Please Excuse Eddie From Blogging....

Dear Readers,

I'm going to be posting a lot less frequently here, due to the fact that I'm now officially in the midst of OPENING A RESTAURANT.

Yes, it's official. I've posted fleetingly about this here because I didn't want to get too ahead of myself, but we closed on the purchase of the existing restaurant last Friday, the lease is in place, the brown paper is covering the windows, and I'm officially working full-time toward getting the place open early-to-mid-September.

I'm still going to be blogging...in fact, I may pick up the pace a bit, but not here. I've been using a different blog to document the buying-a-restaurant process for a while, and now I'm going to use it to document the opening-a-restaurant process. I plan on trying to write over there almost every day. It's a much more train-of-thought, journal-style blog, so it's a lot easier to crank out a quick post in a half hour.

So, given these circumstances, I would like to now take this opportunity to notify all of you that I probably won't be reviewing bacon, analyzing the difference between using half-n-half vs. heavy cream in homemade ice cream, or reviewing Julie & Julia any time soon (ok, I made up that last one--I am SO FREAKIN' SICK of hearing about that damn movie. Can it open already so people can stop prattling on endlessly about it? Damn!)

So. In conclusion. If you want to keep reading me, go run over to my burger blog and check me out over there. I'll still post here, but probably only a few times a month for a while. And mark your calendars to start counting down towards the opening of my burger, fries, and shakes joint in Evanston.

The concept? The short explanation I've been giving everyone is "Hot Dougs meets Five Guys". That works. We're going to be grinding our own beef fresh every day for burgers, cutting potatoes fresh throughout the day for fries, hand-dipping corn dogs and beer battering onion rings, and mixing up shakes and malts on the old fashioned spindle mixer. It's going to be low-key, non-chain-feeling, and inexpensive. We'll also do classic Chicago style dogs, Maxwell Street style Polish sausages, beer-simmered brats, and some fun toppings for the fries.

Anyway, thanks for reading, see you after the hiatus, and come find me over at the burger shop blog.

See you there!

Visit Number 10,000

That's a direct cut and paste from my sitemeter in the title above. Hooray for me, ten thousand visits have been logged to this site. Nice of the folks over at Wrigley to notice. When can I come sing the 7th inning stretch?

All things considered, I'm not even sure that 10,000 is a lot for the amount of time we've been open for business, but it feels like a big number and we're celebrating and feeling festive about it over here at C&EinC corporate HQ. Bourbon and blackberry ice cream may soon be busted out.

I'd like to take this opportunity to now thank a very special person, the distinct individual who was my 10,000th visitor; to you, person in unknown state, country, and city, someone who apparently did a Google image search on the term "SMOKEHOUSE" and somehow got linked to my site, and whose visit consisted of 1 page view lasting zero seconds, I say....

Thanks. Nice knowin' ya. Come on back, now.

The bloggers know all about the statistics and analytics that are available. I just have what they offer for free. It's crazy stuff. Mr. SMOKEHOUSE's info wasn't there, but about 75% the visits do give me info about the person's state, city, country, and often their ISP and/or the name of the business. I've checked my sitemeter and discovered that my wife or my mom is reading *right at that very moment*. Spooky.

It's kind of voyeuristic. I don't have that many visits (50-70 a day) that I can't recognize some of the individuals who come through fairly often. You get to imagining what that person in Auckland or Bettendorf is like, checking in nearly every day, using their XP or Safari operating systems, and I can't help but fantasize about how after that person from Kraft or Panera reads my site and becomes a big fan, they'll be calling me up to offer me a high-paying job any moment. More likely, though, it's just some staffer loafing on the job.

I can also see how people enter and leave the site, so I get an idea of where my traffic comes from. I can tell when friends check in via my Facebook page, especially if they do it from work, where the ISP and IP address are more likely to tell me the company name. When people log in from home, it's almost always just "comcast" or "cox cable" or something, so it's harder to tell who's who.

I can see how all this info could be really useful to people trying to generate orders or business through their site, but since I'm not doing that, it all just comes across as kind of surreal and nosy. Is it really my business what screen resolution the guy using Road Runner in Temple, Texas is running? Is it worth my time to speculate about whether the person reading me over at the University of Pennsylvania is a professor or a student? And why does that same address from the EPA keep popping up? Are the feds monitoring my carbon footprint?

Oh, and then there's my most loyal customer...the one who comes back time after time, never missing an article, yet not bold enough to write a comment and try and break the plane of the computer screen by engaging in a discussion. Perhaps someday I can meet this person, my most loyal reader and fan. You know who you are.....anyway, thanks for reading from your home out there in Mountain View, California.

Almost Meatless Virtual Potluck--Potato Corn Chowder

I met Tara Mataraza Desmond at the food writing symposium at The Greenbrier in May. Tara's book, which was published by Ten Speed Press in April is called Almost Meatless: Recipes That Are Better for Your Health and the Planet. It looks nice. I haven't read it, but Ten Speed always publishes lush, beautiful books, and Tara seems like she knows what she's talking about.

I also follow her blog, Crumbs on my Keyboard, and when she recently contacted me about taking part in a virtual potluck, where a whole bunch of food bloggers cook and blog a recipe from the book, and then everybody would publish it all on the same day, I said "cool idea. Just send me a recipe involving bacon."

So she did. But it also has silken tofu.

Of course, I left this until the last minute (it's supposed to be cooked, photographed, and blogged by tomorrow), and with all the other stuff I've been up to lately, I was pressed for time. First thing I had to figure out was where to go to buy good bacon (it only calls for two strips, so I figure I need to use the real stuff), the aforementioned tofu, as well as a fancy ingredient like chives. I didn't need to be going store to store to find stuff, so I was thinking that I was going to go to Whole Foods, but I doubted that they'd have real (read; cured) bacon, rather than that nitrate-free celery juice crap, so I headed over to Sunset Foods in Northbrook.

I make it a point to really never go to Whole Foods, because I spend way too much time and money in there, and the place just pisses me off out of general principle. I can't help but feel like I'm teetering on the brink of the fall of the empire when I'm in a WF, do you know what I mean? It's just such a big, overblown spectacle. It disgusts me, and yet I also love it. And then, later, I feel bad about loving it. Food shopping is just not meant to be that nice. I'd make an exception for this sort of thing, but to be honest, I'm relieved I thought of a better option.

Sunset is (or tries to be) just as fancy and upscale as WF, but they also carry everyday items like Diet Coke, Kraft cheeses, and Cheetos. I did indeed find good bacon (Neuske, long overdue review to come), silken tofu, and chives, so Sunset was the right place to go, but I wasn't overly impressed with their offerings. It's a high service place--they have people that put the food on the conveyor belt for you--but I'm much more interested in the food. I'm always game for a few impulse purchases in a new grocery store, but even though I hadn't eaten all day, nothing looked all that good to me, especially for the prices they were charging. I ended up with two pretty full brown paper sacks for around fifty bucks.

Besides the ingredients for the recipe, I picked up the makings for a salad, a loaf of sourdough bread to go along with it, and a few other things.

Almost Meatless' Potato Corn Chowder

Serves 4 to 6

2 slices bacon, cut into 1/4-inch dice

6 ounces silken tofu

5 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels

salt and pepper

1 medium onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice

1 pound Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice

4 cups chicken stock (page 131)

1 bay leaf

3 (2-inch) pieces parmesan cheese rind

1 small bunch chives, minced

Cook the bacon in a Dutch oven or large saucepot over medium heat for about 5 to 7 minutes, until the fat renders and the bacon is crisp. Remove the bacon bits from the pot and set aside.

While the bacon is cooking, combine the tofu with 2 cups of the corn and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a food processor and puree until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

Add the onion to the bacon fat left in the pot, and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, until the onion is completely softened but not brown.

Add the potatoes and the remaining 3 cups corn, along with a heavy pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper, and stir to combine. Add the stock, bay leaf, and cheese rind, bring the liquid to a boil, and then reduce the heat; let the soup simmer for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are very tender. Remove the cheese rind and bay leaf.

Working in batches, puree about half the soup in a blender or food processor. (Or blend partially with a stick blender in the pot.) Return the pureed soup to the pot and stir in the pureed tofu and corn mixture. Simmer for 10 more minutes. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed. Top with chives and reserved bacon bits.

I liked the flavor of soup. It had a lot of good sweet corn flavor. Basically, the jist of this recipe is that you take the silken tofu and puree it with the kernels from 3-4 ears of corn. This tofu "creamed corn" subs in for the cream and milk that would normally go into a chowder and makes the end result healthier.

By now, everyone knows that trick of cutting the kernels off the cob in a bowl, right? It works.

If I did this recipe again, I'd remove half the solids, then puree the soup well and add the chunks of corn and potato back into the soup. I pureed the whole thing a bit too far, I think, and the finished dish didn't have the characteristic chunkiness that you'd expect from a chowder. Doing it this way is easier (I just used my stick blender, rather than the food processor that the recipe calls for), but I think a smoother soup would be worth the effort.


It's hard for me to follow recipes. I found myself virtually unable to avoid adding some diced red bell pepper to the onions as they sauteed gently in the rendered bacon fat, although I did manage to restrict myself to only using Tara's proscribed two slices of bacon. Which wasn't easy. But it actually was enough since there was plenty of smoky bacon flavor throughout the soup.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the others bring to the virtual potluck!

Food, Inc. Screening (FREE)

I haven't seen Food, Inc. yet. It's currently the biggest thing since sliced uh, whatever in the food world and it's high on my list of to-do's, but I'm not generally a movie-goer and what with the two kids, we generally pass out shortly after 9:30 most nights anyway.

But, Chipotle Grill is sponsoring free screenings of the film next week, July 15th and 16th at the Landmark Century theater at 7:15. Free is just enough of an excuse to get me to motivate and get out of the house to check it out. It's a first come-first served deal, so expect lines.

The film, directed by Robert Kenner, features Eric Schlosser and Bay Area uber-food authority, Michael Pollan, so if you've read some stuff by those two guys, you already know at least some of what this movie is going to be about. My impression is that it will be a much glossier, better-produced presentation of the high points of Fast Food Nation, Omnivore's Dilemma, and Debra Koons Garcia's wonderful 2004, The Future of Food.

Some reviews I've read have said it's quite disturbing, and that you'll "never want to eat again" after seeing it. But Alice Waters is quoted on the film's ads as saying it's "the film I have always been waiting for". It'll certainly be thought-provoking, and should generate plenty of fodder for discussion.

Along those lines, I was hoping to get a post-film meet-up* going. For those who are interested in this, head over to the Duke of Perth, just up Clark, after the Thursday night screening. Around 9 or so, I'm thinking, and we can break it down. I'll be there having a beer or two, at any rate, for those interested in stopping by.

After learning about fun stuff like extra-virulent strains of E. Coli and Salmonella, I'll probably just limit my post-film intake to beer. And/or whiskey.




*Ok, I know the term "tweetup" but am I obliged to use it? Please don't make me. Though, I am going to "tweet" this event. Argh. I hate that term. I only use Twitter because people tell me I'm supposed to. I swear. Anyway, hope to see lots of you there.

Chicago Food Blogger Virtual Cook-Off

The Tribune's "news lite" arm, Red Eye is generating some content by staging an Iron-Chef style cookoff involving some fellow members of the Chicago food blogerati. It's a bracket elimination type contest that will be going on over the next few weeks.

Fun! I'm in.

The deal is that at 10am, someone from Red Eye announces the secret ingredient and then four of us all start cooking. And taking photos. And writing. The blog entry and photos are due by 8pm that evening, and then people vote. I face off against Titus Ruscitti, whose blog I'm a huge fan of, and he's also a three-time (I believe) Chicago Chili Cookoff champ, so I'm just going to try and do my best.

Last week's ingredient was cherries and two fine bloggers moved on to the next round with dishes like cherry meatballs and cherry knockwurst or something, and I was figuring the Red Eye folks would stay in the summer fruit mindset so was thinking peaches, plums, maybe...

But they hit us this morning with.....tamarind.

Crazy. I've worked with it sparingly. Mostly the paste, which is already processed, and have tasted it plenty in drinks like tamarindo, which is a staple in hot summer Chicago prep kitchens. The main idea with tamarind--which is sour, tart, and a bit astringent--is to sweeten it up plenty so as to get that really nice sweet-sour thing going. After brushing up on all things tamarind, I set out upon my quest.

First question; where to go to get some? My local Jewel isn't going to have any (my wife gave me a list, since we figured I'd be going to the store for the epic cookoff), so I figure I'll head over to H-Mart in Niles. And, as luck would have it, this is a day that I'm taking care of the kids, so wherever Battle Tamarind takes us, they're along for the ride.

Woo-hoo! H-Mart! Sweet bean cake samples!

They had some fresh pods, no paste, and I also picked up a few cans of tamarind juice, some tamarind candy and a whole bunch of other stuff that I was planning to use for my dishes. Once I got home, I got busy with lunch for the kids, naps, and processing tamarind!


Whole tamarinds come in large maroon-brown pods that are very dry and brittle and pulled away from the seed sac kind of stuff inside. You just crack off the shell and pull away the pulp and fibers, yank the strings out and then throw the seeds and pulp together into a bowl. It's way too sticky to clean so the way it's usually done is to soak the seed pods for a few minutes in hot water, and then work the whole mess with your fingers until the pulp separates from the seeds enough that you can strain them out and get a paste. I did it this way and got a nice smooth brown paste, which is what I worked off of for all my dishes.

That's it on the right. It looks kind of like refried beans, but the taste is strongly sour, also tart, but with lots of floral notes and a somewhat mouth-numbing kind of quality.

After tasting it straight, I mashed it through a sieve and sweetened it with a simple syrup I made from palm sugar and water, then added a bit of salt. I worked off of this basic tamarind paste for all my dishes.

First off, I took some of the tamarind paste, muddled it with some fresh mint and ice, and then added a couple cans of "tamarind juice" which, the label states, is 30% tamarind mixed with water, sugar, and high fructose corn syrup, some fresh squeezed lime juice, and poured the whole thing into a pitcher of ice to chill in the fridge.

I served this tamarindo, strained, to Henry to have with his lunch, and then mixed up a little cocktail for myself to enjoy after I put him down for his nap. It consisted of the tamarindo, a tiny dash of bitters, more fresh mint, and a good couple glugs of Elmer T. Lee single barrel bourbon. I shook it all up in a cocktail shaker with lots of ice and served it in a glass dusted with pulverized tamarind candy. Kind of a Thai Julep, I guess.

Thank you, Red Eye, for giving me an excuse to drink bourbon at lunch!

Once I got a nice buzz on and promised Henry another tamarindo if he took a good nap, I got busy cooking.

I decided to do an appetizer and an entree, in addition to the cocktail. I laid out my prep and started working on both dishes. For the entree, my plan was to do an Asian braise with some chicken quarters, and then grill them to crisp up the skin, which I would glaze with a tamarind barbecue sauce. Braised-and-glazed chicken legs and thighs. Description to follow.

I got the braise in the oven and then started working on the shrimp appetizer.

Appetizer; Bacon-wrapped shrimp, herb salad, French melon sauce

I picked up some head-on shrimp at H-Mart, which were a bit small, but it's always more interesting to have the heads on, both visually and for sucking once everything's all brown and
crispy. I shelled the tails, rubbed them with a bit of the tamarind paste, wrapped them in bourbon-vanilla bacon from Father's Country Hams. Next, I made a syrup out of palm sugar, soy sauce, and fish sauce, that I reduced down to a thick caramel before mixing it with the tamarind pulp.

They had nice-smelling French melons at H-mart, so I got one, chunked it up with a little salt and lime juice, and hit it with the stick blender until it was as smooth as I could get it. Then I turned the stick up and streamed in some canola oil to emulsify and smooth-out the sauce. I stuck it in the fridge for a while and then strained it, since I knew I was going to take a picture, but if you wanted to make a cool melon sauce like this at home, you really don't have to strain it, and I normally wouldn't.

To fill out the plate, I picked leaves of cilantro, mint, and parsley, chopped them roughly, and dressed them just a bit with a squeeze of lime juice and a dash of oil. These flavors all play off of each other really well. The sour tamarind, bright lime, and fresh herb flavors cut through the richness of the bacon and the shrimp, and everything really plays well together in your mouth to give you that awesome Southeast Asian eating experience where all of your taste buds are going at full bore--spicy, sour, salty, sweet--all at the same time.

Entree; Tamarind Braised-and-Glazed Chicken Legs and Thighs, Sesame Slaw

After separating the chicken legs from the thighs, I browned them a bit and then sweated onion, ginger, garlic, scallion, and red chile before adding a can of the tamarind juice, a can of coconut milk and a bit of water. I brought the whole thing up to a simmer and then covered it and put it in a 275° oven for about 2 hours. My goal was to get the chicken really tender and infused with those Asian flavors, but not to allow it to break down to the point that it was falling apart and the skin came off. I pulled it out, refrigerated it, and then made my tamarind barbecue sauce.

The tamarind pulp, molasses, rice wine vinegar, lime juice, and palm sugar went into the glaze. I cranked up my grill and charred the glazed chicken bits over high heat, getting plenty of browning and caramelization. Since it was already braised, the chicken was fully cooked and almost falling-apart tender. I just grilled it to get the char on the skin and crisp up the glaze. It wasn't easy to get it on and off the hot grill without it falling apart, but I just managed.

The slaw is red cabbage, some napa, shredded carrot, some mayo thinned with rice wine vinegar and lime juice, and enriched with sesame oil. I added some anise seeds and sesame seeds as well. Crispy shallots went over the top.

It turned out great. You could definitely taste the ginger, garlic, and coconut from the braise, the meat was super-tender, and the burnt sugar and smokiness of the barbecue sauce nicely offset the sour tanginess of the tamarind. The slaw added a nice fresh, crunchy contrast to the braised dark meat chicken.

So that's that. It's now 7pm, I'm just finishing this post within the time limit, we've eaten dinner, my bourbon buzz is gone, Henry's begging me for yet another cup of tamarindo, and I can definitely say I learned a lot about tamarind today. Hopefully I will manage to move on to the next round as well.

Good luck to all the blogger-chef-testants and thanks to Red Eye for putting this fun deal together! Oh, and don't forget to vote early and often for me here, by writing a comment in the section after the Red Eye blog entry about Battle Tamarind!

Healthy Kids Cook-Off

There's a great event this weekend that I was invited to attend and unfortunately won't be able to get to (Henry and I are going camping!) but it's not too late for you to plan on attending and bringing your kids.

It's an Iron-Chef style cook-off where kids will team up with Kendall College students as well as local well-known chefs like Michael Kornick, to see who can whip together a tasty and nutritious snack using "secret ingredients".

The finalists will compete in what the press release calls a "fast paced" cook off in front of a live studio audience "just like on TV". Snacks and prizes are provided, and the whole thing is also done in conjunction with something called the Healthy Living Fair which features demos, free samples, and lots of other cool stuff. You'll also get the opportunity to check out Kendall College's amazing new facility on Goose Island.

The whole thing promises to be plenty of fun, but it's also pretty important; when school lets out, 8 out of 10 kids who receive free school lunches during the year don't get any assistance over the summer. This event is geared towards raising awareness about child hunger and also teaching adults and kids alike how to prepare simple and nutritious meals and snacks.

It takes place this Sunday, June 7th from 12:00 noon to 5pm at Kendall College--900 North Branch Street (on Goose Island near Chicago Avenue and Halsted) in Chicago.

So, go! Bring your kids. Cook, watch, feast, and have a good time.

My Post-Symposium Post

Sorry for the prolonged absence. I've been out of town the past week at the Symposium for Professional Food Writers at the Greenbrier in West Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

It was an incredible honor to be there. The whole thing was hugely inspirational and validating, both as a writer, but also just as someone who's as interested in food as I am. Spending a week with similar-minded people was great fun and really re-charged my batteries on both an intellectual and spiritual level.

Now, the challenge is to harness that energy. Many of the successful presenters at the Symposium shared their methods and models with the attendees, and I find myself going in twenty directions at once, trying to write for this or for that potential project, so I've taken a few days off from posting here, out of sheer inability to organize my thoughts and head in one specific direction.

I road-tripped it down there, so I took advantage by visiting a few food-related spots. I spent an evening in the hip Highlands area of Louisville, visited a farm where they make country ham the old fashioned way, ate lunch at a cool art deco diner in Charleston, West Virginia, and toured a bourbon distillery that's been in continuous operation since 1787. I'll be blogging about all that stuff under the new header "Road Trip" which will feature stuff that's outside the scope of Chicagoland.

I've also started a second blog, where I'll be documenting the process of opening and running my restaurant; it's going to be a good quality burger joint here in Chicago and I'll be blogging the story more or less in real time. As a business owner, I'll be hoping for things to run smoothly, but the writer part of me wants to see plenty of challenges and drama, which always make for better storytelling. As a restaurant industry vet, I know I can safely count on the latter.

The burger blog is in development now, but it'll be fully up and running soon.

Thanks for reading.

Easter with da Frittats

People all over Italy have widely varied accents and often speak regional dialect from back in the days before Italy was a unified country (which didn't happen until about 1870 or so). So when you travel around, not only will you hear unrecognizable dialect in places like San Gimignano and Siracusa, but you'll also hear Italian spoken with vastly different pronunciations.

Sicily is a prime example. They often change the 'o' sound on the end of a word to a 'u' sound--so lo Siciliano, which is the proper Italian for "the Sicilian language" becomes lu Sicilianu. To make it even harder on those of us with a passing knowledge of guidebook Italian, locals will often switch back and forth mid-sentence between dialect and "proper" (read; Florentine) Italian.

Local dialects are an incredibly insightful window into the history of a region. Siclian dialect is peppered with words derived from Arabic, Greek, Spanish, French, and even a little German thrown in, reflecting the many inhabitants the island has known over the years. Up north, in Trentino-Alto Adige, for instance, the influences are primarily from Austria, and along the northeastern border of Italy, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, you start hearing Eastern European and Slavic influences in the dialect.

Here in Chicago, however, we have an Italian dialect all our own, which I sometimes refer to as Caputiano, in reference to Caputo's, the well-known Italian produce market and deli on Harlem Ave. in Elmwood Park where any real Chicago Italian worth their salt goes to do their shopping.

An informational aside: There are now many grocery establishments calling themselves Caputo's. The original Caputo's are now known as Angelo Caputo's Fresh Markets. The other chain--Joe Caputo and Sons--is decent, but it's not as good as the original, and then there's Caputo Cheese Market in Melrose Park, which is noted to be "Owned & Operated by Wiscon Corporation. Not affiliated with any other Caputo".

Anyway, Caputiano is a unique dialect of Chicago area American-Italians in which the last letter of words (and it's usually limited to names of foodstuffs) is dropped entirely. O's also change to U's, reflective of the Sicilian heritage of many Chicago-area Italians.

So mozzarella becomes mootzarel, scamorza become scamorz sometimes even smooshed down into skmorz, and sopressata, puzzlingly, becomes supersott.

The more you listen, the stranger it gets. Hard 'C' sounds are softened, to the point that they start to sound more like a 'G'. So capicolla sounds like gavigool. Throw in all the nicknames, hand gestures, and typical Italian non-verbal sign language, and you've got something really fun to be a part of.

Which brings us (finally) to the topic of this post. My family is blessed enough to know an Italian-American family who generously includes us in the annual Easter blowout they hold at their home. In typical fashion, they go all out for this party; bunny and chick-shaped candies are everywhere, there's a lamb-shaped cake, big Easter baskets and stuffed animals for the kids, a mad-dash Easter egg hunt out back promises plastic eggs filled with half-dollar and dollar coins (along with the occasional one filled with dirt!), and, of course, a massive spread of great food.

The main event and centerpiece of the Easter blowout, though, is Big Mikey's frittat.

A frittat is, basically, a frittata, of course. But it's oh so much more than that. It's the frittata to end all frittate. It's the frittata that ate Melrose Park.

Big Mikey (in typical Italian-American fashion, "Mikey" is about 6'7" and 280 lbs.) is a pro at this by now. He's got a special pan he uses just for the frittats, which is the biggest, deepest sauté pan I've ever seen in my life. The day before, he loads up on imported salseech and salumi--soopersatt, gavigool, mortadell--cheeses like fontina, scamorza, and ricotta, which gets drained through cheesecloth, and a case of eggs, and then on Easter morning, he gets down to work.

Big Mikey occupies his corner of the kitchen all morning, cranking out one frittat after another while talking, greeting guests, playing with the kids, eating, and yanking people's chains a little. He likes to play up the fact that I'm a chef and ask me if he's "doing it right", confident that he's in his element and, in his kitchen, I'm the novice. Of course, I give him his respect and bow down to his frittat skills.

This shows just how big the frittat pan is. Look how it dwarfs the burner.

It's a great, raucous affair. There are always tons of kids running around stuffing themselves on candy, there's a really interesting mix of old-school Chicago Italian-Americans, Polish and other more newly-arrived Eastern European immigrants, and a Jewish contingent as well, so the buffet runs the gamut from lox and bagels to cannoli to hot, garlicky borscht. The guys usually have a few TV's on, tuned to the Hawks game or the Masters, talk business, and will step out side to smoke cigars at some point. The women dote over the kids, catch up on gossip and push everyone to eat more, and a good time is generally had by all.

Our family is truly honored to be included every year, and it's really great to see how thrilled our hosts are with our kids. They shower them with gifts and Easter candy, but, even more meaningfully, with attention and genuine affection. Italians, in general, have a really deep appreciation for young children. As a parent who sometimes gets fed up with the day-to-day drudgery of raising two kids, it's a refreshing reminder of where my priorities and focus should be.

It's one thing to prowl the neighborhoods of the Chicago area, eating in restaurants, shopping in ethnic markets, and doing the legwork to discover unknown delicacies and food traditions, but it's another thing entirely to be invited into someone's home to share in their family's personal culinary culture. Every family, regardless of region and cultural history, is different, and does things their specific way; a substitution grandma made along the way due to her personal preference, or adjustments made due to limitations of a specific kitchen, equipment, or what's available at the time often become codified and manage to stick for generations.

So it's a rare honor to be included in a family's Easter feast. It's become a tradition for us; we go every year now and, although we don't usually see Big Mikey, Grace, and their family much during the rest of the year, they treat us as if we'd just seen them yesterday and there's never a hint of that awkwardness that sometimes goes along with seeing people only occasionally, for the big holidays.

Once the kids' faces start showing a flush from running around after having eaten too many Peeps, we know it's time to head home. We say our goodbyes, give and receive kissses on the cheek and hugs, and Mikey packs three or four massive slabs of frittat onto a foil-covered paper plate for us to take home. Usually we're so loaded down with gifts, Easter loot, and leftovers, have to make two trips to the car, and then the hugs and goodbyes start all over again.

So, humorous Italo-American Chicago-style slang (aka paisanics) aside, Easter, for us, is wonderful opportunity to be a part of another family's traditions and enjoy friends, family, and Big Mikey's frittat!

Tooting My Own Horn

Today, I received a phone call from one of the organizers of The Symposium for Professional Food Writers at The Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, informing me that I've won a scholarship which will enable me to attend this prestigious week-long conference.

I'm thrilled!

This is an elite industry event that limits attendance to fewer than 100 food writers, editors, publishers, and agents, so it's a huge opportunity for me to network with people that are normally very difficult to access.

It's also a great way for me to become a better writer. The symposium consists of all sorts of workshops and coaching sessions that are geared towards helping the attendees improve their writing, tailor their writing style for specific publications, and think outside the box with regard to subject matter, style, and medium.

I was awarded the James Peterson Food Writing Passion Scholarship, which the website says "will be awarded to a food writer whose writing ties food with life and with a certain passion in being alive. The main criterion for this award is written excellence and "just good fun" in writing about food and drink."

Let's just let that sink in for a minute. They thought my piece displayed "written excellence"! I know, can you believe it? "Just good fun," sure, I can buy that. But "written excellence"? I may just re-write the blog description in my header to include that phrase. I mean, if the people reading this blog are being graced with written excellence, they ought to know.

The piece that won was my review of Broadbent's Original Hickory Smoked Bacon, and the director of the event, who called to tell me the news, was literally gushing about my writing. She said that there were hundreds of submissions for the scholarships, but that my entry was the unanimous winner, and that the judges said it wasn't even close. (!) She was probably stroking my ego, but I really don't care. I'm basking in it--at least for a few days.

Anyway, as you might've surmised, I'm really pleased by this development. When I found out about this event and their scholarship program, I figured, sure, what the heck...why not enter? So I selected a few pieces to submit, went over to Kinko's to get five copies of each piece printed off, and crammed the whole bundle into mailers, figuring that I'd at least be able to say that I gave it a shot. I did not expect to win, or even figure I had much of a chance.

It's really nice to get the validation that comes from having industry professionals tell me that my writing is good ("written excellence", even) . It feels great. This blog is mostly intended to be an outlet to for me to vent out all this stuff that I would otherwise just bore my wife, my friends, and random pizza delivery guys with. I've taken it fairly seriously, but that's because I enjoy writing and want to get better at it. But I've really just looked at is as an exercise, an outlet, and a fun pastime. Now I feel like I might be actually Doing Something.

The symposium is in early May, and I'll blog about it once I get back. Industry heavyweights like 12-time Beard Award winner Steve Dolinsky and French Laundry Cookbook co-author Michael Ruhlman will be there, and if I can manage to get some pictures of myself with them without coming off like some star-struck, wide-eyed food writer groupie, I'll share them here on the site. It should be fun.

I'll try not to let my head get too big, but don't be surprised if you're asked for your credit card number the next time you try and pull me up on your blog reader. After all, "written excellence" isn't something that people just give away for free.

Maple Syrup Festival at North Park Nature Center

I've lived in "Greater Chicagoland" for my entire life, save for the two years I lived in Europe. And I lived in Chicago, within the city limits, for close to 15 years until a recent move put me just a bit outside the city limits. But I never heard of the North Park Nature Center until a few years ago when my wife (who is an unrelenting recycler) nagged me into going over there for an electronics recycling event that they were having, where you could drop off old computers, cellphones, etc, to be disposed of properly.

I was amazed to find this fairly large complex hidden in plain sight just off Pulaski, between Foster and Peterson. The place is huge. It's hard to believe that such a big chunk of the north side has somehow managed to survive without developers moving in, but there it is. Go see for yourself.

It's really quite an amazing and wonderful place. I'll quote from their website:

North Park Village Nature Center is located on the northwest side of Chicago and includes a forty-six acre nature preserve and also an educational facility. The Nature Center and preserve are situated within the North Park Village complex, a cluster of buildings located on approximately 155 acres of land.

The nature preserve features trails that wind through woodlands, wetlands, praire and savannas. A discovery room, a hands-on table of natural objects and interactive displays are highlights of the Nature Center. Programs offered include public programs for pre-schoolers, school age children, families and adults; an eco-explorers summer camp and outreach programs.

Open 7 Days a Week, 362 Days a Year!
(closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day)
10:00 am - 4:00 pm

The mission of the North Park Village Nature Center is to provide urban citizens with an opportunity to interact with wildlife, plants and other natural resources through environmental education and access to improved natural landscapes.

There are plenty of opportunities to learn about and enjoy the riches of nature at the only Nature Center in Chicago - please come for a visit!

We walked the nature preserve when we were there last fall for their annual Harvest Festival, and were thrilled to find ourselves deep in the woods, watching frogs, hearing birds, dragonflies, and crickets, and--more than anything else--enjoying nature right in the middle of the city. The festival featured live music, a scarecrow-building contest, a storyteller, and a farmer's market, and it was really a great way to spend what was a gorgeous fall day.

So, met with an equally gorgeous pseudo-spring day (you take'em when you can get'em around here), we headed over to the Nature Center for their annual Tap the Sap Maple Syrup Festival that took place this past weekend.

Well, besides being just a nice excuse to get out of the house, commune with nature, and enjoy the weather, I am also pleased to say that I actually learned quite a bit about maple syrup (and tasted some as well).

I may be revealing my ignorance here, but did you know that the sap that is tapped from the Maple trees is clear when it comes out? I didn't. I thought it was brown, sticky, and thick, like syrup. But it's completely clear and resembles water, both in appearance and taste.

In order to transform it into the familiar breakfast stand-by, the Maple sap is then boiled down--reduced by a factor of 40--so that the natural sugars caramelize and the liquid thickens. At the festival, they do this over an open hardwood fire, so the syrup also takes on a good amount of smokiness. The resulting stuff, which they bottled and were selling, is a revelation; dark brown to the point of being almost black, yet thinner than you'd expect. The flavor is wonderfully sweet, mapley, but also woodsy and smoky, with lots of wonderful undertones and interesting notes.

We ran into a volunteer who explained the process to us while we were out in the woods checking out the scene. Most of the action happens in February, but "you guys are too big a bunch of sissies to brave the weather in February," he explained, so they wait until mid-to-late March to hold the festival. Most of the sap is already harvested by then, but there's still enough flowing for yokels like me to get the idea.

The trees are just tapped with little metal spigots, and when the sap moves back up through the root system up into the tree (after the winter), some of it flows out of the spigot and into plastic jugs that hang on the trees to catch the stuff. When the jugs get full, the staff dumps the sap into plastic buckets along the trail. I opened one up and checked it out, and it was full of bugs and all sorts of stuff. They do, of course, filter it before boiling it for a day or two. Who knows...maybe that's where all the "subtle undertones" and "interesting notes" come from.

The whole thing was eye-opening, to say the least. I consider myself somewhat of an expert on foodstuffs, how they're procured and subsequently transformed for the consumer. Yet I can't believe how clueless I was about Maple syrup, especially considering how close I live to major producer states like Wisconsin and Michigan. I am humbled. The world of food and food production is so vast; there's always more to learn.

So we romped around in the woods, the kids got to climb on stuff, see a few birds, and--most important of all--escape from the concrete and noise of the city and near 'burbs. We found the same storyteller that Henry liked so much last time and listened to him for awhile. Then we headed into the Nature Center building for a bathroom break, and ran smack into a pretty damn good bluegrass band playing to a room full of people. They were called The Giving Tree Band and they were just fabulous, with two guitars, an upright bass, a banjo and a fiddle. What a great, joyously raucous, jingly-jangly way to cap a day at the Nature Center.

The volunteer we talked to spoke glowingly about their Winter Solstice Festival, which is held at night, with great bonfires, candles everywhere in the woods, and some sort of live wolf show, or something, so we're planning on making it over there for that as well. And I was honestly so inspired by the place, how nicely it's run, and what a great resource this sort of thing is for city-dwellers, that I'm considering volunteering.

Their festivals are a great draw, and a good excuse to go check the place out, but I urge everyone reading to just get over there and walk around the next time you've got some time on a sunny day. You can, in a hour's walk, move through natural woodlands, savannahs, wetlands, and prairie. And, in a short amount of time, you can absorb enough nature to forget, for a while, that you're living amidst the noise, traffic, and pollution of the city. Oh, and it's free.

Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Latte Art at CoffeeFest

I'd been planning on attending CoffeeFest 2009 before I started writing this blog, for a café consulting project that may or may not pan out. But now that I'm viewing every food-related event as another potential blog entry, my interest in the latte art competition that was going on in conjunction with this trade show grew exponentially.

Taking my new role as cub reporter perhaps a bit too seriously, I packed up my journalist's notebook and my cool new phone which allows me to leave my camera at home, and embarked on the train-to-bus trip down to Navy Pier, where the event was being held. I even managed to finagle press credentials through blogger community website Foodbuzz (although not without some hassle when I actually walked up to collect the pass). Anyway, after all that was sorted out, I checked out the first day of the barista competitions.

There were actually two separate competitions going on--latte art and the more all-encompassing barista championships. The latte art competition involves funky, tattooed and pierced baristas creating these amazingly cool patterns out of coffee and steamed milk using just a cup and a pitcher, by simply pouring the milk into the cup a certain way. It's quite incredible to watch. There's a very specific way that they steam the milk, of course, in order to create just the right texture of foam that allows it to pour (true baristas never use a spoon to move the foam from pitcher to mug, I've recently learned), yet still maintain enough body to support the designs. The trick is to keep the brown coffee part of the design as distinct as possible from the frothy white milk foam part of the design.

All latte art looks pretty cool to me, especially when I'm handed a drink over at Intelligentsia or The Italian Coffee Bar with no expectations that it will have a pretty rosette or tulip on the top of it, but after watching the first few baristas put up their three entries in the allotted five minutes, I started to grasp the finer points of it.

It's not something that translates well to verbal descriptions, so I'll post a few pictures.

This is the first one I saw, and I thought it was so amazing that I took about twenty pictures. After I saw a few more examples, I was able to see that this entry lacks sharp distinctions between the brown and white portions and, therefore, didn't score all that well.


This one really shows just how thick and sturdy the foam is on these drinks. Look how the design just sits up there on top, and how much texture and dimension it has.

A tulip design.


This might've been the coolest one I saw all day, but it was done during the barista's warm up period, so it didn't count. The ones he poured during the actual competition period didn't end up being as good as this one.

This was the winner of Friday's round, an entry by ex-Alterra Coffee guy Justin Teisl, currently of Four Barrel Coffee in San Francisco. Note how brown the brown part is and how white the white part is, with almost no muddy areas where they mix. Also, check out how he gets the little brown stripes inside of the delicate white leaves.

After getting up early to get down to Navy Pier by 9:30, downing more than a few espressos, and watching the latte art for a while, I started getting those hunger pangs you only get a few hours after you've had way too much coffee, and I figured I'd better get something to eat before entering the trade show, where I'd be likely to just scarf down every muffin and biscotto I could lay my hands on.

So I headed back down into the tourist-trap mall insanity that is Navy Pier. Gah. Now I remember why I never go to this place. Every bad mall cliche you can think of; the cloying scent of those cinnamon-sugared nuts, cheesy kiosks vending cheap sunglasses, name keychains, and cell phone accessories, air-brushed t-shirt art, the obligatory Build-a-Bear workshop, schlocky Chicago souvenirs, and bad corporate chain food outlets by the gross (double entendre intentional).

Plus, as an added bonus, in addition to the overwhelming mantle of crass corporate consumer-land insanity, I was treated to the sensory pleasure that is finding one's self in a food court amidst at least three separate elementary school field trips while buzzing on about twelve espresso shots.

Have I said 'gah!' yet? GAAAH!

I quickly assessed my limited options--Bubba Gump, the Billy Goat, one of those gloppy, corn-starch-laden Chinese scoop and serve places, some deli, America's Dog, and a few other depressing options. I went with McDonald's, simply because the lines were moving the fastest and I wanted to fill my belly quickly and get away from this particular circle of hell as soon as humanly possible. I downed my chicken selects joylessly while the schoolkids threw ice at each other and bumped my chair as they galloped around the food court, and then I quickly scurried back to the CoffeeFest. Sometimes eating is purely about staving off the discomfort of hunger.

The trade show itself was unremarkable, but the Barista Championship competition was really cool. This is a much more free-form and all-encompassing contest, which attempts to incorporate all aspects of a barista's job. The competitors are given 45 minutes (15 for set-up, 15 for presentation, and 15 for break down) total, and must give a presentation to a panel of judges that includes serving them espresso shots, cappuccinos, and a specialty drink of their choice.

It's partly about technical ability, but it's got a lot more to do with the barista's ability to pick an interesting coffee, present and describe it well, and put on an entertaining, well-polished demonstration for the judges. They're scored on the taste of the beverages, but also on how they comport themselves, their technical skills, cleanliness, and creativity.

It's quite a little show. The baristas are miked and background music of their choosing plays while they do their thing. Most of them brought all sorts of fancy serving pieces and glass carafes for their milk, and the specialty drinks are where they really pull out all the stops, employing side burners for warming non-coffee components like spices, syrups, or coconut milk. Some of them even gave very detailed instructions on how the judges were supposed to drink their specialty beverage; "I recommend you drink this coffee by taking three sips: first, you'll take a small sip, and you'll get the chocolaty nose and bitterness of this single-origin estate Yirga Cheffe. Then, with your second sip, draw in most of the shot, where you'll get the full fruity nose and complex notes. The last small sip will give you a hit of bittersweet chocolate, which lines the bottom of the cup, and that will provide a nice, sweet finish."

Whoa. Crazy, dude. It was cool to see all these slacker-looking coffee-heads taking the whole thing so seriously, speaking in terminology previously reserved for wine wonks. But also kind of surreal. I'm a coffee lover and feel that I can taste and appreciate some of the differences in various types and blends, but I'm not sure that some of this stuff isn't the result of self-puffery and/or a few too many bong hits out by the dumpsters behind the coffeehouse.

Anyway, whatever the motivation, it's good to see so many people taking this whole thing so seriously and the barista championship things was really fun to watch.

I'm not even sure who ended up winning, and, truthfully, I don't care. The whole experience was one of those eye-opening things for me where you realize just how deep and involved some people are with certain skills/hobbies/vocations. It's not really my thing, but it's cool to see how passionate these people are and the espresso certainly tastes good. Despite the unfortunate venue, I'll be back next year to check out the barista competitions and indulge in some good coffee.

Probably wise to re-think my lunch plan, though. Maybe I'll make a quick stop at Bari to pick up a sandwich and then shoot over on the Grand Avenue bus. That way I'll get two blog posts for the effort.

sMACked Down

As a well-seasoned mac-n-cheese maker, I snapped at the opportunity to compete against several well-known Chicago chefs in a benefit cook-off for the Organic School Project. When I spotted this event listed on Gaper's Block Drive Thru a few weeks ago, I immediately shot off a quick email making a case for why I thought my mac and cheese recipe would be the winner.

The event was called sMACkdown, and I learned a few days later that I'd be competing for culinary bragging rights against chefs from Kuma's Corner, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, The Publican, and Boka, as well as 15 other regular cooks like myself.

But it wasn't those hacks that I was concerned with. Nope. The big game I was hunting was none other than the Top Chef herself, Stephanie Izard.

I watch very little television, but I'm a big fan of the Bravo reality show, and Stephanie was the winner of Season Four (Chicago). So not only did she win the title of Top Chef, beat a number of other very impressive chefs, and turn out some fairly innovative dishes (braised pistachios, anyone?), but she did it on her home turf and represented Chicago.

Well, last night she was going to be on *my* turf, and I was gunning for her. I had designs on writing a great blog entry about how I trounced the Top Chef. In fact, I've even been considering applying for season six of the show, and doing some trash-talking after my triumph was going to be a key feature of my audition tape.

Unfortunately, I lost. But....so did Stephanie. So, technically, I tied the Top Chef. Ah hah! Not too shabby after all.

Attendees got three tickets each to vote for their favorite mac and cheese entries, and the top five vote-getters advanced to the judging round, which resulted in three trophy-winners. The win went to James Gottwald of Rockit Bar and Grill (clickers beware--very loud website), and second place went to Amalia Obermeier-Smith of Kuma's Corner. Third place--and the only non-pro chef to bring home a trophy--went to LTH'er KennyZ.

Stephanie (Top Chef) Izard was gracious despite suffering a humilating defeat.

All in all, a good time was had by all. Ubiquitous uber-mixologist Adam Seger was there mixing up some sort of godforsaken cheddar-cube garnished MAC-tini (I stuck with the Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat--the event was held at the local brewery's Wrigleyville outpost), and the room was literally jammed with charitable comfort food aficionados crowding three-deep around the ring of chafing dishes from whence came the goods.

I applied my signature method of moving through crowded venues (big guy, move with a sense of purpose, people tend to get outta my way) and sampled most of the competition. Some were very good, some were fairly bland, and some were just strange; peanut butter and jelly mac and cheese with a grape breadcrumb topping? Asian-flavored mac and cheese with edamame?

My entry was the exact same thing I make for my family here at home; the classic, straight up mac and cheese. (My mac and cheese recipe and technique will be detailed in a future post). No bacon, no truffle oil, no weird cheeses. I figured, why mess with a good thing?

Well....the winner featured braised oxtail. And both runners up featured truffle oil, one with morel mushrooms, the other, Gorgonzola. So much for that strategy. Strangely, though, the winning recipe is supposed to be going onto a school lunch program menu as a result of this event. Should be interesting to see how the kids take to oxtail.

It'll have to be locally-raised, organic, hormone-free oxtail, of course, because that's what this organization is all about--bringing these type of important food values to schoolkids. It's a really cool project which aims to re-vamp school lunch programs in a way that teaches kids valuable lessons about horticulture, nutrition, and cooking while also preparing made-from-scratch organic lunches on a daily basis. It's similar to the kind of thing that's been going on in France for years, and to what Alice Waters is doing in the Bay Area with her Edible Schoolyard Program.

At the end of the night, I may not have earned any bragging rights, but I met some pretty cool and interesting people, I watched a grown man proudly hoist a macaroni-festooned plastic trophy over his head, learned about a very cool organization trying to teach kids to reject the agro-pharma-industrial food establishment, and--bonus!-- I loaded a pretty good-sized to-go container full up with leftover mac and cheese to bring home.

Not a total loss, I guess. Ms. hot-shot Top Chef, however, fresh off her humiliating tie with yours truly, will be jetting off to the Bahamas for a Club Med food and wine festival. Grrrr. No wonder she was so gracious about losing.