This week, I have to pleasure of introducing one of my favorite Chicagoland food bloggers, Tim from Lottie + Doof.
What brought you to Chicago?
Birth. I was born near 59th and Kedvale and have spent most of my life in the city. I went to DePaul's Theatre School as an undergrad and Northwestern for grad school so I have lots of ties to the city.
What do you do when you aren't blogging?
I work at a university during the day but my free time I spend with friends eating good food and enjoying the city. I like antiques and we recently bought our first place so we are spending a lot of time searching for things for our home.
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— Whitney Merritt /
I hope that you have enjoyed the weekly interviews of Chicagoland food bloggers.
Next up, Valerie of Marathon Val, who has recently decided to eat Vegan.
What brought you to Chicago?
I grew up in Valparaiso, IN, which is just across the border from Chicago. I have fond memories of taking Saturday trips into the city to celebrate special occasions and to go holiday shopping. When I met my husband, who is from the Chicago area, it was a given that I would move here to be closer to him since I was already in love with Chicago!
What do you do when you aren't blogging?
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— Whitney Merritt /
Feature Fri Sep 11 2009
Ryan Poli, the Executive Chef at Perennial Restaurant, is serving his first vegan dish. It's a thick cut of thoroughly marinated local tofu, grilled to a very nice char flavor, and deep grill marks. I sat down with Chef Poli to chat about his inspiration for the dish, how it's prepared, and how it's been received.
Chris Brunn: What inspired you to do the tofu?
Ryan Poli: It was really the product that we saw at the Green City Market from Tiny Greens. We were just cruising by and [they] had a sign up that said organic tofu. It struck a little bit of interest because we're always struggling with a vegetarian dish. We always overcomplicate it with, "just a little bit of butter would be great here. And you know what would be really great? Some bacon." The vegetarian dishes always turn into an awesome scallop dish, or a cool striped bass dish. When we got the tofu back, we marinated it. We tasted it. We thought it was something so special that we started to brainstorm. When the final dish came around, it was a vegan dish and not just a vegetarian dish. We're really proud of it.
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— Chris Brunn /
You may have noticed last week that I introduced you to Food Loves Writing on Friday, but I have decided to move this weekly feature to the middle of the week when you might need a little inspiration or a new distraction in the work week.
This week I want to introduce another one of my favorite Chicagoland Bloggers, Jacqui of Happy Jack Eats.
What brought you to Chicago?
I've always lived in the Chicago suburbs. I grew up in the Waukegan, and after college I moved to Lisle. Now, I work in the Loop as an editor, and even though the commute can be hell, nothing beats strolling through the farmers market on my way to the office and having lunch in Millennium Park. Winters, on the other hand, I could live without. But I suppose you're not a true Chicagoan until you've survived one or two or twenty-five of those.
What do you do when you aren't blogging?
I'm an Internet junkie. When I'm not eating or cooking or writing about eating and cooking, I'm reading other food blogs, browsing Flickr, or loitering around Twitter. I'm one of those people who surfs the Internet while watching TV (hooked on Lost and Dexter). Blogging has also sparked an interest in photography, and I'm currently accepting donations for a new digital SLR camera.
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— Whitney Merritt /
As a food blogger myself, I have filled my google reader with blogs that I read and enjoy on a daily basis. Many of these bloggers live, write and eat right here in the Windy City. I decided that I wanted to introduce you to some of my favorites with a new weekly series: Food Blog Friday.
First up, Shannalee at Food Loves Writing
Photo by Rebecca Brogan
What brought you to Chicago?
The Chicago area is where I grew up and where my family is from, and, excluding four years of college, the only place I've ever lived. I'm a big believer that home is where you make it with people you love, but, at least for now, I'm glad that's here.
What do you do when you aren't blogging?
I love to explore new places, whether that means a weekend in Maine or a Saturday in Oak Park, and I've started really getting into antiquing---have you ever looked at vintage aprons or cake stands? It's like history you can use! Other stuff: Enjoying my first experience with a CSA, finding ways to stay outside and watching entire series of television shows online. Oh yeah, and I have a day job---as an editor/copy writer.
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— Whitney Merritt /
Feature Thu Aug 06 2009
I sat down to chat with Sara Voden, co-owner of Vella Cafe, to look back at the cafe's two-plus years in business. On August 23, Vella will permanently close after serving brunch from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. - or after they run out of food (if that happens first).
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— Chris Brunn /
If you're headed to Ribfest Chicago this weekend, perhaps you're curious about the fake meat that's in Delicious Cafe's vegan ribs. Upton's Naturals is a local business specializing in seitan. They are making the seitan, portioning it into ribs just for Delicious, and packing it into buckets with a sauce developed by Delicious Cafe. The ribs come ready for Delicious to grill at Ribfest Chicago.
I sat down with the owners of Upton's, Dan Staackmann and Russ Calderwood, in their factory in Skokie's South-East Industrial District. How did they design the seitan for the fake ribs?
Russ: "We have our base recipe that we use as a jumping off point whenever we launch a new product. And then we just worked with [Delicious Cafe] as far as the size and texture and presentation that they wanted."
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— Chris Brunn /
This past Saturday I caught Bravo Channel's Top Chef Tour at the Chicago Green City Market. On hand were Antonia Lofaso and Radhika "Rad" Desai, both Cheftestants from Top Chef's Season Four and Season Five respectively. Over the course of 4 sessions on Saturday, both demonstrated their skills and amused the crowd with anecdotes from the show, dishing out answers to the audiences questions like "Are Hosea and Leah still together?" (The answer is yes), and "Is Toby truly that way in real life?" (Off camera, he's supposedly much nicer and very much the family man).
After the second session I had about five minutes with Wicker Park's Radhika Desai, who I found to be wonderfully charming and very funny.
So what's new for you?
"I left Between... it was a friendly separation,but I just felt like I needed to move on. I'm also doing private dinners and catering, and a lot of charity stuff. I'm not sure if you've heard of Deborah's Place?
It's a foundation for homeless women and children, and I donated a dinner where I went to someone's house and cooked. We raised $8000 for the charity! So I'm using my pseudo-fame to give back to the community rather than just being a consumer.
In the meantime I'm working on my own place.
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— Cliff Etters /
This past weekend's National Restaurant Association trade show included exhibitors for all sorts of restaurant needs from meat cookers to vegetarian foods, from customer loyalty programs to beverage dispensing equipment. Many have predictable names that seem to tell exactly what they do. Then there's Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning. I stopped by their booth and chatted with Jack Walker, who explained the name. Jack's voice has a certain enthusiasm that doesn't come through in print. You can listen to a recording of this interview on Vocalo.org.
Jack: The name is an old Cajun saying that our father used to use. When he'd cook, he'd say that he cooked so well that it'd make you want to slap your mom because she can't cook as well as he can. But it's an old Cajun saying that a lot of people use that you'll hear quite often in Louisiana.
Chris: Is it a family recipe?
Jack: It is a family recipe. It's our father's recipe. He did the original blend. After that, we kind of collaborated and developed all of the other blends and the other products. Our mother's actually the owner of the company, so that makes it kind of unique in fact that the name of it is Slap Ya Mama owned by a woman.
Chris: Sounds like a young company?
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— Chris Brunn /
Michael Nagrant, Chicago food writer and the editor of Hungry Mag, has an article in today's Sun-Times about how fantastic cast-iron skillets are. I also have much love for cast-iron skillets and Michael called me to get verification of something I'd written in that post.
Michael's love letter, written shortly before Valentine's Day even, to cast iron skillets is a great read. But the gist of the story is that cast-iron skillets are awesome and a great value for your money and indestructible. Literally, indestructible. Those fancy-pants pans? Not so much. If you purchase new, you're likely to buy a piece of Lodge cookware and you're just as likely to find it at the hardware store as you are at a cookware store on Michigan Avenue.
And apparently cast-iron isn't just for making food, you can make music with it, too. Dance music. He kindly sent on this tidbit of information that didn't fit in the Sun-Times article:
"Not everyone uses their cast iron for cooking, at least not exclusively. Local professional chef and percussionist [and Drive-Thru contributor] Alan Lake makes music with his. In 1986 while working as a sous chef at the East Bank Club, lake got a call from Pat Leonard, a boyhood friend who'd scored a gig as a music producer. Leonard told Lake to pack up his equipment and move out to LA to be part of his recording band. Part of Lake's "equipment" was a set of cast iron pans. Lake says, "Back then you couldn't just buy samples, so we had to make our own. I hung my skillets from s-hooks, rolled rubber bands around chopsticks to make drumsticks and played them like steel drums. Though they're not tuned, they (the pans) have different pitches by virtue of their size." These weren't just any samples though. Lake says, "You can hear those samples all over (Madonna's) La Isla Bonita and Papa Don't Preach and (Ferry's) Bette Noir album."
— Cinnamon Cooper /
Chef Thu Jan 08 2009
Jessa Crispin of Bookslut recently interviewed Grant Achatz of Alinea. You can find the video here.
— Gemma Petrie /
Karen Lim's popular Take Me Out hot wings joint in Pilsen was heavily damaged by the early morning fire that gutted the 1500 block of West 18th Street on Aug. 11. In its brief, four-month life, the eatery received rave reviews for its "Little Hotties" Asian hot wings.
The mighty wings first arose at Great Sea, the longtime Albany Park Chinese-Korean fusion restaurant run by Lim's parents, but her version are no slouch either. On a recent pre-fire visit, the wings were fried to a succulent, caramelized, crispy goodness reminiscent of roast duck, and smothered with a spicy-sweet mix of soy sauce, chili, ginger and garlic.
I knew the wings would be on my short list of favorite Windy City eats when, after I could eat no more, I had an overpowering urge to suck the sauce from the serving platter with a straw. "I'd say mine were better, but my parents had a 21-year head start, so we're about even," said Lim, standing with husband Nathan in the middle of the shuttered eatery on Wednesday, the first time the police let them inside to see the damage.
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— Mike Doyle /
That's how Ted Allen (formerly of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and currently a judge on Top Chef) described Chicago in an interview posted on TVGuide.com. Allen was born in the midwest (Columbus, Ohio) and was a restaurant critic for Chicago magazine before he made it big and moved to New York, so he knows what he's talking about when he raves about the great food of this season's Top Chef host city.
— Dana Currier /
Beer lovers, brace yourselves: thanks to bad weather in Europe and a reduction in crops here in the States, there's a severe shortage of hops, one of the key ingredients in beer. As a result, prices have skyrocketed &mdash as much as 600 percent for rarer cultivars.
The increased costs are squeezing smaller brewers in particular. I recently spoke with Gabriel Magliaro of fledgling Half Acre Beer about the situation.
Andrew: I know your beer is contract brewed in Wisconsin; is this bill being passed on to you by the brewery, or are you purchasing ingredients directly?
Magliaro: "Yes, this bill is being passed on to us by the brewery, and we're lucky that we're contract brewed right now because they have long standing relationships and a bit more buying power than we would have on our own. We're having to buy our entire year's worth of hops now because we need to insure that we can continue to brew our beer without compromising quality. Our brewer is asking us to help them out because they can't afford to absorb this kind of spending and are forced to buy this way. We have been actively searching for hops to buy on our own with the hope of buying for our Over Ale (Half Acre's planned second offering]) and beating the price coming down from our brewer, but have been either unable to find the necessary variety of hop or completely blown out of the water when we have. The Saaz hop that we use for the lager was generally found for about $5 a pound. I was just quoted $30 a pound for hop that aims to mimic its qualities."
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— Andrew Huff /
Event Mon Jan 21 2008
Be sure to listen to Sound Opinions on Chicago Public Radio (91.5 FM in Chicago) this Friday, Jan 25 at 8pm when Chef Anthony Bordain chats with hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot about "two of the best things on earth: music and food." Other chefs, including Doug Sohn of Hot Doug's and Graham Elliot Bowles of Avenues at The Peninsula Hotel, will weigh in on the connection between the two topics and Jim and Greg are going to play some of their favorite food-related songs.
If you can't catch the show on Friday, it will re-air on Saturday at 11am and will be available by podcast the following Monday on theSound Opinions site.
— Meghan Murphy Gill /
Recipe Wed Jun 13 2007
My new green obsession has little to do with the environmentally-minded trends that have become so popular in recent months.
Until a few days ago, I've always preferred the red salsas over the green ones. But something happened and now I can't get enough salsa verde. So I made a giant batch of it yesterday, using a recipe supposedly attributed to Rick Bayless (I don't recall where I found it).
If you are a little less DIY-inclined, my two favorites for the tomatillo-based salsa verdes are Chef Earl's Salsa Verde and Frontera's Tomatillo Salsa.
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— Meghan Murphy Gill /
Chef Tue Jun 12 2007
Two interesting sites with video came across my browser in the past couple days; one bridges the divide between music and food, the other between top Chicago chefs and us.
Cooking with Rockstars is pretty much what it sounds like: rock'n'rollers demonstrating how to cook their favorite meals ...or, well, meals anyway. So far the only Chicago videos are sort of tangentially related; Neal Pollack used to live here and write for the Reader, and Enon is on Touch and Go Records. Stay tuned for more solidly local rockers, hopefully.
SavoryChicago is a new restaurant guide (with sister sites in New York and San Francisco) built on the MediaWiki platform, like WikiPedia. The distinguishing feature here is short video interviews with chefs describing their restaurants -- such as Paul Virant of Vie, Tru's Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand, and Doug Sohn of Hot Doug's. It's pretty bare bones right now; we'll see if it gets off the ground.
— Andrew Huff /
Blog Fri Mar 30 2007
Cinnamon Cooper, GB's resident cooking columnist, is profiled in SeriousEats's "Meet & Eat" feature today.
— Andrew Huff /
As far as titles go Culinary Attaché isn’t a bad one. (In fact, it’s pretty freaking badass.) The PhD on Jim Javenkoski’s business card isn’t anything to sneeze at, either. As the Chicago based Culinary Attaché for the Canadian brewer La Brasserie Unibroue, he spent a fair amount of time throughout the month of February conducting beer and chocolate tastings around Chicago. He paired the Belgian style beers with chocolates from chocolatiers Vosges Haut-Chocolate and the locally based Katherine Anne Confections, as well as Scharffen Berger chocolates out of California. As Valentine’s Day and the attendant chocolate season recedes, Javenkoski will be turning his attention to beer dinners over the next few months, including on one Thursday, March 1st at Cooper’s in Lake View.
His interest in beer developed with a beer can collection as a child, and before he was old enough to drink he decided that he wanted to be a Brew Master. Brewing schools proved to be intimidatingly expensive, so he turned to Food Science and headed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his B.S. Javenkoski later earned his doctorate in Food Science from U of I at Urbana-Champaign.
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— Tim Lacey /
