We want this viewing party to be fun, but we also want to make something positive from this. Tomorrow night Chicagoist and DO312 will be collecting donations for Metropolitan Family Services. more ›

(First-time Movember participant John DiGiio brings his inner Tom Selleck to the surface, raises money for men's health, and interracts with other Chicago a-stache-ionados. It's a month of Mos and Bros and all for a great cause!) more ›

A unique exhibit on the history of Edgewater grocery stores opens at the Edgewater Historical Society Museum tomorrow. It's free to the public. more ›

Green City Market's Junior Board sweetens the pot for ticket sales to Masquerade del Mercado. tickets for Geek2Chic are now on sale. Halloween at Barn and Company is shaping up to be huge. more ›

Today's listings include a back-alley bike tour of eccentric art Sunday. more ›

Katherine Anne Confections has a truffle making class Oct. 28. more ›

In today's listings: tickets are still available to one of the best home brew events of the year. more ›

The full lineup for the Oct. 14 event at Macy's on State was released this afternoon and after reading it we have to wonder who's going to be running the city's restaurants that night. more ›

A gathering of fashion designers raising funds for youth displaced by war in Kenya leads off today's listings. more ›

Now in its fifth year, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Festiv-Ale has grown as fast as Chicago's craft beer community. more ›

In today's listings, a chef becomes a DJ for one night. more ›

Today's listing are chock full of comedy. more ›

Books more ›

Today's events include a fundraiser featuring Stephanie Izard and a rare Colleen Moore film screening. more ›

The Butcher and Larder will be the setting for one of the largest bake sales the city has ever seen Saturday with Share Our Strength's Great American Bake Sale. from 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. bakeries, restaurants and pastry chefs from all over the city including Balsan, Hoosier Mama, Big Jones, Floriole, City Provisions, Food For Thought Catering and Xmarx are donating delicious desserts for this great cause event. It's one of many sales being held under the Great American Bake Sale banner, but certainly the one with the most chef firepower behind it. more ›

Tastings for Charity more ›

Lillstreet Art Center celebrates a milestone, Rock For Kids and a food fest at the French market this weekend. more ›

All's fair in love, war and politics, apparently. Carol Moseley Braun, the "consensus Black candidate" who only won one precinct in February's mayoral election and sharply criticized Rahm Emanuel's ability to raise boatloads of money during the mayoral campaign, is now getting a boost from the Mayor-elect to help retire her campaign debt. more ›

Earlier this morning we received a direct message on the Chicagoist Twitter fed from local raconteur Billy Dec. more ›

While Carol Moseley Braun was busy calling other mayoral candidates crack addicts at Trinity United Church of Christ, Rahm Emanuel continued his slow and steady march towards trying to avoid an April runoff election by... having a fundraiser at the Park West. The fundraiser featured musical performances by local retro-soul masters JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound and Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, who gave Emanuel the shot in the arm he promised a couple of weeks back. more ›

Carol Moseley Braun's missteps since she became the "consensus black candidate" for mayor have seemingly been steeped in self-inflicted tragedy. A couple of hours after we discovered that Braun may have overstated her business acumen, she literally phoned in a planned meet-and-greet with supporters at a downtown LGBT nightclub. more ›

Last year Chicagoist was a sponsor of The Arts of Life and Half Acre Beer Company's Chili Cookoff. Proceeds from the event benefited Arts of Life's mission of using art as a therapeutic method for adults with mental illness or intellectual disabilities. We even posted the winning recipe on the site. 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 ›

Marbled, juicy, flavorful…delicious. The lard-type breed pig, the Mangalista, would give your everyday bacon a strong run for its money, if only it was a bit more accessible and a lot less expensive. Mark Schumacher and his friends thought exactly this when trying to purchase the pricey Mangalista meat online. more ›

Purple Asparagus, the non-profit dedicated to promoting healthy eating for children at home and school, is hosting their sixth annual "Corks and Crayons" fundraiser this Sunday afternoon at Uncommon Ground Edgewater. more ›

It's President Obama's birthday week - he turns 49 on Wednesday, August 4 - and he'll celebrate it at home in Chicago, mixing business with pleasure. While in town, Obama will celebrate his birthday with the much-gabbed-about private dinner thrown by Neil Bluhm that will cost attendees a $30,000 donation to the DNC. Besides that, the President will also be raising money for U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias at a separate fundraiser as he hopes to help Alexi catch up to GOP opponent Mark Kirk in funding. While in town, Obama will also visit the South Side Ford plant where just last week the company unveiled the new Explorer that will be produced here. The President is also expected to attend a $250-per-ticket event at the Chicago Cultural Center and Lynn Sweet says expect Obama to be accompanied by Rahmbo. One note: it seems the President will be travelling alone as the ladies of the Obama family are off on other business. No word yet on specific traffic plans or shutdowns in advance of his visit. more ›

Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation, one of the biggest gatherings of chef and bartending talent this year, takes place next Thursday at the Aragon Ballroom. The annual event raises money for for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Near North Health Services and the Illinois Hunger Coalition, three organizations fighting the rise of childhood hunger in the greater Chicago area.. more ›

Lockwood chef Phillip Foss is on a roll this year in attracting media attention, and almost always for noble or worthy causes. His advocacy for viewing Asian carp as a food source and not an invasive species has been a road filled with potholes, but he's taken his cause celebre to the Today show and left no local media outlet stone unturned. along with Gaztro-Wagon's Matt Maroni, Foss has also led the charge for food trucks in Chicago, and his blog is still as entertaining as ever. It could be argued that Foss's visibility in the media is second to Graham Elliot Bowles; Foss also weighed in on the GEB/Chicago magazine dustup. more ›

Combine charity and good food by heading to Michael Kornick's DMK Burger Bar this Sunday, July 25th, for its Shift Drinks (and Eats) event. Your $10 donation goes to Share Our Strength and gets you the entire DMK menu at half-off. Grass-fed beef burgers, fries, mac 'n' cheese, beer, home-made sodas, Mmmmmmmm. There will be a raffle and giveaways, as well! more ›

From the inbox: All proceeds from next Monday's Iron Cupcake Chicago Challenge at Smashcake will benefit the Maher sisters of Cakegirls, who lost their shop in a fire Monday. The Iron Cupcake Challenge is an "Iron Chef"-themed monthly competition, only scaled down to cupcakes. Attendees can sample all the baked goods made for the challenge for a flat $5; typically 8-12 different cupcakes are made depending on participation. more ›