Results tagged “local”

         

"Have you ever been to one of our family dinners?" Rob Levitt of mado asked us Monday night at the LTHForum GNR awards dinner. Allowing that we hadn't, Levitt's eyes lit up. "They're fun and, with this one, you're gonna be in for a real treat."

    

Lovers of Lula, rejoice! Yet another alum has taken her place among Chicago’s great executive chefs. Nicole Pederson, former sous chef at Lula (who has also cooked at Gramercy Tavern in New York) has taken over the helm at C-House. Owned by Marcus Sammuelson, the chef-owner of Aquavit, C-House primarily focuses on seafood, with a well-stocked raw bar and a selection of eight different oysters.

Remember that rooftop garden we told you about a few weeks ago? It’s not open to regular patrons of Uncommon Ground, but if you go to an upcoming Slow Food Chicago Dinner, you can get a group tour of the nation's first certified organic rooftop garden. We’ve been up there, and it’s not to be missed.

Vinyl nerds, be warned. The 7th annual CHIRP Record Fair & Other Delights is upon us—and this year’s media blitz complete with music, magazines, posters, and more will fill your arms with loads of entertainment and eye candy to last all summer long. Founded by the folks at CHIRP, a non-profit organization that aims to bring a new independent radio station to Chicago, this year’s event has a brand new location—the Chicago Journeymen’s Plumber’s Union.

    

Hadn't had the chance to visit Uncommon Ground's Edgewater location (1401 W. Devon, 773-465-9801) since it opened last year. With an old friend visiting from Colorado over the weekend, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to see how the place is doing. Judging from the bustle in the dining room Saturday night the answer was "quite well." This was "slow food" without the pretense, served masterfully with a well-trained, informed and opinionated waitstaff. The bar is also an underrated gem, although the flashing blue light of the police camera outside may trick some into thinking there's a perpetual special running.

On our recent visit to Provenance Food and Wine, we mentioned that we picked up a box of Das Carmelini salted caramels. We liked them so much that we contacted the owner to find out more about this local candy company. Das Foods, created by Katie Das in 2006, started with a line of gourmet cooking and finishing salts. While we’re sure the salts are amazing and delicious, we’re much more excited about CANDY.

We always tromp down Belmont to Paper Boy any time we need to buy someone a birthday card, because the stationary store usually has a nice little selection of cards handmade here in Chicago. We have an affinity for Chicago's DIY scene, and are complete suckers for anything fashioned by local artists.

Now that we're finally getting nice weather, it's time to stop wearing that gray sweater you've had on all winter and decorate yourself with bright baubles. We like to make it a personal mission to make ourselves look like a bunch of crazy wildflowers. Local Mom O Matic's Automat is helping us in our quest with their vintage buttons and plastic bits transformed as fun, bold jewelry (we adore this church basement charm bracelet, pictured).