A Jazz Fest preview and country music in Welles Park are in today's listings. more ›

Today's listings include the Chicago Sidewalk Sale, Yoga in grant Park and mussels at Jake Melnick's for Belgian Independence Day. more ›

Reminder: the Alt-media slam is tonight. more ›

Dine at The Florentine anytime on Tuesday, June 21st, and 15% of your bill will be donated to Share Our Strength. Share Our Strength helps fight childhood hunger, sponsors events and dinners throughout the year to raise money. On the 21st, diners can go for breakfast, lunch or dinner - doesn’t matter, and there is no minimum order. If you’ve been waiting to check out The Florentine, now’s the time. 151 W. Adams more ›

Today's listings include a Randolph Scott classic Western, a wine dinner at Lockwood and a reading featuring our own Aaron Cynic. more ›

Sons and daughters of the world, this Sunday is the time when the institutional forces of card companies, restaurants and FTD join up to force you to worship your moms. Know what? Even the most cynical of us knows that she deserves it. So take her out somewhere nice on Sunday! Here's a list of some great mother's day dining events - and best of all, they all still have space. Make your reservations now. A great tip: If you can't find something you like, drop the idea of brunch. Mom can stay up a little later, and there are still PLENTY of reservations to be had for dinner at all of your favorite spots. more ›

Anne Lamott is stopping by the Oak Brook Borders tonight (one of the few Chicagoland locations that’s staying open while the company figures out all that bankruptcy stuff). She is promoting the paperback release of her most recent novel, Imperfect Birds. In this book, she continues the story of Elizabeth Ferguson and her daughter Rosie. As Elizabeth struggles with sobriety, teenager Rosie struggles with her own addiction. For more on Anne Lamott, check out our interview with her last summer. Anne Lamott reads from Imperfect Birds, Oak Brook Borders, 1500 16th Street, Suite D, Oakbrook, 7 p.m. more ›

Over the past couple of years, the dinners Mindy Segal hosts to mark Hot Chocolate's anniversary have been circled in ink as must-attend events. Segal always corrals chefs and brewers who bring their "A" games to these dinners. And there's about eating fresh Lake Superior smelts from Paul Kahan while Black Sabbath blasts through the restaurant's sound system in the dead of winter that's just the kick in the ass we need for spring to get here already. more ›

Jim Javenkoski, the founder of Local Food Wisdom, will be hosting the latest in his series of locavore dinners at In Fine Spirits on January 24. The goal of Local Food Wisdom is to bring people together to eat, learn and discuss local food issues, with "casual yet informative conversations." Sounds much more fun, and much tastier, than listening to a lecture! 5 courses, all-inclusive with beer pairings, will cost you $75. The video after the jump is a look at the first Local Food Wisdom dinner, hosted by StarGrazer Cafe - it will make you want to quit your job and go work on a farm, especially on a grey day like today. more ›

Looking for a last minute New Year's Eve reservation? Grab a table at Perennial before they are all gone! They are offering up a 4-course dinner, with reservations still available during most time slots. If you're looking to get out to a party afterwards, grab a pre-6:30 reservation (and get a $20 discount off the later price) - head off to your New Year's Eve revelry with your tummy well filled! If you eat something, you can drink more champagne; everyone knows that! more ›

Reservations are still available for tomorrow night's "A Tasteful Pursuit" dinner at Spiaggia. The proceeds for the dinner will benefit Share Our Strength. Host chef Tony Mantuano is welcoming Paul Kahan, Takashi Yagihashi and Philadelphia chef Marc Vetri to join him, Spiaggia Executive chef Sarah Grueneberg and Terzo Piano pastry chef Megan Neubeck for a multi-course dinner to help fund Share Our Strength's efforts to fight childhood hunger in America. (Full Disclosure: I'm a longtime supporter of Share Our Strength and sit on the planning committee for its annual "Taste of the Nation" event.) more ›

Localvore advocate and food science PhD holder Jim Javenkoski has put together another localvore dinner, this time partnering with Michael Kornick, Erick Williams, Tony Galzin and the staff at mk. more ›

one sixtyblue has a very interesting dinner scheduled for next Wednesday pairing the cooking of chef Michael McDonald with absinthe cocktails crafted by absinthe historian and chemist Ted Breaux. Breaux was one of the folks behind the re-entry of absinthe in America a couple years back and helped develop Lucid Absinthe, so he's more than qualified to mix some cocktails with the Green Fairy. more ›

The toughest restaurant to get a reservation in town these days is Girl & the Goat. Which is why an upcoming Friends of the James Beard House dinner on November 2 at 6:30 p.m. may be an ideal chance to get a table. more ›

Share Our Strength just had a rousing success with its Taste of the Nation event at the Aragon Ballroom, but the non-profit's efforts to help rid America of childhood hunger by 2015 haven't ended. Their Great American Dine Out is currently ongoing — for participating restaurants, click here —and they've enlisted an All-Pro team of chefs for their "A Tasteful Pursuit" dinner series, which lands at Spiaggia November 17. more ›

From the inbox: interest and demand for Wednesday's Wild Arctic Char dinner at Kith & Kin has grown to such a point that the restaurant has now decided to make it the only menu available that night. The cost is now $100 per person; $180 for couples. more ›

Jim Javenkoski has graced this corner of the internet before in his former roles as "Culinary Attaché" for Unibroue and "Ale-vangelist" for Arcadia ales. The holder of a PhD. in food science, Javenkoski has since turned his attention to the localvore and sustainability movements, producing dinners that showcase the bounty and environmental benefits of local farms. more ›

Cambridge Bay wild arctic char is one of the most prized seafood species in the world. Commercial fishermen search for the fish during the brief window of opportunity where the fish leave the ice caps and head for the Canadian bay, before the bay freezes up and the fish retreat to the comfort of their lives underneath the Arctic ice caps. If you haven't had wild Arctic char, you're doing yourself a disservice. more ›

Sepia and Slow Food Chicago are pairing up to celebrate Sepia's third anniversary with a five-course meal featuring produce from local farmers and a few well-paired small production wines. Owner Emmanuel Nony and Executive Chef Andrew Zimmerman welcome you to join them at Monday, July 26th at 6:30 for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres followed by what will be a spectacular meal. more ›

New Holland Brewing's Hatter Days are an annual event celebrating the success of the Michigan brewery and distillery with their customers and fans with a litany of versions of the flagship "Mad Hatter" ale. Starting today New Holland is bringing the Hatter Days to Chicago for a rousing bacchanalia. more ›

As of this morning there are still a pair of tickets available for next Thursday's Sound Opinions "Eat to the Beat" dinner at Blackbird. Blackbird's Paul Kahan and Mindy Segal of Hot Chocolate will prepare a multi-course dinner from music selected by Sound Opinions hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot. more ›

Carnivale's husband and wife team, Chef Mark Mendez and Wine Director, Elizabeth Mendez, are teaming up with Slow Food Chicago for a Kick-Off Party for the 2010 Farm to Table Season. We went to a Slow Food event at Carnivale last year and it was fantastic. Unbelievably fresh food and fantastic company. At $30, it's a steal. more ›

Rijoa Restaurant Week more ›

Foodie, the popular iPhone app offering discounted dinners and fixed price specials at some of the city's top restaurants, is now taking reservations for their offers online. Now those of you waiting for Ari Bendersky and company to get their collective act together and create a Foodie app for Android and other smartphones can at least be able to experience the same specials we iPhone lemmings have been able to take advantage of for months. more ›

One of the best beers we had last year was the Goose Island/mado beer brewed in collaboration between Rob and Allie Levitt and Jared Rouben. Rouben intimated in our visit to the Clybourn brewpub a couple months back that they were collaborating on another beer for Craft Brewers Conference using cocoa nibs provided by Allie Levitt. more ›

Back in January we attended an early front runner for the year's best dinner with NAHA's "Winter Doldrums" cocktail dinner, an exercise in excess pairing Carrie Nahabedian's cooking with cocktails from Wirtz Beverage's Peter Vestinos. For each of the seven courses, Vestinos fashioned punches using rare select vintage teas from Rodrick Markus's Rare Tea Cellar. Both the courses and cocktails intensified in richness until Markus tucked the attendees to bed with a tea blend, Emperor's Late Night Elixir, that had us sweating toxins out of our pores. more ›

In a few short months, John Manion has transformed the menu at Branch 27 to better match their beer list, making the West Town restaurant one of the better relaunches of the winter, even as the chefs begin to question the ongoing embrace of all things pork. Tonight at 7:30 p.m. Manion has crafted a four-course menu featuring pork from Slagel Family Farm and beer pairings from Chimay to kick off Branch 27's monthly beer dinner series. more ›

Anthony wrote eloquently a couple weeks back about how he doesn't like to dine out for Valentine's Day. We agree with his sentiments, but we also recognize why most folks do scramble for reservations every February. more ›

Although it happened in February, Hot Chocolate's fourth anniversary dinner still stood as my favorite overall dining experience last year. It was a seven-course marathon that increased in intensity and flavor with every dish, paired with some heavy duty beers and a music soundtrack that ranged from early Black Sabbath to pre-"Black Album" Metallica to the Twilight Singers. The proceeds from the dinner went to Share Our Strength, the DC-based non-profit dedicated to eliminating hunger in America by 2015. Quite simply, I was exhausted at the end of the meal. more ›

• Ongoing: What was supposed to be a one-week $20.10 special tasting menu at Nacional 27 has turned into a budget busting winter special. The three-course prix fixe menu will be featured Mondays through Thursdays until March 31.
• Sunday: Miller Lite is hosting a pre-Super Bowl party on February 6 at Soldier Field's United Club. From 3-5 p.m. Timothy O'Toole's and Miller Lite are giving away 20 passes to the pre-party. All you have to do is buy Miller Lite at O'Toole's; drinking it is another matter.
• Monday: Jacky's on Paririe (2545 Prairie Ave., Evanston, 847-733-0899) is hosting a benefit dinner for Share Our Strength's Operation Front Line program, which provides nutrition education and cooking programs for teens and adults. they're offering two seatings: 5:30 - 8 p.m. and 8 - 10 p.m. RSVP by today.