast to Michael Jackson, we decided to stay at home and raise a glass in honor of the "Beer Hunter." Earlier that afternoon we finished the remaining bottles of Goose Island Harvest Ale during that debacle of a Bears game and were left with a varied selection in the fridge — a couple brews from Three Floyds, a bottle of Unibroue 16, two cans of...

There are two big happenings tonight in Chicago. One involves Chicagoist's mild obsession, Top Chef, whose finale will be shot live tonight at an undisclosed location. (We'll be live-blogging it.) The other involves one of our esteemed city's baseball clubs ... you've heard of them, right? But since food and sports are both on the mind right now, we would be remiss in not mentioning the culinary wager made between Daley and Phoenix Mayor Phil...

A few weeks back we wrote about our search for a certain Rosey Goat Cheese. Many readers wrote in with information about other places we could look, other cheeses that might fit the bill, and complaints about the commenting system. We were happy to get such a response, even if it didn't actually lead to a purchase of the product in question. We figured readers had given us, and each other, a fair number of...

With all the tomatoes coming out of our backyard, the only thing we've done to preserve them was cook them down into a sauce, then freeze what we're not immediately using. We made some homemade grilled pizza last week and bought sun-dried tomatoes for use as a topping. After we finished we sat back and found that insanely ironic; given the yields of tomatoes that we've been getting from the garden there was no reason...

From Tim Hadac of the City Department of Public Health:

Dale Levitski, "Top Chef" Finalist

While the mention of the word "oil" can often bring about heated debates on rising prices and the war in Iraq, that’s not the case at Old Town Oil, which specializes in 100-percent extra virgin olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars. This sliver of a store, located in the heart of Old Town, quietly opened three months ago and is the brainchild of four foodie brothers. After various trips around Europe, sampling the quality olive...

Last night, over a hundred people filled the Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea roasting facilities on West Fulton for a tasting of La Esmeralda Especial, the Panamanian Geisha coffee that made headlines in May when Intelligentsia paid $130 a pound for the beans at the "Best of Panama" auction. For the event, both Intelligentsia coffee buyer Geoff Watts and La Esmeralda estate owner Daniel Peterson were on hand to discuss the coffee and why it's become,...

It’s been a while since we’ve weighed in with a "Gardenist" update. The last time we did, about six weeks ago, the peppers were just starting to come in, after months of waiting. Since then, we’ve been picking peppers fast and furious. August was a wet month, and September, like much of the summer, was unseasonably mild. This probably contributed to the lengthy wait for fruit to come in from the pepper plants. Two days...

The Sun-Times reports today on the results of a recent study in this month's Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The study put ten popular weight-loss plans through their paces to determine which ones were the most heart-healthy. Using the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) to measure and compare factors in peoples' diets that are strongly linked to reducing risk for cardiovascular disease, researchers at the University of Massachusetts compared the dietary quality of the...

October is National Seafood Month! That's exciting enough on its own, but we're especially pumped because a bunch of restaurants in the city are cooking up some tasty fish specials to kick off the fall season. Who's serving what?...