Lard may not be the ingredient you add to every meal you make, but it does have its uses. And Cesar Torres had a hard time finding some. So once he did, at Paulina Meat Market he created this little video where he asks the butcher (who sold me some great veal sweetbreads a few months ago) where it comes from.
— Cinnamon Cooper / Comments (1)
Come out to the LooseLeaf Lounge on Friday, November 20 at 7pm to 9:30pm for the Cob Connection Benefit -- don't miss this opportunity to support urban farming and a locally-owned business! The Cob Connection explores systematic quality of housing and food by integrating community involvement, social responsibility, and environmentalism into training programs in urban agriculture.
A ticket will give you your choice of sandwich (with a side of chips or veggies), salad, tea or coffee, dessert, plus one raffle ticket. All fresh greens are supplied by Cob Connection and dessert is provided by The Chicago Diner. Additional raffle tickets will be available for purchase.
Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door. To purchase tickets in advance email Lester@LooseLeafLounge.com or call (773) 809-5371. Better yet, why not swing by the LooseLeaf Lounge at 2915 North Broadway in Lakeview to register in person --and grab a cup of tea while you're at it!
— Shanna Quinn / Comments (0)
We're not paid to hawk Groupon, but today's deal is worth noting: $40 worth of Swirlz cupcakes for $20.
You're welcome.
— Robyn Nisi / Comments (0)
The latest North Avenue restaurant / lounge now has an "open" sign on the front door and a quick phone call confirmed that they are open for business (with what sounded like a good crowd for a Wednesday night). LOKaL's precise menu features soups, salads, and plates to share, many with an Eastern European flair. Flyers posted on the windows highlight jazz on Mondays and DJs spinning on Tuesdays, helping make the transition from evening restaurant to late-night lounge. With a minimalist menu to complement the sleek décor, LOKaL looks to be a uniquely flavored addition to the ever-growing Bucktown/Wicker Park food scene.
LOKaL is located at 1904 W. North Avenue and is open daily for lunch and dinner, as well as weekend brunch.
— Caroline Kraft / Comments (0)
This week I would like to introduce Jessi of To Kiss the Cook.
What brought you to Chicago?
I was raised in Memphis by a pair of northeasterners, made my way to rural Ohio for college and then took the tunnel burrowed under Indiana by many previous generations into the city of Chicago. I always knew I wanted to be in a city (better food) but until three days before I moved here, I thought I'd be in Boston. Au contraire. This city, which was supposed to be a two year incubator before New York, San Francisco, Boston, London etc. has now been home for going on five years. I am satiated in wanderlust by living right on the blue line, a straight shot to O'Hare. This comes in handy every 3-4 weeks.
— Whitney Merritt / Comments (0)
— Robyn Nisi / Comments (0)
I love Zaca Tacos, too.
Taken from "Journal of Ordinary Thought," published by Neighborhood Writing Alliance, Fall 2008. Page 45.
— Robyn Nisi / Comments (0)
City Provisions, Chicago's green, locally-focused catering company, is kicking off the return of its monthly Supper Club on Nov. 16 at 7pm with Koval Distillery, the first boutique distillery located in Chicago.
The dinner will consist of five courses, paired with cocktails mixed by Ultimate Elixir's mixologist, Anige Jackson, and will be held at West Loop Studio, a historic top-floor loft at 17 N. Elizabeth St.
The dinner will consist of five courses, paired with cocktails featuring Koval's spirits. The price is an all-inclusive $75 per person.
I had the opportunity to attend one of the monthly Supper Club events and can assure you it's something you won't want to miss. What more can you want than good drinks, good company and extraordinary food?
Call 773-293-2489 to make your reservation.
— Kaitlin Olson / Comments (0)
This deliciously gruesome zombie cake was created by the always creative Bleeding Heart Bakery. Fortunately, It's pretty easy to disable this zombie -- just eat its brains!
Join the Drive-Thru flickr pool!
— Andrew Huff / Comments (0)
In May I traveled to Buenos Aires and spent a week eating and drinking in South America's second largest metropolis. Many guidebooks are quick to peg Argentina as the place to drink Malbec. While this is true, Argentina has much more to offer.
— Gemma Petrie / Comments (3)
I'm the kind of person that doesn't mind a bit of seasonality in my drinks. A little pumpkin in my beer, a little mulled spice in my wine...but easy on the apple pie, okay Leinenkugels? So I gladly accepted an invitation to Stoli's new Gala Applik launch party, the Moscova Affair, earlier this fall at Manor. I am not generally a vodka-drinker, nor a club-goer, so arrived thirsty, slightly early, and with all the scattered nervousness of a kid on the first day of class. With corset- and leather-clad servers and an Adam and Eve-themed silent circus tableau by San Francisco's Vau de Vire Society that more than lived up to the smoke-swilling lush-lipped ad campaign Stoli has plastered over CTA bus stops for months, I felt appropriately out of my element. At least the place was lousy with vodka, featuring at least five different suggested mixers for the new apple-infused Stoli blend, which I was expecting to taste more like Apple Pucker but has actually a mild, almost perfumey character. Applik and ginger ale was probably the best of the combinations I tried, though the signature "Applik Temptress" featured sour mix and a dash of bitters. Vanity Fair suggests a sangria-like white wine and fruit cocktail called, appropriately or not, the Rio 2016. Ouch. And, mmmmm!
I don't know that there's anything particularly seasonal about champagne, unless you feel the end of Daylight Savings Time should be celebrated with bubbles. But I still stopped by Pol Roger's Jazz Celebration last night at Pops for Champagne, an institution that I've been meaning to try for years. The White Foil Reserve Brut was the drink of the night, comprised of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes and fermented early in its life to a precise 46 F degrees, a process apparently distinctive to Pol Roger. A bottle of the White Foil retails for about $60, according to our pourer, though Pops has several other Pol Roger varieties on their menu as well, starting in more like the $115 range and rising steadily from there. The Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 1998 is aged in the deepest, coldest cellars in Pol Roger's operation, and has a dense, almost edible quality to it, with bubbles so fine you barely notice them and a mouth-feel much more like wine than champagne. My favorite was the Brut Blanc de Blancs 1999, which was both demi-sec and a bit tart, I thought the most interesting in terms of flavor of the bunch.
In other drinking news, C-House, in the Affinia Hotel, continues its prix-fixe Goose Island beer menu through the end of this week, and more paper seems to peel back every day from the windows of Lush Wine and Spirits' new location on Chicago Avenue. Whatever causes you to raise a glass this fall, be it circus folks, or grain alcohol, or the pleasing pop of a champagne cork, there are plenty of places and things to drink this time of year.
— Andie Thomalla / Comments (2)
This week I would like to introduce you to Caroline of Whipped.
What brought you to Chicago?
I grew up in Michigan, moved to Europe for a bit while courting my husband and then lured him back to the U.S. with the promise of big city living. Chicago became our home in 2001.
What do you do when you aren't blogging?
I have my own marketing consulting business where I am lucky enough to work with a bunch of chefs! I relax by playing with my daughter, swimming, doing yoga and scheming up dinner party plans that I don't have time to execute.
— Whitney Merritt / Comments (1)
— Robyn Nisi / Comments (0)
I made it over to Market, a restaurant that doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. The place is a combination of a sports bar full of flat-screens with a separate dining area that looks very modern and high-end. The food, however, is a dimension unto itself--not because it's bold or memorable, but because it's served in the weirdest contraptions that not even the most serious of psychedelic drug users could have conceived.
I ordered "The Answer," one of the strangest names for a steak sandwich (or "sandwedge," as Market's menu faux-cleverly refers to them). The actual sandwich itself was served on a wooden cutting board. The fries that accompanied it were in a European-style cone that was stuck into a wrought iron stand (similar to what you suspend bananas from to avoid ripeness) that arced over the sandwich, with small ramekins of ketchup and aioli set into side bars that made me think this was a fuck swing for side dishes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another diner eating a pasta dish--a little grater that would have fit perfectly in a Cabbage Patch Doll's kitchen also hung on a device similar to the hardship that my fries were enduring, comically waiting to cover her rigatoni with a snowstorm of parmesan.
I spent a good half of my meal trying to get through several tough, rubbery chunks of skirt steak before I finally gave up and asked for a take-home container. To their credit, Market has awesome take-home containers.
Things got even weirder when dessert for the group of us in attendance was wheeled out--in a small grocery cart filled with caramel and cheese corn, and topped with a small aquarium-sized dollop of cotton candy. While the cart's wheels made for easy passing of the mountain of pure sugar that we were all giddily eating, I still came back to the same questions: who makes miniature grocery carts that double as serving dishes? Why all the visual fuss over the average-tasting food? Why did the bar, restaurant and food have such a huge disconnect? The silent cab ride home provided little guidance, my leftover Answer getting colder by the minute.
Market
1113 W. Randolph
312-989-4787
— Robyn Nisi / Comments (2)
Join Today's Chicago Woman (TCW) magazine at The Chopping Block in the Merchandise Mart on Wednesday, Oct. 28 from 6pm to 9pm for "The Taste of TCW" cooking competition. This cuisine and culinary challenge won't only be tasty, all the proceeds will benefit the TCW Foundation, a charity that raises money for varies organizations dedicated to helping women and children.
The challengers are Radhika Desai, Season 5 contestant on Bravo TV's "Top Chef"; Elaina Vazquez, owner of Boutique Bites; and Jennifer Gavin from Fox TV's "Hell's Kitchen" and owner of Catered Excellence. Rocking the judge's panel will be Shelley Young of the Chopping Block and Chef Sarah Stegner of Prairie Grass and Prairie Fire. The emcee for this delightful evening will be Steve Dolinksky, "The Hungry Hound" from ABC 7.
Tickets are $75, which includes the cuisine and culinary challenge plus hors d'oeuvres from the participating chef's favorite recipes, beer and wine, and signature cocktails from Sundas's mixologist, Sherrie Geslack. Raffle tickets will be available for purchase. Visit Today's Chicago Woman magazine to reserve your tickets.
— Shanna Quinn / Comments (0)
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In May I traveled to Buenos Aires and spent a week eating and drinking in South America's second largest metropolis. Many guidebooks are quick to peg Argentina as the place to drink Malbec. While this is true, Argentina has much...
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Sat Nov 7 2009
Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer @ Bailey Auditorium
Sat Nov 7 2009
Half Acre Chilli Cookoff @ The Arts of Life Studio
Sat Nov 7 2009
DIFFA Table Hop & Taste @ Merchandise Mart
Sat Nov 7 2009
Pumpkins and Squashes @ Kendall College
Sun Nov 8 2009
New Belgium Experimental Dinner @ Lush
Tue Nov 10 2009
Re-Thinking Soup @ Hull House
Tue Nov 10 2009
Mrs. Charles Darwin's Recipe Book @ Ina's
Thu Nov 12 2009
Tyler Florence @ Whole Foods
Thu Nov 12 2009
Women Helping Women: Shopping & Cocktails
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Drive-Thru is the food and drink section of Gapers Block, covering the city's vibrant dining, drinking and cooking scene.
Editor: Robyn Nisi, rn@gapersblock.com
Drive-Thru staff inbox: drivethru@gapersblock.com
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