Spring is a coy thing in Chicago

Spring arrived in a brief glorious moment two weeks ago in Chicago. Bewitched by the 80+ degree weather, Dan and I joined our fellow Chicagoans in pretending like this wasn't Mother Nature's joke. Hey, here's awesome weather, oh wait. Just kidding. It's back to the 40's and 50's. Haha. Blame the lake effect, right? They blame every bizarre weather pattern on the so-called "lake effect."

Like other cheerful, winter-crazed Midwestern denizens, we engaged in summer-like activities for that one pseudo-summer week.

Dan cut low-hanging branches on the tree in front of our house to prevent me poking my eyes out.

 

We went to Opening Day of the Green City Farmer's Market to look for the first spring vegetables: asparagus!

We walked around the neighborhood admiring the newly installed public art pieces.

Of course, we went to Costco to see what other interesting products they added to their offerings. 53' plush bear, anyone?

Finally, we made delicious spring-based foods: caprese salad from Costco mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes, proscuitto-wrapped blanched asparagus with truffle salt and olive oil, spring mix with cinnamon sugar-toasted walnuts, fuji apples, and nice citrus dressing.

 

I even started putting away winter clothes. Silly me, it's cold again and I need to pull them back out. I don't know what I was thinking. It must be the lake effect.

"So-Called" Yuppie Life in Costco

When Dan and I were interviewing last weekend in Des Moines Iowa, our realtor and community tour host was an adorably racist Chinese-American mother. She complained loudly that her daughter's husband was white, while simultaneously praising her daughter as God's gift to mankind. We learned more about her daughter's educational accomplishments ("Youngest person ever to enter University of Iowa Medical School!") than about the history of Des Moines. Best yet, her favorite adjective was "so-called".

"This is where the so-called yuppies live. They've built so-called lofts there. There are also so-called Asian food available in that store for purchase." So on and so forth. I was trying so hard not to laugh from the back seat that I almost farted.

Dan and I are the very definition of yuppies. We live in Lincoln Park, neighborhood of the yuppie hyper-competitors. We drive a hybrid. We work in professional industries. We live as "greenly" as possible and recycle diligently. Best yet, we slavishly visit Costco.

In case you are aliens, we are huge fans of Costco foods. Their weekend samples (aka Costco "dim sum") are a mere challenge to us mortals to race around and stuff our faces with grape leaves, tortilla chips w/ salsa, cheese cubes, enchiladas, vegetarian burgers, cream puffs, yogurt samples, flavored vitamin water, chicken nuggets, mixed nuts, Fiber Ones, salted chocolate caramels, burritos, enchiladas, and more. In one visit. Dan and I have really perfected the art of taking as many samples as possible. Layer in "laps", and we've perfected the Costco sampling technique to a science.

We hadn't had our Costco fix for 2-3 weeks since we'd been traveling so much. The first thing we did after Daniel landed from Memphis on Saturday from another interview trip was go to Costco. After sampling, Dan promptly sprawled across the cool watermelons. Apparently, he used to do this as a kid as well.

I had a strange craving for Korean food on Sunday, so we hit up San Soo Gab San, a legendary Korean restaurant in the Chicagoland area. We must have come on a bad day, because the food was barely above mediocre. The ban-chan (Korean side dishes) were the highlight.

Here's Dan in resplendent Korean food glory. Bulgogi for him, Soon dooboo (tofu) for me.

Post-meal: Dan spanked that Korean food so hard it didn't know what to do with itself. ALL GONE.

Scrumptious Home-cooked Meals Pics

This past weekend was the 1st one in a long time where we had no formal plans. We spent almost all Saturday preparing our 2010 tax returns and documents. YAWN. I don't to bore y'all with tax Schedules D, E, and the rest of the alphabet, so here are some pictures of delicious foods we've made at home since January 2011. Let the drooling begin! 

First up: French caramalized onion soup w/ home-brewed beef, chicken, and pork stock. Topped with crusty bread and baked w/ Costco Manchego cheese. Very hearty, and the best part of classic French onion soup (the top). 

Cook's Illustrated's carnitas on top of a buttery-toasted baguette, parsley. Greens tossed in for contrast in color, texture, and flavor.

Costco cod fillet with lemon-butter-caper sauce. I love lemon, so this is overwhelmingly lemon-y.

Lightly fried shrimp tacos with lime-pepper seasoned shredded lettuce, a la Big N' Little. The tortilla is homemade w/ maseca flour, salt, water, and a tortilla press.

Steamed mussels w/ tomato-based red sauce w/ garlic, onions, seasoning.

Homemade (raw) meatballs from Maine mix (given to us in a gift bag in one of the the countless interview trips) w/ ground 80% from Peoria Packing Butcher Shop.

Said meatballs on top of crusty toasted baguette w/ shredded cheese, caramelized onions, red tomato-based sauce, and banana peppers. The banana peppers are the clutch ingredient.

Tacos with Costco whole-roasted chicken (heavenly), raw onions, chopped cilantro, diced cherry tomatoes, homemade guacamole (made with avocados, paprika, cumin, lime juice, onion, cilantro, and lots of salt), lime juice, and Cholula hot sauce.

Chocolate-covered strawberries that Dan made for me for Valentine's Day weekend.

Anyone hungry?

 

A Foodie's Wedding in San Francisco

People say that they remember exactly what they were doing and where they were during seminal events. JFK assassination. When Obama was elected. My event: When one of my best friends, Cat, got engaged to Brian. I was studying immunology with my study group in their Somerville house. I'm also pretty sure I unleashed a scream so loud that they came running to see what was wrong.

Fast forward to October 23, 2010. Dan and I had (1) attended our friend's LA wedding (see previous post) the weekend prior, (2) Dan had just completed his 8-hr written exam monstrosity, and (3) celebrated my mom's birthday. I flew up to San Francisco after all this to hang out with Cat, help out, and generally be an annoying nuisance as the matron of honor. See the compromising position that Brian and Cat are in?

Here's what this entailed: Multiple trips to Home Depots / Michael's / San Francisco's Flower Market / SF Public Library, a very painful Brazilian wax where I only understood every other word that the Vietnamese lady was saying, lunch w/ one of Cat's ex-coworkers, cooking fish and about a ton of bok choy for a stay-at-home dinner, getting our nails done, and multiple jokes about Kristie T's role as "deputy marriage commissioner". Along the way, we also managed to have a delicious Italian dinner out, try a sandwich called the "Menage-a-Trois" (not a joke), and scope out the food truck scene at Fort Mason. Below is a pic of Cat w/ her ex-coworker's new baby.

Daniel came up Thursday morning to hammer together lots of wood planks for the frame underneath a graduated display of a bajillion desserts. The week passed in a BLUR, and it was Saturday before we knew it. I used airbnb to find a fantastic studio steps from the Ferry Building for ~$100 / night. So for Sat breakfast, we met up with our friend Winnie to eat our way around Embarcadero and the Ferry Bldg Farmer's Market. By conservative estimates, we had a rotisserie sandwich w/ 8-hr caramelized onions, fresh mussels, enchiladas, pluots (plums + apricots = the most DELICIOUS fruit I have ever tasted and now I lust after them), strawberries, cheese, huge chili polish sausage, macaroons, among other things.

Kristie T and I ran off to the St. Regis to hang out with Cat and Mommy Ng around noon. Cat attempted to write her vows, while Kristie and I were creating a baller dance playlist for later that evening. Mommy Ng was especially entertaining because she had to nap in positions that required her right leg to be perpendicular to the rest of her body, straight up in the air. Here's a pic of Cat after she put on her makeup. I told her to cake it on.

While Kristie, Cat, and I were dilly-dallying inside the sweetest hotel room I've seen in a long time, our respective partners were running around the venue (The Box in SoMa) putting up autumn-colored paper lanterns. It apparently took a lot longer than expected (5 hrs), and Manish (Kristie's beau) and Dan bonded.
Their efforts paid off, however, since the space looked stunning.

Here's Kristie in the foreground and a blurry Manish running around in the background. Probably still putting up lights. He was going a little lantern-crazy.

It all came together for a gorgeous, very SF-like event. The food was delicious (carnitas, comfort Mexican food, etc), there were 12 types of alcoholic beverages including a free-flowing '93 Dom Perignon. Brief aside, Dan was determined to try all 12 types. He did manage all 12, had 1 more, then decided that 13 was a bad number so should have more. Towards the end of the evening, there was a lot of touchy-feely things going where Daniel was rub up against me, then flash his wedding ring with a "I'm married, okay?" Better that he loves rubbing against me than other people.

Cat looked gorgeous. The ceremony was short and sweet. Kristie T talked about how it was "all about the little things". Cat and Brian both read their own vows. Cat's was off the cuff and full of levity. Brian's was pre-written, touching, and hilarious. The tea ceremony was a nice homage to Cat's Chinese heritage. [Note: the bridesmaid dresses were from Target and our shoes were from Payless. I love value sourcing.]

The next day, SF was in a complete downpour so we ended up completely soaked after our Yank Sing upscale dim sum lunch w/ Winnie. We blazed through Ghiradelli Square and the phenomenal Exploratorium, went the wrong way on the subway and ended up eating all the pluots and strawberries, and got delayed by 3 hrs because of the torrential rain. Daniel found an abandoned, new plastic poncho on the ground and I wore it even those it was a kid's size because I was getting COMPLETELY soaked. It only went down to my hips as opposed to my knees.

Dan and I feel truly blessed to have had such an awesome vacation attending and assisting Cat' and Brian's wedding. We ate lots of delicious foods, hung out with best buds, hugged each other a lot, and generally thought we were the luckiest 2 people alive today.

Labor Day Getaway to Traverse City

And........we're back!

Speaking of which, we have done so much between our last post and today that to cover it all would be overwhelming. First off, we road-tripped it to Traverse City, Michigan for a rainy Labor Day weekend. If you're anything like me, when I think of "Michigan", I think "Detroit". This conjures up unattractive images of boarded up ghost neighborhoods, urban blight, factories, and other depressing ideas. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, on the whole, Michigan is beautiful.

Traverse City is a 6 hr drive according to Google Maps, which I always take as a challenge to "beat" this number. With the impending storm, we saw lots of beautiful clouds on the road like these:

 

Lots of our colleagues had grown up/summered in various lakeside Chicago towns, and gave us enthusiastic recommendations for various eateries. Us being the couple who focuses on the local food more than any other attraction, got to work very quickly at an adorable French eatery.  (Dan is eating chicken pot pie. I went with the flatbread pizza.)

We drove up Friday during the day, and were pretty wiped out by the long drive. Our bed and breakfast was literally the only one in Traverse City proper that had any availability left for the holiday weekend. It was also the oldest B&B, with 2 amiable and adorable senior citizens who ran their cozy inn. It definitely smelled like "old people" and we swear we never saw the husband proprietor change clothes, but it had character!

The next morning, the downpour had really kicked into gear, so we made a strategic decision to spend our day indoors. In wineries. And sampling rooms. Along the way, we "re-discovered" that Michigan is all about the cherries. Note the cherry apron that Dan is modeling. Great Christmas present idea! Cha-ching!

 

We ended up traveling all along Old Mission Peninsula, hitting up almost all the wineries on that small piece of land. Starting early in great spirits, we learned all about the kinds of wines that the land/weather lends itself to (white wines like rieslings, Gewurztraminers, roses). And every permutation of cherry wine you can think of. Note the picture was taken at 10am in the morning. And already we're happy.

After about the 5th wine tasting, we got very happy. We might have misbehaved on a vineyard / winery tour by climbing on top of the grape crusher and trying to squeeze into a fermentation tank. I'm not saying we did. I'm not saying we didn't either. Below, a picture from one of the tamer moments.

The weather cleared up and Dan got the great idea to sneak into one of the great sand dunes of Lake Michigan and climb it to watch the sunset. Great idea, bad execution. First of all, the wind gets pretty merciless on the shore. Second, it is a serious hill with some bad ass angles. The payoff only comes at the top after you've huffed and puffed and shot evil looks of DIE! DIE! to your oblivious partner who is scampering up the sand hill. It also got cold very quickly. As Numero #1 wuss, I didn't wait until the sunset, but we did take in the beautiful scenery.

The next day, we went hiking along the (easy) Empire Bluff Trail. It's breathtakingly beautiful, and reminds me of the northwest coast of Kauai. Still very windy, but the view is completely worth it.

After that, we made our way home (surgeons don't get Mondays off). Other highlights of the Labor Day Weekend included eating at Stella, an amazing restaurant in Traverse City, touring their former asylum turned commercial / retail shops, coming back to Chicago and heading straight to the Vampire Weekend concert with matching red Converse shoes, trying Al's #1 Beef for the first time, trying to not scare young children at the Shedd Aquarium with our verbal predictions of whether any particular fish was "delicious", and eating Korean BBQ at Cho Sun Oak and ice cream floats at Margie's Candies with Suj, Shamita, and Amee. Dee-licious.

August Comings and Goings

Where did August go? I did intend to post weekly, but with all the event and travel every weekend, updating this blog has slipped. Never fear, I intend to get right back into the thick of things.

For the month of August, we checked out the excellent Girl and the Goat, the new West Loop restaurant by Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard with our good friend Lolita, hung out with old and new friends at the always superb Bristol Lounge in Wicker Park, found a secret, shady, elevated, well-ventilated spot in Lincoln Park to watch the Blue Angels scream past at the annual Air and Water Show, trekked to a hippie farm in the middle of corn field Illinois to eat a delicious 5-course Berkshire pork dinner underneath the stars accompanied by a half-dozen local micro-brews, got rained on during the outdoor performance of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road ensemble at Ravinia, and flew to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for a relaxing weekend trip.

In addition, we biked to Lollapalooza to hear Lady Gaga and MGMT play, twice ooh-ed and aah-ed at the Saturday Navy Pier fireworks where we could smell the acrid odor of firepowder we were so close, ate fresh Caprese salad with truffle oil about a thousand times, successfully created tonkatsu pork dishes with the bajillion lbs of pork product we purchased from Peoria Meat in Fulton Market, got a haircut, took full advantage of the bountiful farmers markets, hugged each other a bunch, and generally thought we were the luckiest people on the planet.

"All I Need is You and Cheap Mexican Food"

About 2 years into our dating relationship, Daniel took me to a favorite cheap Mexican haunt next to the University of Chicago called Maravillas. This is the kind of place favorited by cheap college kids and starving residents. In short, its Dan's kind of place. If my memory serves me correctly, we ordered approximately 47 tacos and 234 enchiladas. More or less. On the ride back home on Lake Shore Drive, Dan turned to me with the utmost sincerity and uttered, "All I need in life is you, and cheap Mexican food."

Since then, we have been a mission to discover all the hole-in-the-wall taco joints in Chicagoland. No crumbling storefront or suspicious signage can deter us from discovering and devouring delicious cheap tacos. We recently discovered Tierra Caliente, a nondescript tacos restaurant in the middle of a very homey Mexican convenience store.  You know a place is good when the patrons are either working-class Mexicans or hipsters.

We also ventured out to Peoria Packing Butcher Shop, which is not in Peoria but in Fulton Market. It's the place I'd vote for as "Best Place to Hang Out on a Humid Chicago Day if You Got No A/C". It's also the vegetarian's version of hell. Meat in all delightful shapes, sizes, and packages fill the rafters. Bacon, pig feet, shanks, sausages, wings, drumsticks, thighs, pork butt, fish, chicken nuggets, short ribs, etc. The smell of clinical carcasses fill the air, and I tend to shiver a lot in the ruthlessly efficient refrigeration. We were there to purchase pork tenderloins for a Sunday dinner we were planning to cook for some of Dan's work colleagues. We also saw some rad-looking devilish fish, like ones you might see in Disney movies.

On Saturday night, we made our way to the Kenmore Live Studio for Argentinian night. A housewife-turned-entrepreneur demonstrated her famous empanadas on Live! Facebook! TV! In addition, she was making alfajores, which is a traditional Argentinian delicacy, kind of like a crumbly, buttery cookie sandwich with dulce de leche caramel and coconut topping. Really outstanding and airy. But the way she was pronouncing "alfajores" sounded like "alpha whores". Dan turned to me amd said, "Isn't that a madam?" At which point I punched him in the arm since the HUSBAND OF THE CHEF was sitting next to us.

We got our comeuppance in the break when an Argentinian dancing duo were demonstrating the tango and invited audience members to participate. Since no one was voluntarily subjecting themselves to the very real specter of public humiliation, the husband pointed at us and said loudly, "THESE TWO WOULD LIKE TO DANCE." Since we have no shame, we jumped up and started dancing very badly to tango music. On Live! Facebook! TV! Y'all, we have never been so famous. As a revenge for calling us out, we stole one of the alfajores that was sitting on the pristine Kenmore countertop.

Sunday was another low-key day that where we strolled around Chicago's Maxwell Street Market stuffing our faces with enchilades, tamales, flavored shaved ice in lime, mango chile, and guava flavors, and many, many tacos. Our friends Lolita and Lee A. were delighted by this enchanting slice of Mexican life in the Midwest. It was a beautiful Chicago day and needless to say, topped off by churros.

Sunday night, we went to Dan's co-worker's apt in Wicker Park to cook a Southern meal complete with cheesy grits, collard greens, pork tenderloin, corn, and pina coladas! I'm not sure if pina coladas count as Southern fare, but I'm sure if alcohol is involved, the South has something to do with it. Martha busted out the blue glasses, and Akilah made sure we were having a good time. Dan's eyes got very big when he learned that there was an old-school Pacman machine in the next room. I'm sure if I hadn't been there he will still be there, playing the game, and yelling at poor Mr.Pacman.

It's All About the Food, Full Stop.

By now it should be pretty clear that we are crazy about food. We plan our days around what we're going to eat. Entire vacations have been given over to culinary gluttony (Exhibit A: Napa Valley and Tokyo). We don't like "foodies" to describe ourselves because being a "foodie" implies that we like haute cuisine and trendy restaurants. I think "equal opportunity eater" is more accurate because we are just as likely to enjoy food trucks as we are Michelin-starred restaurants.

Let me give you an example of how we anchor our weekends around our search to source delicious foods. Last Saturday, we made our bi-weekly pilgrimage to the Green City Market. The GCM is one of the largest and well-known farmer's markets in the country, and thousands of people visit every Saturday to enjoy the locally grown (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin) produce and fruits, chef demonstrations, and a host of local bakeries and usually some live music. It is the place to be on Saturdays morning.

We then wended our way, munching on ridiculously flavorful Flaming Fury Peaches from Michigan, through the free Lincoln Park Zoo, the adjoining Lincoln Park Arboretum, and then walking back along Lake Michigan. We had a BBQ to get ready for!

We headed to Oak Park to our friends' Lolita and Lee A.'s house to get ready for a BBQ! Lucky for us, they had bought enough massive sausage from a very special meat vendor to feed a small Third World country. We promised not to divulge their source of this divine meat, but heavens, it was delicious. I believe we did not stop eating from 3pm until around 7pm.

We were so exhausted from all this eating that we fell into a true food coma when we returned home. The next Sunday morning, Daniel decided to make fried chicken from the Zatamaran's box with questionable expiration dates.

Is there a better way to start Sunday morning than homemade fried chicken? Well, maybe if there was a congo line, but incremental added value. We ran some errands and came back home to get ready for the World Cup Finals between Spain and Netherlands. Since we weren't partisan to either country, Daniel wore this shirt to Old Town Social to watch the game in a yuppie crowd of Chicago-ites.

For Sunday dinner, we biked to Takashi, where I was hoping that their noodle brunch would still be available, but didn't. SUCK. Funny enough, we had gone to a restaurant that had been Takashi's predecessor when we first started dating called Scylla. We had not been impressed, but turns out that the chef of Scylla was none other than Stephanie Izard, one of the winners of Top Chef. We tried their homemade tofu (okay), their chicken hot pot (decent), the sweetbread (good), the yellowtail (good), and their chocolate chewy cake (okay). Lucky for us, it rained all the way back and Daniel had to survive me shooting Looks of Death in my rain-soaked dress pedaling furiously in the rain.

Between last weekend and this past Thursday, I was away for business and sadly missed the Green City Market's Chef BBQ, where all the great chefs of Chicago come together for a knock-your-socks-off BBQ in Lincoln Park. You name the restaurant (e.g. Bristol, Lula's Cafe, Peninsula, Rick Bayless, Four Seasons), they were there. Because of weather issues, my flight landed in O'Hare after the event ended, but Daniel managed to smuggle all of the dishes for me to try at home. I'd like to think that his past life as a spy assisted in the food collection efforts. The picture below is that of large glass dining room with EVERY SQUARE INCH covered with food.

I had a bite of each before I passed out from another food coma. Daniel spent the rest of the evening sprawled on the bed complaining "I'm so full! I'm so full" and rubbing his belly. The next morning was still a work day for me (Friday), so Daniel made me a coffee with cinnamon art and a delicious scrambled egg breakfast with a beet salad and capers. Whoever said that Chinese husbands cook well was absolutely right about this stereotype.

Saturday morning, we biked to the Lincoln Park Farmer's Market on Division and Armitage, one we'd never been and were eager to explore. We were fortunate to find some delicious Mirai corn, the kind that are so sweet you can eat them rare. They are nature's candies and we were on a mission to find some. We actually procured some full samples and ate them animal-style while we strolled around the market.

We also bought blueberries, Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, and dried morel mushrooms. Daniel got a few compliments on his threadless t-shirt, but I thought mine was just as clever.

After the farmers market, it was another pilgrimage to the Cheese Warehouse with our friend Lolita A. It was screaming hot this past weekend, so we stopped to get flavored snow cones. Lolita got her favorite, banana, while Dan and I got fruit punch. It made our tongues bright red, and we spent a good 10 minutes sticking our tongues out at each other like teenagers.

It was way too hot during the day to do anything outside, so Dan and I ended up enjoying the creature comforts of AC until the evening, when we made our way to the KenmoreLive studio on Wells Street to eat free samples of ice cream samples from Vosges Chocolat (flavors: chocolate jalapeno, curry, and vanilla bean, chocolate nut), watch Mindy Segal from Bleeding Heart Bakery make a bourbon-caramel and butter-thyme topping for ice cream, and eat endless amounts of free sugar. Legal chemical highs are nice.

Sunday morning, Dan made breakfast again with a knock-out truffle oil infused scrambled egg with chiffon-ed-basil, "bandaged" cheddar, quartered Sun-Gold cherry tomatoes, cheddar sausages, accompanied by a fresh burrata with sea salt, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil. It is summer in your mouth. Is your mouth watering yet?

Daniel did some surgical work on a torn part of our couch while we stayed indoors to stay cool. We did run errands to Costco and Target, and it seemed like all of Chicago had descended upon these stores. I definitely do not see signs of lessened consumer spending when I go to these places. For dinner, Dan busted out with Thai basil rice with shrimp. Now you see why I've gained 5 lbs since moving to Chicago? Not that I'm complaining about the food.