When I was a child at summer camp in northern Wisconsin, I made the astonishing discovery that there were plants throughout the forests with fruit on them. Even though my family was keen on buying from local farmers, you had to drive to the farm, and you had to pay someone for the fruit (which was, by the way, already picked—not much charm in that for a child). But there I was, surrounded by fruit just waiting to be plucked from a gracefully arching branch. I could eat it any time I wanted—and it was free. This made me almost giddy with delight. While there were a few incredibly sweet wild blueberries, the most abundant fruit was raspberries. More »
When you think about it, the lemon is the only really important fruit that nobody actually eats. It’s one of the most popular flavors in the world, but no one sits down and bites into a nice, juicy lemon. But that’s not the only odd thing about lemons. More »
Last Friday morning, a young deer was wandering in the parking lot of a local “upscale” Cincinnati shopping plaza when he became disoriented by the seemingly endless sea of Lexus RX350’s confronting him at every turn. Driven by instinct and panic, the deer bolted toward the first building in his line of sight, a Whole Foods market, the reigning symbol of affluence, sophistication, and moral self-righteousness. The store was originally built as a Wild Oats market, which was acquired by Whole Foods last year, re-badged, and re-stocked, all to the delight of the center’s owners, who so carefully cultivate its haughty, uber-demographic image. More »
1- If Graham Elliot Bowles’ style is punk rock, then what does that make Michael Carlson of Schwa? Speed Metal?
2- Frying an egg is molecular gastronomy, FYI.
3- If the camera puts on ten pounds, is Kelly Choi invisible in real life?
4- I am Suzanne Tracht. I am a zombie robot sent by my children to talk about my children.
5- Wylie seems to have some anger-management issues.
6- Nothing says Top Chef Masters like Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio
7- Gael, there’s nothing “chemical” about sous vide.
8- Suzanne Tracht earns the right to lose to Rick Bayless (who talks smack next week by saying “What does a French guy know about quesadillas?”) in the finals.
There may be no better time in our history to hit the bottle. Certainly we are not lacking for motivation, what with all the layoffs, pay reductions, bankruptcies and mortgage adjustments. But, more importantly, even with thinner wallets, because of the over-production of wine, the growth in negociants (folks who often capitalize on that over-production by buying great wines for a song and selling them for a comparably low price at retail), and increases in manufacturing efficiencies, we’ve never had greater opportunity to buy relatively low-priced wine. More »
If you’ve ever wanted to meet legendary LTHforum founder, local foodie godfather and general Barbecue Life Coach Gary Wiviott, he and food writer Colleen Rush will be signing copies of and giving selected readings from “Low & Slow: Master the Art of Barbecue in 5 Easy Lessons” this weekend.
June 13th at 11am
The Book Stall at Chestnut Court
811 Elm Street
Winnetka Illinois 60093
847-446-8880
Book signing
June 14th at Noon
Barnes and Noble
297 Oakbrook Center
Oak Brook, IL 60523
630-684-0586
Book Signing
1- I’ll never recognize Gael Greene because of her sneaky hat disguises.
2- Is Jay Rayner Marco Pierre White’s long lost twin?
3- It’s really scary how Kelly Choi over-annunciates exactly like Padma.
4- Seriously, even the Top Chef Masters are retards – dude watch the show. For like 10 seasons they have been doing dessert. If you don’t know how to make a great dessert by now, go home.
5- Tim Love is an alcoholic. And yeah, we get it dude, you’re just an aww-shucks boy from Texas.
6- The chicken fried strawberry negates the fact that nothing says 1984 like chocolate covered strawberries.
7- Is GE Monogram gonna be pissed that their logo got flashed when the cakes weren’t baking?
8- In this case, some of these chefs really are getting schooled by little girls.
9- Yo, my dorm room didn’’t have a shiny stainless steel toaster oven and microwave.
10- This Michelob Light is for you Mr. Rolling Cooler Cooler Roller.
11- These judges are almost reverent of these dudes. I almost miss Toby Young.
12- Cooking competition rule #1: Never cook risotto
13- Hubert Keller wins. I was pretty certain of this halfway through the episode.
There really is no good substitute for chocolate—but you couldn’t tell that to the creative Aztec forgers who found a way to create a cacao alternative at a time when the beans were a form of money. Fake cacao beans might have been harder to keep in circulation than forged paper money, however. More »
Nightwood (2119 S. Halsted St.), the second restaurant from Lula Cafe co-owner’s Amalea Tshilds and Jason Hammel and partners Kevin Heisner and Matt Eisler, is set to debut in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. I sat down with Hammel last December in anticipation of the opening to talk about Lula, his cooking philosophy, and the new restaurant. In the following podcast interview he talks about his old writing mentor, the late David Foster Wallace, the impromptu ping pong games in the basement during the early years at Lula, and the importance of the French Laundry cookbook. I apologize for the background noise on this one as we recorded it in the busy front room of Lula cafe. Enjoy.
If you have Adobe Flash installed, you can play the file right on this site, below, by pressing the play button. If not, download the file and play it on your PC or on an MP3 player here: Jason Hammel Interview
A couple of nights ago I drank away some of my recessionary angst at the new Humboldt Park watering hole, Rootstock (954 N. California). The tiny little wine bar is a joint venture from Webster’s Wine Bar vets Jamie McClennan, Tonya Pyatt, and Johnny Hap. It is a totally idiosyncratic spot that like the best places honors the whims of its owners and operators. The night I was there, both Hap and Pyatt were super-gracious, with Pyatt even pulling up a chair to hang with me and my friend for a spell and dish on the wonders of our other local fave beer joint, Archie’s bar (2600 W. Iowa). More »
Though he’s been wearing it for a while I just noticed a few weeks ago that Food Network’s Ace of Cakes, Duff Goldman, owner of Baltimore’s Charm City Cakes is often rockin’ an Intelligentsia Coffee hat. Spoke to Sean McMahon, National Production Manager at the Chicago coffee roaster, who says: More »
Is getting four hours of sleep a night the secret to staying young? What does snail caviar taste like? Can you wear a punk rock t-shirt and jeans to dinner at the four star restaurant Avenues at the Peninsula hotel? All these answers and more can be found in our recent podcast interview with chef Curtis Duffy of Avenues. Duffy, formerly of Charlie Trotter’s, Trio, and Alinea, is putting out food on par with those giants and is one of Chicago’s most promising young chefs.
If you have Adobe Flash installed, you can play the file right on this site, below, by pressing the play button. If not, download the file and play it on your PC or on an MP3 player here: Curtis Duffy Interview
In my fourteenth year I had the good fortune of befriending a teenage entrepreneur and a crew of stoner pizza makers. The entrepreneur, my buddy Mike, was the proud owner of a lucrative paper route as well as a premier lawn-care business in Shelby Township, Michigan. Even before Mike could drive, he had a fleet of commercial walk-behinds and tractors, and a shiny trailer to haul them. He was generating mid-five figures while I was still begging my mom for quarters to secure Slurpees at 7-11. More »
Why’s Russell Crowe wearing a chef’s coat and standing in the lobby at Goose Island Clybourn? Maybe craft brewing has finally reached the tipping point and he’s studying up for a role in a beer version of “Sideways.” I can see it now, Crowe bellied up to some tavern next to his sidekick, maybe Steve Zahn, bellowing, “I am NOT drinking any fucking IPA.” More »
If Chicago’s newest gourmet sandwich shops Birchwood Kitchen in Wicker Park and Lunch Rolls in the Loop were twins, they’d be Julius and Vincent Benedict from the 1988 film, “Twins.” In case you’ve forgotten the plot, and really who could blame you, Julius and Vincent were the product of a secret experiment to create the perfect child from six different fathers. While the exercise spawned the superior intellectual/physical specimen of Julius (Arnold Schwarzenegger) it also created a fraternal twin, Vincent (Danny Devito) made from the leftover genetic garbage. Neither Birchwood nor Lunch Rolls is particularly deficient like Vincent (in fact they’re both pretty decent options for their respective hoods), but as sandwich-slinging brethren they’re definitely opposites. More »
When one walks into a restaurant, there are certain expectations of what the experience will be like. One sits at a table, one receives a menu, one dines. There are other things one might not expect, motorcycles, movies, tours, and team building being among them. However, restaurants today are finding that building brand loyalty often requires thinking outside the box, which has led to a lengthening menu of delightful ways one can interact with one’s favorite cuisines or chefs. Here is a sampling of some of the offerings from a few splendid area restaurants. More »
For five years, I’ve been a food writer without a country, or at least a great neighborhood restaurant to call my own. You might protest that as a West Loop denizen, I’ve been luckier than most, what with the glittering jewel of restaurant row on Randolph and carnivorous visions of glistening lamb spit-roasting in my Greek-joint-littered backyard. But expensive, even if inspired, lacquered glitterati-filled palaces and ethnic-focused conveyor-belt kitchens do not a neighborhood restaurant make. The bustle of such places may boil the blood, but they do not stir one’s soul. More »
Early afternoon on a weekday is a period of comparative calm in the Harlem branch of Fairway Market, which is housed in a brightly painted warehouse on the Hudson River, not far from Columbia University and New York’s City College. On weekends and evenings, the customers navigate their shopping carts like bumper cars through the narrow aisles, but in the afternoons, they stroll at a very un-New York-like pace. The store’s staff seems to slow down a little, too, unpacking fruit with extra care and indulging customers who can’t make up their minds about the exact kind of smoked salmon they want. More »
Sugarcane has an often vague and definitely checkered past. Because there is now no wild sugarcane growing anywhere in the world, it is hard to pinpoint its place of origin, but most scholars think it originated in India, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. From there, once its sweet secrets were discovered, it spread rapidly to Malaysia, Indonesia, Indochina, and southern China. More »
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