Last night, five of Chicago's best chefs got together to show what creative things could be done with whole heritage pigs. There was blood, organ meats, bacon and enough pork fat to submerge a Volkswagen. more ›

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Last night, the Girl and the Goat's Stephanie Izard joined an all-star team of Chicago chefs to host a "Friends of the James Beard Foundation" dinner. The Beard Foundation, American's foremost nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting fine American food, holds dinners around the country to support its operations, and the proceeds of last night's dinner will be used for culinary school scholarships. 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 ›

If beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, as Benjamin Franklin once surmised, then the Norwegians behind Nøgne Ø are the equivalent of missionaries luring bloodthirsty Vikings away from the halls of Asgard with the allure of satiny ales. Brewmaster Kjetil Jikiun came to craft brewing like nearly every other successful brewer we've met: he started out as a homebrewer. Jikiun is also a commercial airline pilot, was able to expand his knowledge of beer while flying around the globe and became a fan of the quality of beers being produced by American craft and microbreweries. more ›

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(Today we wrap up our week-long series following chef Paul Kahan as he brewed beer at New Holland Brewing and planned a menu for an August 23 beer dinner at the Publican. If you haven't already, you can go back and read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4) more ›

Last night we attended the sold out mulefoot pig dinner at Blackbird sponsored by the Chicago Reader. Reader food critic Mike Sula has been chronicling the progress Dee Dee since he persuaded the paper to buy her last year, bringing attention to this rare endangered breed of swine in the process. more ›