Food: June 2009 Archives

As promotions go, "National 40 Oz. Week" at Fifty/50 (2047 W. Division, 773-489-5050) walks the fine line between inspiration and cliched crassness. Thursday's "Old School Hip Hop Night" is right up our alley, with $5 St. Ides forties for sale and the DJs spinning NWA, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and (hopefully) Eric B. & Rakim, The D.O.C., Ice T and Arabian Prince on the clickwheels of steel.

  

We were explaining the guanciale experiment and process in making it Saturday night to Benjy's lovely wife Ella. Mrs. Lipsman asked all the pertinent questions about making one's own charcuterie, most important among them, "What if you get food poisoning?"

  

Our Saturday visit to Green City Market resulted in a pirate's booty of fresh produce, planters, milk and meats. The highlight of our visit was the purchase of French breakfast radishes and white carrots from Green Acres Farm in North Judson, IN. June is when radishes just begin to make their way to farmers markets and Green Acres's French breakfast radishes have a crispness when you bite into them and taste best raw with a little bit of butter and salt. Wanting to use all of the purchase, we made a pesto from the radish greens. (Incidentally, radishes will be the subject of a future "Ingredient in Focus" post.) The white carrots were a revelation, with a taste to their greens similar to cilantro. We dehydrated some and used them on tacos last night.

California's Murphy-Goode Winery has been making headlines in recent months with its "A Really Goode Job" contest. The winery is offering a six-month contracted job to one lucky social media expert; the official title is "Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent." The winner gets a salary of $10,000 a month and room and board at Murphy-Goode's compound in Healdsburg, CA. All he or she has to do is report/blog/tweet on Sonoma County wine country, the process of winemaking and promote Murphy-Goode's selections even further than the contest is already generating.

Koval Distillery in Andersonville has been making some noise of late, as the city's only distillery. They've also been making some amazing spirits and liqueurs, from what we tasted a couple weeks back at Uncommon Ground Devon's Friday Farmers Market.

Remember the Roscoe's/Rosscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles kerfuffle from last year that had readers quoting lines from "Coming to America?" Looks like we're about to see it again, only with Superdawg in the role of plaintiff.

Taste of Chicago starts tomorrow just a little bit smaller. Only 54 vendors will be serving the teeming masses descending on Grant Park for the next 10 days. That might actually turn into a postivie.

Now that the farmer’s markets are filling up with tomatoes, it’s time to start finding great recipes to use them up. At this time of year, we prefer relatively simple, unadorned recipes - all the better to show off the freshness of the produce. This recipe is an adaptation of an old standard, usually made with vodka and a ton of cream. We use much less cream, to allow the flavors of the tomatoes and shallots to come through. Using grappa, instead of vodka, gives the pasta a kick AND some extra flavor. If you don’t have any grappa, we’d recommend using brandy.

What are the chances that Top Chef Masters suddenly became interesting this week? Let's find out. Tonight we have Wilo Benet from San Juan (who looks better with that goatee), Rick Bayless from Chicago, Cindy Pawlcyn from Napa, and Ludo Lefebvre from L.A. As soon as we see judge James Oseland (Editor-in-chief of Saveur Magazine) who gives us some background on Pawlcyn, we remember where we first saw him. He was a judge on Iron Chef and always spoke with food in his mouth, which kept dribbling out. We don't care. We sort of love him. You know why? Because he has that nerdy-ass charm our Korean mother always told us was such a good thing. What can we say. Some shit sticks better than others.

Now you won't have to travel all the way to Beverly for an Original Rainbow Cone. Owner Lynn Sapp told Crain's that they'll soon be sharing a ground-level retail space in the Page Brothers Building (177 N. State Street).

ChicagoNow's Megan Cottrell wrote an excellent piece about the Chicago Avenue garden at Cabrini Green's southern tip that's run by Fourth Presbyterian Church's "Chicago Lights" outreach program. Cottrell reports on some of the relationships developing in the garden between Old Town and Cabrini Green residents, as well as the struggles faced in getting Cabrini residents to take part in the project. (via Windy Citizen)

The soup outside is not exactly conducive to enjoying a hoppy India Pale Ale, but this is one you might want to search out.

Zagat's 2009/10 Chicago Restaurants survey hits shelves Thursday and just in time for Taste of Chicago to start. To get the word out, Zagat is sponsoring a dining pavilion at this year's Taste, hosting a culinary competition at the festival and hosting a four-course meal tomorrow night.

The online wine community and retailer Bottlenotes is holding its first wine and food tasting at the Museum of Contemporary Art Friday from 7-10 p.m. The event, called "Around the World in 80 Sips," will feature wines from, well, all over: Old World, New World, North and South America, Israel and Lebanon. Those wines will be paired with cheeses provided from Artisanal Premium Cheese.

        

605 W. 31st St. in the wunnerful Bridgeport area has been home to a succession of mediocre to downright awful Italian restaurant concepts over the years, most recently Trattoria 31, which came out of the gate like gangbusters only to be lapped by the field. So when we saw that a Chinese restaurant was opening in the space we thought, "It can't be any worse than what's been there before"

                     

A few weeks ago, our Chuck Sudo went on a road trip to Holland, Michigan with Publican mastermind Paul Kahan to get a behind-the-scenes look at the pairing between Kahan and New Holland Brewing for their special beer dinner in August. It was an excellent series and we were worried about it getting lost in the shuffle so we've gathered up all the links here. If you haven't gotten a chance to read through it, we highly recommend you bookmark this post so you can come back and read each part at your leisure. Above are new pictures from Chuck that we didn't run the first time around on these posts, so enjoy those as well.

It just seemed fitting that we make a New Holland beer this week's selection, given all the time we spent writing about the brewery this week. We're going back to the sure thing that is their High Gravity series. Both Night Tripper and Pilgrim's Dole are previous "BotW" selections. Joining those high gravity selections today is Black Tulip. This is a sweet-malted Trippel-style ale brewed with Belgian ale yeast and beet sugar. Beet sugar is a common ingredient for brewmaster John Haggerty and it gives the yeast a little something to snack on during fermentation, creating more alcohol and giving the beer a denser consistency.

This Sunday is Father's Day, remember? Nice work. Lucky for you, you've still got some options. Options that don't involve this.

We’re in the midst of Asparagus high times, but before you know it, the season will be over until next year. Stacks of the green stalks reaching 3 feet high (and selling for reasonable prices) will give way to anemic bunches sitting in water-filled trays at your local market. How should you take advantage of this bounty? By learning something about this first veggie of the season, that’s how!

(Today we wrap up our week-long series following chef Paul Kahan as he brewed beer at New Holland Brewing and planned a menu for an August 23 beer dinner at the Publican. If you haven't already, you can go back and read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4)

Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread & Wine will be hosting a free wine and cheese tasting at their Loop location next Wednesday, the 24th, from 5:30-7:30. You can watch Italian cheesemaker Giorgio Cravero use traditional cheese-cutting tools to crack into a wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Then sample the cheese and some Italian wines. This is a great opportunity to learn more about cheesemaking, tasting, and pairing as artisinal cheese expert Daphne Zepos will be in attendance.

    

When we walked into Eivissa, the Wells Street Art Festival was booming outside, the bar was four-deep with revelers and the giant front windows were opened onto the patio. The new Old Town tapas joint couldn’t have picked a better time to open, but we were more concerned with the food than the scene. We sheepishly begged for a seat in the back, and the hostess led us into a cool, cozy space, with giant wooden beams covering the ceiling. It evokes the feeling of a much older restaurant, the kind of hidden space that diners long to curl up in with a drink.

Maybe this week a chef will stick a toilet brush in some pasta and everyone will declare it a brilliant new method of stirring. Let's see who is battling it out today: Graham Elliot Bowles from Chicago (we accidentally typed bowels at first - whoops).We dig his Chicago pin on his hat. Suzanne Tracht from Los Angeles enters the kitchen next. Oooo, it's Wylie Dufresne! How is anyone going to beat him when he has +20 hit points and +15 magic potion? Annie Lennox walks in! Oh, no, wait, that's Elizabeth Falkner. She sounds impressive with her James Beard award.

• Did you know you could eat slugs? Yes. They're excellent in tomato sauce.
• This is just for Spook: Check out those spicy Korean soups.
• If you're on Hell's Kitchen and you don't know how to make Beef Wellington, you're a donkey.

Many local beer drinkers owe their first experience with New Holland Brewing to Larry Bell. It was in October 2006 when Bell decided to pull his beers out of Illinois as a protest of the Illinois Beer Industry Fair Dealing Act. October in Illinois is premium weather for hoppy ales such as Bell’s Two-Hearted ale and Bell’s decision (which was equal parts protest, fit of pique, and masterstroke of marketing) left bars, restaurants and liquor stores throughout the city scrambling for a replacement.

312 Dining Diva is reporting that the parents of Grocery Bistro (804 W. Washington) Chef Andre Christopher have staged a boycott of the West Loop restaurant in their van outside the restaurant this morning.

      

(This is Part 3 in our week-long series following the evolution of a beer dinner at the Publican, from conception to the actual dinner. IF you haven't already, read Part 1 and Part 2.)

    

Much has been written about the splitting of former Mundial owners/chefs Kate and Eusebio Garcia and what they're currently doing. We've even visited Amelia's, Eusebio Garcia's new oasis in the restaurant desert of Canaryville. While the Garcias personal issues have been front and center, one fact remains: Mundial's third partner, Mario Cota, still has the doors open to the popular Pilsen outpost.

              

(This is the second in a series following the evolution of a beer dinner at the Publican, from conception to reality. Read Part 1 here.)

One of the last things we needed to see was Graham Elliot Bowles in a thong.

If you're like us, you've been eating as many cherries as you can before the short season comes to a close. Never fear, cherry lovers, you still have a few weeks to go to fully enjoy this seasonal treat. Let's take a closer look at this fruit: its origin, some varieties, how to pick them and why they may be pricier than your average fruit (especially the Rainier variety).

      

“Cooking with beer is a little new for me.” To hear a chef say such a thing would be surprise enough. That the chef admitting this was Paul Kahan made me take even more notice.

Oh, Italian sub, you are quite possibly one of the most craved food in existence. It sometimes pains us at how hard you have to search in Chicago to find an Italian sub truly worthy of an entire day’s caloric intake. (On the other hand, maybe that’s a good thing.) A little place in West Town is a favorite among many; Bari Foods makes one of the best. For less than five dollars you get a nine inch Italian sub filled with capicolla, genoa salami, mortadella, provalone, giardinera, shredded lettuce, tomato, and onions on rich, crusty bread. Did we mention it was less than five dollars? It's less than five dollars. The small grocery gets packed during lunch hours so call ahead or just browse through the selection of olive oils, pasta and ice cream while you wait.

Other reviews of Aventinus Wheat Doppelbock begin with descriptions of its head that, taken out of context, could read like a recap of a very good night on the town. Descriptors like "huge", "beautiful", "long-lasting", "thick" and "persistent" abound. And they're spot-on; the photo accompanying this was taken a solid 10 minutes after decanting.

We’ve written about our love of root beer many times, so when we last visited The Gage and saw this drink on their menu, we just had to order it. The Gage does lots of nice things with root beer (including a decadent dessert) but this is our favorite so far. Unfortunately, the drink was seasonal and is no longer on the menu - but they were nice enough to give us the recipe, so we can drink to our heart’s content. And we will. Oh yes.

• Tomorrow: The Alliance Francaise de Chicago's cooking class series focuses on chocolate tomorrow. This interactive class will prepare these easy desserts: Chocolate Sorbet, Frozen Chocolate Soufflé, Chocolate Fondant with Crème Anglaise and Chocolate Chestnut Terrine. $75 Members, $85 Non-Members, 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (810 N. Dearborn)
• Tomorrow and Sunday: Gary Wiviott's Low & Slow BBQ: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons is in its second printing and the success couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. Wiviott and co-author Colleen rush will be signing copies of the book 11 a.m. tomorrow at The Book Stall at Chestnut Court (811 Elm St., Winnetka) and noon Sunday at Barnes and Noble Oakbrook (297 Oakbrook Center). This book will change the way you approach BBQ.
• Monday: Chalkboard (4343 N. Lincoln Avenue Chicago, IL 60618 773-477-7144) will host Mac McDonald, son of a Texas moonshine maker, winemaker and Owner of Vision Wine Cellars on Monday, June 15 for a four-course wine dinner beginning with a reception at 7pm. The cost of the dinner is $100 per person all inclusive.

• Oh, look. 6 Degrees in Bucktown is sellin' horseshoes. Don't know what that is? It's a piece of Texas toast topped with a hamburger patty, topped with french fries, topped with cheese sauce. And it will kill you. But you will die happy. But any fool knows you don't go to 6 Degrees for a horseshoe. You get your ass on down to Springfield and get one at D'arcy's Pint. Ask for Hallie.
• Do men and women cook differently?
• How soon before you cook meat should you salt it? Depends.

Hellur, kiddehs. We're back to recap our flav-o-rite Bravo show. We're not going to lie. The loss of Padma breaks our heart a little. Good thing we're fickle enough to mend in the first 30 seconds of the show. Let's get to it.

If you haven't noticed, Chicagoist likes soup. We don’t limit our soup to the winter months nor do we only eat gazpacho in the summer; sometimes we want a hot, comforting bowl of soup in June. That being said, really heavy and creamy soups don't sound great on the cusp of summer either. (We're complicated people.) So here is a spring version of Potato Leek Soup (adapted from this Epicurious recipe) that doesn't call for any cream, butter or milk, making it a little lighter on our palates.

After going into Stephanie Izard overload recapping "Top Chef: Chicago" we decided to sit out recapping "TC5". Well, and we had a very strong feeling Radhika Desai wasn't going to win.

      

None of our friends knew that The Green at Grant Park existed. We got many incredulous looks when we said that there was a miniature golf course and restaurant hiding just south of Millennium Park. No, we exclaimed, we don’t mean eating at the Park Grill and then hitting people in the fountain with a putter - a real miniature golf course! With cocktails!

Former Unibroue "Culinary Attache" Jim Javenkoski has taken his knowledge of great beer and his PhD. in food science to Arcadia Brewing Company, where he now holds the title of "Ale-vangelist℠".

We have a winner! Congratulations to Jo-Elle, who pulled out a story of a long-departed cat to best all comers. Jo-Elle receives two tickets to the Growing Home Benefit, 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Cultural Center.

        

This past Saturday, we visited the outdoor Green City Market for the first time this season. It's open on Saturdays and Wednesdays,and, being lazy, we ignored the usual wisdom of "arrive early or everything will be gone." We got there at 11 and found plenty left to buy - maybe it was the threat of bad weather that kept people away.

We are looking to you, dear reader, to let us know where you'd like us to visit for our Food Pr0n series. Any restaurants in particular have you curious? Comment below or Twitter lstolpman. Here's a reminder of where we've been:

What a difference a week makes. And a lot of salt, pepper, sugar and thyme. The pork jowl has been cured (compare the shot above to how it looked before curing last week) and looks like it's well on its way to becoming rich, savory bacon.

A reminder to readers who may have missed it Friday: we're still accepting essay submissions for a chance at winning two tickets to the Growing Home benefit this Thursday at the Cultural Center. To enter, tell us in 150 words (e-mail here) how locally grown produce — Growing Home is an organic CSA providing job training in organic agriculture to homeless and low-income folks — has raised your awareness of how you source the food you eat.

We've been out of town for a few days working on something really cool for the site (which will be running in a little more than a week), so this news that Baconfest Chicago found a home at the Stan Mansion in Logan Square was completely missed, although Sula and Rosner were quick to fill the void.

Now go get your free doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts. It's National Doughnut Day.

Growing Home, the non-profit organization providing job training for homeless and low-income individuals in Chicago through a social enterprise business based on organic agriculture (via their hoop houses on Wood Street in Englewood), is hosting its annual benefit at the Chicago Cultural Center next Thursday, June 11. The benefit will feature passed appetizers and a 3-course dinner with dishes from Charlie Trotter's, Vie, Nia, Monogramme Events and Catering, the Meatloaf Bakery; a silent auction; an open bar; and a keynote address from Rick Bayless.

If you have been lucky enough to order this take on traditional Russian pelmeni from the small, divey, now-closed establishment, cleverly named "Pelmeni", in Madison, WI, you know how good this is. In fact, you've probably stood in a long line at midnight waiting, deciding if you should get meat or potato dumplings and if you want it traditional or spicy, jealous of the patrons already eating. If not, you can now make it at home after a short trip to your nearest Eastern European grocery store. We went to Renee Gourmet in the Ukranian Village and highly recommend it. (Although the man working looked at us like we were insane when we explained how we were going to prepare it.)

This Friday, the Museum of Science and Industry is hosting the inaugural session of a new farmer’s market. Tomorrow morning, starting at 7:30, there will be a grand opening celebration featuring the Hearty Boys, as seen on the Food Network. They will be doing cooking demonstrations, making Orange Blossom pancakes with Mascarpone and fresh berries (yum).The farmer’s market, featuring produce, flowers, baked goods and other local products, will be held in the Museum’s East Parking lot. The cooking demos will be in the garden of the Smart Home.

• As if people don't eat enough while on a cruise, imagine if that cruise was geared toward food lovers and featured...Paula Deen. Holy crap. Survivors are given a norovirus to help them lose the weight they've gained. We're just going to say this. On the record. We're shocked that woman isn't larger.
• Read this to find out which Chicago food maven sent this via Twitter: "Quote of night (from girl): 'I would rape every guy in that family and use their tears as lube' ... Saturday night crowds are frightening!" Oh, and while you're there, check out this entry that says Spencer and Heidi Pratt may have been snubbed at Alinea.
• Gloji juice. In a lightbulb! We hate or simpleminded love of the packaging. WHY do we love all things shiny?

Sharon Bautista and Dimitra Tasiouras bonded over food, exploring the city and bicycles at LTHForum. Their new company Fork and the Road combines the three. "Dimitra had the idea of riding around on our bikes to compare gelato across the city. Since I'm a bit of a cycling geek, we named the tours we did last summer after major European stage road bike races: the Giro del Gelato (after the Giro d'Italia), the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Tacos (after the Vuelta a España)," said Bautista.

Folks have asked where to get a good lager from the Far East, given the similar taste profiles of Asahi. Sapporo and Tsingtao. Chang, a Thai lager we first encountered nearly two decades ago, might be worth a look. This is a malt-forward lager perfect for tropical climes and humid Chicago summers, where you don't want the cloying flavor of hops weighing you down. The sweetness of the malt isn't heavy, with a light citrus that's refreshing. At 5 percent ABV, this is also a great session beer. It's perfect for extended patio/rooftop excursions, grilling in the backyard and picnics.

Have an aspiring kid chef (ages 9 - 13) at home? Get him or her to Kendall College this Sunday for the ConAgra Foods and Share Our Strength Healthy Kids Cook-Off. In this Iron-Chef style cooking competition, kids will compete to create both a healthy and tasty meal or snack with a limited list of ingredients. The event is aimed at education children about nutritional information as well as to raise awareness of childhood hunger in America.

We Midwesterners are a simple people. Fancy restaurants? Nah. We just like a few quality ingredients and a friendly, corn-fed waitstaff. So it's nice of the New York Times to notice one of our favorite Wicker Park restaurants, Mado, a review of which appeared on Sunday.

  

We attended Bottom Lounge's second annual Rum Fest Saturday, which owner Mike Miller hosts in conjunction with Edward Hamilton of the Ministry of Rum. We avoided the Malibu, Bacardi and Tommy Bahama tables, since they're the devils we know, in favor of rooting out some odder notions.

Our Town's better restaurants are constantly adding new dishes to their menus and we found ourselves at Publican staring at some dishes that we hadn't seen before. Saturday night was a good one to fix an organ meat jones and we had a choice between duck heart and beef tongue. We opted for the latter and were faced with an epiphany.

Wednesday, June 3, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. - To celebrate its recent pairing with Zapp's potato chips, Potbelly Sandwich Works will give away a free bag of the chips with the purchase of a sandwich. We checked with Potbelly's and every Chicago location is participating. Enjoy!

In the weeks leading up to our anniversary party Saturday night, Whistler mixologist Paul McGee was in touch with Sonja and Derek Kassebaum of North Shore Distillery to work on the cocktail that many of us downed in large numbers. McGee came through with flying colors with an eponymous, deceptively potent concoction with North Shore No. 6 gin as the base spirit. "I like the botanicals in No. 6, which is one of North Shore's lighter gins," McGee said.