• North Shore Distillery's Sonja Kassebaum writes a loving profile of graham elliot beverage manager/head mixologist Lynn House (pictured). [Thinking of Drinking]
• Baconfest news: the Publican is hosting the VIP Pro cookoff the day before the fest. [Baconfestchicago.com]
• Mike Sula cheers the return of kaiseki master Seijero Matsumoto. [Food Chain]

• Martha Bayne reports that the Publican has reduced the prices of their beer menu (somewhat). Too bad those prices didn't go into effect when she was visiting the place for her review. [Food Chain, Marthabayne.com]
• Should we eat our little urban critters? I'm certainly down for squirrel, rabbit, and the occasional raccoon rummaging through garbage cans. [Little Green People blog, via]
• Sun-Times staffers look back at their favorite cookbooks, in time for the holidays. [Sun-Times]
• Bill Daley reports on a Manhattan bar serving wine in baby bottles (you'd expect Dion Antic to be jumping all over this) and spent coffee grounds as a source of biodiesel, while Phil Vettel laments about Copperblue, which is serving its final dinner service Saturday. [The Stew 1, 2, 3]
• Matt Kirouac had to sit through some pretty bad service at Andersonville's Antica Pizzeria in order to get to some pretty good pizza. [Hungry Mag]
• Gemma Petrie shares a recipe for Wild Rice and Mushroom Pie. [Pro Bono Baker]
• Josh at Chicago Foodies confuses Lao Shanghai for Lao Sze Chuan, regrets his error. [Chicago Foodies]
• Give thanks to the Lord of Fat Fuckery for, then "akido the shit out of" some crab legs at Glenn's Diner. that's how Steven Seagal would do it. [Chicago Gluttons]
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• Five ways to trick yourself into eating less. [Newsweek]
• The mulefoot pig being served at Blackbird on 10/19 is not the Reader's Dee-Dee. Start placing bets now on if she's in utero. [Food Chain]
• Will Allen, founder of MIlwaukee Based CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) organization Growing Power is the recipient of a MacArthur Genius grant. [Drive-Thru]

Leading off with some localvore challenge items while taking inventory of the fridge and pantry for what we need to buy: more ›

• Counting down the days until we receive our copy of the Alinea cookbook in the mail. While we've been spending lots of time at the Alinea Mosaic (a perk of advance purchase), Michael Ruhlman - one of four food writers commissioned to write an essay for the book, offers a sneak preview of the books contents. It cannot come to us soon enough.
• The Local Beet has quickly become one of our favorite new local food blogs. this week they have a guide to fall and winter CSAs and local produce box drops.
• Chicago Gluttons has the most hilarious review of San Soo Gap San ever.

• Mercat a la Planxa's Jose Garces flays Bobby Flay on Iron Chef [Philly City Paper]
• Applebee's "owns riblets." Wonderful; another reason not to go. [NYT]
• Joanna MIller delves into a vegetarian nicoise salad. [My Vegetable Blog]

• From the "DUH!" Files: Apparently fast food meals aren't good for kids. The Center for Science in the Public Interest released a report this week that concluded that kids meals at fast food chains exceed the 430 calories-per-meal limit. Among the worst offenders, Chili's makes the list twice with kids meals at or over 1000 calories each. [via MenuPages Chicago]
• "Rock Star Chef City" alert: BOURDAIN is in town through next week finally filming for the No Reservations Chicago episode. He's got the venerable Louisa Chu in tow, who'll be escorting him to Calumet Fisheries, Burt's Place in Morton Grove and L2O, among other places. We're so stalking this weekend. [Food Chain]
• Lori Barrett writes about cold soups. [Drive Thru]
• An argument for frozen fish [Washington Post, via]

The Chicago City Council held off on voting on a controversial ban on urban chickens yesterday. Since urban chickens are all the rage, it seems like a perfect time to ban them, right? Southwest Side Alderman Lona Lane (18th), who proposed the ban, said she didn't know why the vote on the ban was held up. Maybe it is, as the Sun-TImes suggests, because Mayor Daley has a thing for urban poultry: "Let's be realistic,"... more ›

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... more ›

Let's start the buffet off with this video this video singing the praises of the Harold's 6-piece wing dinner. The language is NSFW, but if you're watching this in the office, you're probably the only one left, so crank it. Memorial Day is the (un)official start of grilling season. We've had the grill on an eternal flame for two months now, but loaded up on fresh vegetables from the farmer's market, tri-tip steaks from... more ›

In last week's Chicago Reader, Mike Sula journeyed up to southern Wisconsin to visit Hillspring Farm, where the rare and endangered mulefoot pig is being bred. Stop reading now if you have vegetarian tendencies, because these pigs aren't being bred for a petting zoo. “If you treat them just like precious zoo animals that’s how they get extinct,” said Linda Derrickson, who runs the farm with her husband, Mark Kessenich. At print time, Crystal, one of their sows, was just about to give birth to her first litter. more ›

Coalfire is a new New Haven-style pizza parlor on Grand owned by longtime Matchbox bartender J. Spillane and partner Bill Carroll (Unrelated, Matchbox has the best margarita in the city, hands down). Now, anyone who's eaten at Piece is familiar with New Haven-style pie. The twist with Coalfire is that the pizzas are baked in a coal-fired oven, hence the name. The Reader's "Food Chain" blog has been keeping up on the Coalfire thread over... more ›

This week's theme: Cinco de Mayo. More specifically, the Anglicized version of Cinco de Mayo. Let's get on with it. Everyone Has An Opinion: In conjunction with National Hamburger Month, the folks at Yelp! have released a thoroughly underwhelming list of their top five places to get a burger in town. The site that brings together user reviews of all the "hidden gems, hot spots, and amazing small businesses you've never heard of or fanatically... more ›

Chicago blogs were all abuzz last week with news about recently-opened East Village coffee shop bLENd. The simplest version of the story (as we read on The Food Chain) is that bLENd is owned by a founder of the abstinence-only education group Project Reality. We thought this was pretty interesting on a number of levels (not insignificantly the amount of media it has received) so we decided to get in touch with bLENd part-owner and... more ›

It looks like the Tribune has more than just money and stockholder problems these days. Glommed from the Reader's Food Chain blog yesterday is this article about the politics of modern eating. In her attempt at writing a humorous piece (vegetarians are acid casualties with their own bad eating habits, haven't heard that before), Emily Nunn comes across instead as obstinate toward and proudly ignorant of what we would know about where our food comes... more ›

If variety is the spice of life, then fans of online food writing just entered their own little spice house. It may seem as though these new entries are playing catch-up with the well-established, familiar bastions of food porn, but they do have different things to offer and influence established food coverage in Chicago. Gapers Block just launched their food blog, Drive-Thru. If you're familiar with the GB style, you know what to expect. You... more ›

Don't expect to find glögg at the Hopleaf this winter. The Reader's "Food Chain" blog reported Wednesday that they won't be making any this winter, due to the passing of "Mr. Hans" himself. Hans Gotling passed away on December 4th (you can read his obituary here). He was a Streets & San employee, a 47th Ward precinct captain, and the owner of the Hopleaf's previous incarnation, Clark Foster Liquors. But he'll be most remembered... more ›