Celebrity chef Ted Allen, formerly of Chicago Magazine, teaches how to make "the most obnoxious, contrived meals for your dickhead foodie friends." more ›

The episode airs Monday, Sept. 26 at 9 p.m., and Nana is hosting a free viewing party to celebrate. more ›

When a Chicagoan appears on a reality TV show involving food, it tends to end well (see: Izard, Stephanie and Levitski, Dale). We hope the trend continues with Jeff Mauro, who won The Next Food Network Star on Sunday night. According to the Tribune, he focused his efforts on sandwich-making; his new show, "Sandwich King," starts this Sunday. more ›

Any fans of Food Network's 24 Hour Restaurant Battle? Well, next Friday you can have the chance to join the show, as Food Network will be casting in Chicago! 24 Hour Restaurant Battle is the reality show wherein contestants have to take an empty space and turn it into a serving restaurant, with a budget of only $5000. Do you have what it takes? Do you want to find out? If you make it on the show and win, you will get $10,000 to invest in your own restaurant concept - plus the fame and fortune of reality stardom and a chance to meet all of the celebrity judges. more ›

For the last few months, Chicago has seen its food landscape swarmed with outsiders. Groups of people have flocked to the city to decide once and for all who ranks higher, who is the finest overall, who is the best in the class, and just exactly who reigns supreme in certain fields of culinary excellence. I'm not talking about the Michelin Guide, though - everyone else in town can field that one. more ›

Our opinion of Anthony Bourdain shifted over the course of two hours on Saturday night. more ›

Need a three layer cake in the shape of a tea kettle (complete with cotton candy steam) for your grandmother’s 80th birthday and your baking skills began and ended with the penis shaped cake you made for your college roommate’s bachelorette party? Never fear; Chicago bakeries have you covered for your non-penis shaped, special event cake needs. Contact any of these great bakeries well ahead of your next event to describe your cake needs and let them work their sugary magic. more ›

There was an old man named Seuss, more ›

The Chicago Auto Show opens to the public tomorrow ($10 admission), and while the extent of our car knowledge--well, here and there, there is one vehicle that's currently blowing our minds: more ›

This is the time of year where we sit back and reflect on what's happened the past twelve months. If you're like us, you do so with a nice spread of food and a good stiff drink laid out in front of you. more ›

We were downtown at work yesterday when a co-worker said "What's with the protest outside? There's someone chanting for justice or something." Knowing from the "Saturday Plans" post that The Lady herself, Paula Deen was appearing, this was a head-scratcher. Who could be so upset at a TV chef? Besides the obvious, of course. more ›

If there's one thing we brought back to Chicago with us after our six years down south, it's certainly our love for smoked meats. We'd always loved ribs as far back as we can remember, but exposure to true Southern BBQ raised our expectations to a whole new level. We learned that meat is meant to be lovingly smoked for hours in order to achieve the perfect symphony of tastes and textures. more ›

The cover story to today's Sun-Times food section deals with inexpensive substitutes for fancy kitchen tools that you can find at the hardware store, which is something we've been down with since we started using the kitchen for more than beer-pong and a mechanic's station for bike repair. We typically use paint brushes to marinade roasts and meats, to butter pastries and to clean out the coffee grinder. We also have a mini-propane torch for making creme brulee and meringues and have been known on occasion to use a rubber mallet as a meat tenderizer when our standard one just isn't enough. more ›

This week Chicagoist bought pork tenderloin with the plan of writing about making it into a dish for the site. The only slight set-back we faced was that we had no idea what we were actually going to cook. We'd already done tenderloin this, rather classic, way and felt, at least at first, over-inspired. When cooking, we often start ourselves off with a main ingredient (often enough meat) then research all the ways others... more ›

Thanks largely to the ubiquity of the Food Network, everyone dabbles a bit in gourmet these days. Even bars that one would think should only cater in standard pub grub are going out of their way and dressing up their burgers with buns and sides our grandparents wouldn't dream of when they were our age. We're not knocking it, mind you. We're just saying that sometimes we just want a burger to just be a burger. more ›

If it hasn't been drilled into your heads yet, street festival season is kicking into high gear. This week, we'll highlight a couple to check out, as well as feature one of the more humorous press releases to reach our inbox this week. Strap it on! We'll Call Ours the "Triple Bypass": Wendy's is hosting an online contest to see who can design their next burger. Folks who log on to www.thisismyburger.com can choose from... more ›

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. Austinist has a chat with the ever-fashionable Golden Girl Rue McClanahan, and managed to catch some local fashionistas making... more ›

The International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) is holding its annual Cookbook Expo this weekend in Chicago. And, for the first time, they're opening it up to the public. This is your chance to hobnob with some of your favorite cookbook authors and chefs, who will be on hand to sell and sign their latest books. The event runs from 5-6 p.m. tomorrow at the Hilton Chicago. Even though it's free, reservations are required; e-mail... more ›

Quick, name the top five chefs in Chicago. Now name the five most famous chefs in the country. While the cuisines may vary from Grant Achatz's "molecular gastronomy" to Mario Batali's classic Italian, the one thing that most — or all — of these chefs have in common is the pale, pale, color of their skin. As Maureen Jenkins writes in today's Sun-Times, "the shortage of chefs of African descent is noteworthy if only by... more ›

Today is National Get Over It Day. Chicagoist is going to get over Del Toro closing, a crush on Molto Mario, our dream of moving to France to drink wine all day, the death of wine maker Ernest Gallo and ... we don't have anything to get over regarding the new Grand Mart grocery. We do think it is nice, however, that Guaranty Bank isn't lonely anymore. more ›

If watching Homaro Cantu make maki made you want to eat a Big Mac on Sunday night, you aren't alone. The Food Network's "Iron Chef America" and Oakbrook-based McDonald's are catching some heat after a McDonald's logo and the phrase "I'm Lovin' It" appeared for a split second during the show. more ›

With the Bears heading to Miami, some serious planning needs to commence starting, oh, right about now. Chicagoist is already getting stressed out. Where should we watch the game? Which friends should we invite over? And what should we eat? more ›

Chicagoist isn't one for food shows. This is mainly because we don't have cable thus have no access to the world of the Food Network. But a few weeks back we found ourselves in a cable using household and we got sucked into an episode of The Barefoot Contessa. This episode was about the chicken hash Truman Capote made for his black and white ball. The contessa went on and on about Capote and we didn't mind, we were enthralled by the dish itself. So when we got back to our own cable-less apartment and kitchen, we thought we'd try to make our own hash from memory. As you will see our recipe isn't much different from its inspiration and we'll totally understand if you go with the shoeless cook ... it won't hurt our tender soles one little bit. more ›

Greg Christian used to be a rock-star chef. Think Anthony Bourdain before he stopped doing the partying and started writing books and appearing on the Food Network. Christian cooked hard, partied hard and essentially lived every chef's dream; working at the now-closed Gordon’s restaurant under executive chef John Terczak and then ultimately starting his own catering company. Hungry Mag has a great profile of Christian up, in which his story of discovering the organic food... more ›

"We're very choosy about who we get into bed with, to put it bluntly" was how Charlie Trotter explained the news, reported yesterday by both NBC 5 and the Tribune, that he is the "iconic chef" developing the restaurant for the under-construction Elysian Hotel on East Walton. more ›

Alain Roby, pastry chef at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, set the world record for tallest chocolate structure last week in New York when he created a 20-foot, 8-inch tall replica of the Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. Roby was in NY as part of the "Food Network Challenge," which also saw challenges for best pizza dough tossing and popcorn sculpting. Chicagoist didn’t know there were that many people who practiced the ancient art of popcorn sculpting, but apparently there are enough to fill an hour-long "Food Network Challenge." more ›

Fans of Food Network's "Iron Chef America" can expect to taste a decidedly Chicagoan flavor when the new season premieres next month. Two episodes to tivo or tape: Tru impressarios Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand (with executive sous chef Stuart Davis) against Mario Batali; and Homaru Cantu's "Team moto" faces of against Chef Morimoto. more ›

This Friday, December 9, Sara Moulton is going to be at Pastoral and you're invited to stop by and meet her. If her name sounds familiar, there's a good reason. Sara is the Executive Chef of Gourmet Magazine; hosts a popular show on the Food Network, Sara's Secrets; has written several books; and has a pretty cool blog. From 5pm - 7pm stop by to grab a copy of her new book Sara's Secrets for... more ›

Add Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh to the top of the list of "People Chicagoist Would Hate If They Weren't So Nice." Not only have the Boystown caterers opened a successful new restaurant, HB: A Hearty Boys Spot, their new Food Network show, Party Line with Dan and Steve, premiered this week. And, the couple recently adopted a 2-month-old baby, Nate. All in unison now, "Awwwwwww." more ›