Feature Fri Feb 08 2008

Happy Birthday to Us!

We can hardly believe it. Drive Thru turned 1 this week!

We've taken some time to look back at what we've blogged about in the past year and have come up with a condensed list of our favorite news, recipes, ideas, rants, and general observations. Consider this the birthday edition of "Mmm, Midweek Links."

• During our debut month, we got our feet wet with goofy-titled event listings, vegan recipes and news that Chicago White Hens were being turned into 7-11s.

• Vegan recipes and restaurant reviews have continued to be abundant each week as our resident vegan Chris Brunn has dominated in this category. My favorites include the simple avocado sandwich and any post that shows how to order vegan even in meaty situations.

• In October our wine expert, Christine Blummer, gave us somewhat tongue-in-cheek advice about how to pair wine with Halloween candy. Throughout the year Christine has offered her expertise without an ounce of snobbery. Case in point: her guide to buying wine "at da Jewel's and such."

• LTH forum moderator, David Hammond, has done some writing for us, too. Our favorite was when he ate bugs and in turn was awarded with 15 minutes of fame.

• How could we talk about the past year and not mention foie gras? Well, we can't. Drive Thru commented on the notorious ticket issued to Doug Sohn of Hot Doug's, local chefs rallying against the ban, and how a suburban eatery used their, um, suburban-ness to sell it legally.

• We discovered Ghetto Gourmet and fell in love. (Cinnamon, of One Good Meal, even scored the recipe for Efrain's (Chefrain) distinctive beer and cheese soup.)

• There was pizza, pizza and more pizza. We had different opinions.

• Lori took the Localvore Challenge and impressed us with her daily updates on how she was dealing.

• After some hoopla over some payola (free meals to reviewers in turn for positive reviews) at Yelp, we felt it was time to make it clear that we're ethical folks and have a don't-be-shady policy.

• We took notice of food "oddities" such as pluots, BBQ chicken tacos, and Pilsbury naan.

• Speaking of BBQ, we really couldn't say enough about Smoque. Could we? Nope.

• And speaking of smoke . . . you can't do it anymore. But you already knew that.

— Meghan Murphy Gill / Comments (0)