Instead of pairing cocktails with food, Chefs Paul Virant and Nathan Sears will be crafting a menu based on an all-star cocktail list. more ›

Stephanie Izard's Goat Tour, which promotes the Girl and the Goat chef's first cookbook, the newly released Girl in the Kitchen, made its hometown stop last night - and if the plates served up to celebrate the occasion are any indication, Izard's handsome anthology of recipes is destined for a lot of use in many a home kitchen. more ›

A fabulous launch party, benefiting Share our Strength, starts at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night. more ›

When I arrived at the Green City Market BBQ at 4:30 yesterday afternoon, the thermometer had already topped 100 degrees. My shirt soaked through in the first 10 minutes - and my plight was nothing compared to that of the chefs, standing over hot grills. But, that's not what guests to the BBQ will remember. They'll remember the entire Chicago food world, including every restaurant you've ever heard of, standing out there cooking and sweating together, to support an organization we all love. more ›

(formerly Perennial, now with extra Virant goodness) is open tonight. Last night was the first night of operation, and it won't start taking reservations till May 23, but tonight or tomorrow night might be a good chance to get a sneak peek at Paul Virant's new menu for the Lincoln Park restaurant. more ›

Growing Home, a Chicago-based non-profit that provides job training through urban agriculture, is throwing a fabulous gala on Thursday - and you might be invited. The event, at the Chicago Cultural Center, will feature food by Paul Virant (of Vie and soon-to-be Perennial Virant) and desserts by Sweet Miss Givings. Bill Kurtis will be giving the keynote address, and a silent auction will be offering up a "Chef for a Day Package at Charlie Trotters," among other great prizes. Tickets are normally $125 each, but we have two to give away to a loyal reader. Enter to win after the jump. more ›

The Chicago food community has shown its committment to charitable causes over and over again, and we've already mentioned a few things being done to help disaster-ravaged Japan. This event, however, is in a class by itself. Some of the best chefs in Chicago, including Jimmy Bannos, Paul Kahan, Tony Mantuano, Mindy Segal, Sarah Stegner, Paul Virant, Bill Kim, and of course, Takashi Yagihashi, are coming together at Takashi on April 18th to create a special 6-course dinner. All the proceeds will go the Red Cross. more ›

Outstanding in the Field, which produces a series of touring farm dinners across the country (check out our 2009 review of their dinner at Kinnikinnick Farm with Stephanie Izard and Ryan Poli, for an example) announced their 2011 farm dinner schedule over the weekend. more ›

Last week, Our Town's food cognoscenti was stunned at the news that Ryan Poli was leaving Perennial to helm the kitchen at the soon-to-open Tavernita, where he hopes to pursue his passion for Spanish cuisine. This led to speculation as to whom would replace Poli at the Lincoln Park eatery, spurred in part by BOKA Restaurant Group owner Kevin Boehm's hints that the chef was a "celebrity." more ›

Do we dare celebrate this brief retreat winter's been making? Can we safely point and laugh at the once-Andean snow piles that've been reduced to pathetic roadside lumps? Part of us says no, any pleasure we take in these hood-down halcyon days will come back to bite us on the...nose. (Mother Nature is so immature.) If only we could somehow honor the fruits of the season, but in a refreshing beverage built for these blissfully tepid days of pre-spring. Luckily, we've got guys like Michael Page, bar manager at Vie in Western Springs, working on the problem. more ›

When talk among local food nerds turns to chefs who can and preserve their own fruits and vegetables, Vie's Paul Virant is usually the first name to be dropped. And with good reason, as Virant's canning prowess is second to none. more ›

Chef Paul Virant is packing up his knives and his bounty of locally farmed ingredient. No, he’s not leaving Vie. He wants to bring a food revolution to your kitchen and teach you and your best buds how to apply his skills for creating impeccable contemporary American cuisine. more ›

The weather is getting warmer and we can't help thinking about parks, sunshine, fresh air and heading to the ball park. Play for Life will be getting into the spirit of ball park fare when it kicks off its Season Opener - Best of the Ball Park cooking contest and fundraiser next week Friday (April 9th). Play for Life is a nonprofit organization that reaches out to at-risk youth through sports to empower and engage young people. more ›

Outstanding in the Field, which organizes farm dinners across the country matching local chefs with local farms, released its 2010 farm dinner schedule today. They'll be making two local stops in august. First, Paul Virant will handle cooking duties for a 4 p.m. dinner at Dietzler Farm in Elkhorn, WI on August 2. That'll be followed three days later by a return appearance of Mindy Segal and Aric Miech of Hot Chocolate at City Farm august 5 at 4 p.m. While we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner at Kinnikinnick Farm last year, the first-person accounts we heard about the City Farm dinner with Segal three nights later were overwhelmingly ecstatic, with praise for both the food the view of the Chicago skyline from the dinner. more ›

Although it happened in February, Hot Chocolate's fourth anniversary dinner still stood as my favorite overall dining experience last year. It was a seven-course marathon that increased in intensity and flavor with every dish, paired with some heavy duty beers and a music soundtrack that ranged from early Black Sabbath to pre-"Black Album" Metallica to the Twilight Singers. The proceeds from the dinner went to Share Our Strength, the DC-based non-profit dedicated to eliminating hunger in America by 2015. Quite simply, I was exhausted at the end of the meal. more ›

The Magalitsa pig, also known as the "curly haired hog," is a breed of pig that originated from Hungary and the Balkans known for its thick wooly coat. The meat from a Mangalitsa pig is also rich in fat and is reputed to have a flavor and texture similar to Wagyu beef. In gourmet circles Mangalitsas have eclipsed mulefoots as the new trendy pork. more ›

Mike Gebert's latest Sky Full of Bacon video podcast continues his look into fishing and sustainability by turning his camera to Great Lakes whitefish. With some assistance from Carl Galvan of Supreme Lobster, Gebert went on a fishing run with a Wisconsin family that has been trolling Lake Michigan for whitefish for 130 years. more ›

Sky Full of Bacon 11: A Better Fish from Michael Gebert on Vimeo.
• Mike Gebert visits Carl Galvan and Supreme Lobster Company, one of the country's largest fish purveyors, about the volume of seafood they sell while maintaining sustainable pracitces. [Sky Full of Bacon]
• Phil Vettel and the Trib's resident "Mayor McCheese" Kevin Pang debate pizza pie slices versus the familiar square party cut. Sorry, Kevin: we're siding with Phil on this one. [Tribune]
• Jennifer Olvera gets canning tips from Paul Virant. [Sun-Times]

Mike Gebert took a road trip to Iowa recently to film some behind-the-scenes footage at La Quercia in Norwalk, IA. La Quercia owners Herb and Kathy Eckhouse make some of the best dry-cured artisan salumi available, particularly prosciutto and guanciale. Jeffrey Steingarten called La Quercia's prosciutto "the best American or imported prosciutto [he's] ever tasted," while Bon Appetit once named La Quercia "Food Artisans of the Year." more ›

Realizing a long-held goal, the folks at Green City Market are set to have the market open year-round. Starting January 17 and running every first and third Saturday until April 18, vendors and farmers will hawk their wares at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (2430 N. Cannon) from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. 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 ›

After nearly two years, the Reader is ready to serve up some of that mulefoot pig it adopted to some hungry folks. And they're doing it in style, with a six-course dinner starting 6 p.m. October 19 at Blackbird to benefit Slow Food Chicago. more ›

A couple weeks back we attended the Green City Market farmer's dinner at Goose Island's Clybourn brewpub. That was the one that featured dishes from a host of chefs including Dean Zanella of 312 Chicago; Brian Huston of Paul Kahan's the Publican (opening in mid-autumn); Elissa Narow of Custom House and Paul Virant of Vie in Western Springs. Virant's dish was easily the most ambitious of the courses, utilizing lamb in unexpected ways. Virant sourced the lamb from Mint Creek Farm in downstate Stelle. more ›

There are a couple of really interesting beer dinners of note in the coming weeks that could wind up being hard reservations, if you're the type to wait until the last minute to get reservations. more ›

more ›