How long for lunch?

I have been into rehearsals now for a production at Chicago Opera Theater, which has made writing a bit of a back burner. One lovely thing, among many, that has come out of being down in Chicago's Loop, is that at lunch time there are so many little dive spots that I have yet to experience. One of my favorites is a Cuban cafe in the first floor of Chicago's hostel. Cafecito is a great place to grab a coffee or one of their lovely sandwiches. I so far have had the Cubano, and one with chorizo, sauteed onions, and chimichurri. They are a good price for downtown Chi-town. I highly recommend it. 

Another place I have been grabbing lunch is Osaka on the corner of Van Buren and Michigan (I think!). They have sushi lunch specials during the week days, along with offering a wide variety of other rolls and sushi pieces. Another great thing about this place is that they make a great smoothie, with or without tapioca, with a variety of fruit choices. Mine of late has been Coconut.

While I am sad that I have not been able to cook at home, let alone able to take my lunch (mainly because I do not have time to go to the store, and that frozen foods are not possible due to the large stash of hot dog buns in our freezer because of the show at the husband's theater company - Go see it!), I am grateful to these local joints for offering up good and reasonably cheap meal choices. 

More tid-bits to come I am sure. Easter's this weekend, look for lots of Lamby-love!

Foodie Anniversary

I love weddings. Even better, weddings with good food. Our wedding had a huge spread of yummy treats, and so in tribute every year, we spend our anniversary indulging in foodie heaven.

Actually, the last two years we have been to the same place. Campagnola in Evanston is in the same circle of restaurants as Bistro Campagne in Lincoln square, and Union also in Evanston. We really enjoy their compressed menu, especially since they do not focus on pastas, like so many Italian joints here in the states. With an impressive list of antipasti including grilled radicchio, and various cold salads, along with a large secondi selection, this small darkened restaurant creates an authentic feel that is quite romantic. We were lucky to still get thier winter menu before it changed at the end of the week.

We started the evening with a glass of prosecco, and two antipasti. First we ordered the beef carpaccio - done almost the same way I had it in Lucca - with capers, arugula with a lite lemon and olive oil toss, and parmesian. Our second was a must-get whenever we eat here. They have an especially good fire roasted octopus. It is slightly different each time we come, due to the menu cycles. This time the chef paired it with green beans and re onions and a little olive coulis, with lemon zest shavings being the real light of the dish.

Whenever we dine here there is another dish that the husband insists that we have. They do a particularly good ragu with parpedelle, and if you ask, the server will kindly have the kitchen split an order for you into two bowls.

For the main dish, the husband had a very tender beef short rib, with polenta and rapini, which he said were a little too spicy and difficult to eat, but were good. I had the breast of pheasant, wrapped in bacon, drizzled with a little herbed oil, served on a bed of Israeli couscous tossed with English peas and pork belly cubes.

We finished with a little dolci, he with blackberry sorbet, and I with a walnut cake cooked in a creme fresh custard.

I think it was slightly overindulgent, but who's counting! Remembering one's wedding should always be cause for celebration.

Stock you.

It's cold, and rainy, and I'm avoiding memorizing music. The husband has retreated to the den to fix the artistic world, and I'm drinking instant coffee from Starbucks. 

There are so many things not right about this picture, especially for a Saturday morn at 9am. 

What happened to the slow times?? I often comment that as Yanks - Americans in gen actually - we don't really understand the concept of "relax" and when we do, by the time there's time, we end up getting sick from our bodies getting ticked off at us.

In all the craziness of our world here at home, I decided this weekend I'd make some stocks. 

Different than broths - stocks are richer, more complex, darker, and generally just better.  I tend to think most companies that produce these kinds of ingredients don't like to market stocks because, well, they just take up too much darn time. We're talking about 12-14 hours total to produce (if you do it slow and right). Here's how you go about making a stock....

Get a lot of bones, of one kind of animal, unless you want like a strange kind for very specific dishes. For chicken use a whole carcase from a roaster, picked over for all the bits of meat still left. For beef, you can use those "soup bones" that they sometime have in the market - usually frozen. 

Put these bones into a roasting pan, or a oven safe container of some kind. Add one large onion cut up, one carrot, one stalk of celery. This is traditional. You can also throw in a few cloves of garlic. Or whatever other veg acout. that you like. Put into a 350 oven until it's brown, very deep brown. Not burnt but brown. 

This means the items have caramelized - all their sugars have been brought out to play in the sunshine, and now they're toasted!

Throw into a "stock" pot, top with cold water - a lot of cold water, like, 3 inches from the top full - throw in a bay leaf (or 3) some parsley sprigs, pepper corns, thyme sprigs, etc. It's great! As long as it's not dirty throw it in!!! You're gonna strain it all through a sieve later anyway!

Here comes the part that makes us all virtuous. Patience. 

You put this pot on the stove and simmer it (NOT BOIL) it for hours. I usually keep the lid on for at least 3 or 4 hours to really milk the flavor of the browned goodness submerged. Then I take it off and let it reduce for another 4-5 hours. Make sure you skim off the gross stuff on the surface every hour or so. That's the leftover junk from the bones that you don't want in your finished product.

Then Strain it, you can use cheese cloth, or a fine sieve, I use a sieve. 

Then I put it back in the pot and let it reduce a little more till it looks like the right color...what color? That's right, brown!!!

We usually keep a container in the fridge of about half, and then put the other half in the freezer. You can also put it into ice cube trays and the you'll have nuggets of stocky goodness to pull out whenever. 

If you keep reducing till there's almost no liquid left, it looks almost like a paste, this is a demi glace, and you can freeze this too. Then add a tablespoon of this to sauces, etc. 

I hope you'll try to make your own stock. Start using instead of broth for sauces, and soups. Though sometimes using a broth is the way to go, usually a chicken broth. Try the recipes both ways, one with broth and one stock. See which you like better. Kitchen basics also as a great line. 

You'll notice I didn't talk about adding salt. I like to only salt a tiny bit in the first stage, before roasting. This way you can completely control how much salt is in your final, FINAL product. I'm talking about the sauce or soup you use it in. Look on the back of a supermarket stock sometime, then ask yourself if you want to eat all that salt.

So enjoy the rainy day, take a few moments to throw some old bones and badly cut veggies into a pot. Make your own stock! It's so easy, even a French peasant in 1643 could do it, why not you!

Restaurant Week...

Restaurant week was one of those thing last year that I really regretted missing. I think I was in Virginia while it was going on, and I missed the pre-fixed menu obsession that comes with the event. In Chicago, one week a year (though I think this week's event has been extended) you can go to some of Chicago's most select and order a three course lunch or dinner for fairly cheap. Places such a Nomi, Bin 36, and Cafe des Architectes seat you for minimal dollar.

This year we had time to go to lunch at Cafe des Architects in the Sofitel hotel lobby. We wanted to try for dinner, but due to busy lives and already booked reservations, lunch was all we could get in for.

Instead of a 3-course lunch, these guys did a 4-course, mirroring their Executive Express Lunch which the restaurant serves on a daily basis.

The meals come on one large white square plate, with 4 inner square plates, and the portions are quite small. We started with a Cauliflower soup with maybe a hint of truffle oil, or maybe it was just the mushrooms that topped. The Second course was "Octopus salad".

I love Octopus. and I love salads made of julienned apple. These two things mixed do not go well together however. It was much more satisfying to eat a bit of one then the other. And the cider vinegar dressing was way to overpowering.

We had a cut of hanger steak with a standard demiglace and some pureed root veggies. Pretty good, though nothing that blew my mind. And we finished with two small slices of a chocolate gateau. These were great, their pastry chef is a smart man. They had the wafer crispies in the bottom layer and I felt very child like eating them...except that I was surrounded by stuffy diners.

This place made me wonder about dining in NYC. It felt so claustrophobic and staunch that I was kind of uncomfortable. Not that I was going to do the wrong thing or eat with the wrong fork. But it was a sense that everyone there was trying to compensate for something else. Our waiter was great, but oh so formal. It completely contrasted the open modern whimsy of the space.

A well-to-do executive and his wife (or mistress) came in to eat. They sat near us on the other end of the two tops. They looked very busy and important, and the chef came out and chatted with them for a good 10 minutes.

They had burgers.

En retard Jour de Valentines

When one travels to a different city, or country even, there are expectations, like the kind of cuisine, the types of people, the landmarks, and so on. There is inevitability that there will be things that no one can expect, my favorite includes smells. The smell or combination of smells of a place is not only related to what's going on in the city (construction, landscaping) but also to the food that is cooking on the street corners, in bakeries or chocolate shops, BBQ and chicken shacks.

France to me has one of the greatest smells, of course, depending on where you are you get different facets. You get stinky cheese, and sweet grapes, the smell of fresh bread (which is not easy to make - entry to follow regarding), olives, meat roasting, fish being sold. These are things I miss when I walk around Chicago - unless, however, you find yourself walking downtown on a day when the wind has strewn about the smell of baking chocolate confections from near by candy and cookie emporiums.

The husband told me the other day, said he, "We live in the Paris of the US."

I had to think about it for a second. I mean, yes, I live within a large pool of minorities, just like where I would be able to afford to live in Paris. There are frequent street vendors. The mid-eastern cuisine in this town is amazing, just like the gaye-olde. And the Trump town is just like dear Eiffel... well maybe not quite.

On valentine's day the husband and I went to one of our favorite French spots in town. Bistro Campagne to me is so French it hurts. Not only does it smell great both inside and outside, but I ache to be back in la belle F. after sitting in this place for 10 minutes. My favorite time to go is in the winter - when the seasonal menu includes Cassoulet, a spanker to make (3 Days), but well worth the effort I'm sure. I'd rather just get it from these chefs, it's so much easier and you get a whole duck confit leg on top too! What's not to love?

We started out with a great bottle of vin rouge, their Chinon 2005, yummy. Then we ordered something I now know cannot live without.

Roasted bone marrow.

This stuff is like beef butter, scooped out of the bones, spread on toast with a little sea salt shavings. So good, so rich. I know some of you might be like, "dear baby jesus, no, she can't be serious." This dish is other-worldly. I love now that where Anthony Bourdain talks about it I can say to myself "Preach it, Tony. Amen."

Then I did something unorthodox (because the marrow wasn't enough). I ordered the chicken.

A good friend of our always gets the chicken here. He's a chef and foodie, and makes a great one himself. But he says B.C. has the best in the city. I am inclined to agree. The husband, who in the past has only ordered the chicken here, requests my beloved Cassoulet and though I was ethereally happy with my chicken...I was jealous. Beaucoup.

We ended the night ordering dessert, I a lush 4 tablespoons of Chocolate sabayon and cookies. Mmmm! tiny desserts!

Then something a bit odd happened...

The table next to us became full of that certain kind of person that goes out on Vday, you know that one I mean. The people that come to a fancy restaurant and order a house salad...only. Two couples, nice enough people, I'm sure, but would have been much happier at a bar. (there is nothing wrong with a good bar, I love bar food)

One of the guys told our waiter "I don't eat anything with butter or cream. Oh, and I don't eat bacon."

Hold Up.

You're in a froofy frog shop and you don't eat butter, cream or... bacon?

I might have asked them to leave, or at least questioned their aims of the evening....and I think any Frenchy would have too. I am happy they tried a new place to dine, the experience is everything. But they will need to develop that butter-fetish before making the leap across the pond.

Vegetarians are odd ducks, they baffle me. Someone somewhere gave this definition : VEGETARIAN. ANCIENT TRIBAL SLANG FOR THE VILLAGE IDIOT WHO CAN'T HUNT, FISH, OR RIDE

It seems to me that the gods gave us brains, and those brains said "here's how you make a tool to stab things," and so we did. Granted, it eventually led to war and such, but that's beside the point.

The point is meat is good! And we should eat it. At least I think so.

The art of vegetarian cooking is an unknown to me. I world of mystery and adventure, because let's face it, if you don't have succulent meat juices to liven thing up it's going to be an adventure getting people to eat it and enjoy. And yet I am becoming antsy with my meaty ingredients and wish to broaden my horizons.

Yesterday, a foodie companion graciously treated me to lunch at a Mediterranean joint, Sultan's Market. Now, I know you think I might have slipped on a piece of bacon and hit my head; but one of the things I love most in the culinary world is falafel. It's great! and it's usually completely veg solid. I love this stuff, and can't get enough. And at this place they put this great cucumber salad on the falafel sandwich. Yum... Another (and I think, frankly, better) place to get falafel in the city is taste of Lebanon. Oh man I crave that place on at least a bi-weekly basis.

Then we get home last night and what is waiting for us, but a divine box from my mother (Thanks Mom!) And in it among other lovely treats is a cookbook. A really amazing cookbook, Moosewood Restaurant, new classics. I mean, I've eaten I eaten things made from this book and they are all pretty fantastic. And it's based on the concept of cooking for those with food allergies and sensitivities. So only a few of the recipes have non-vegetarian inclusions, usually fish based. If memory serves, their tapenad is very tasty. I think I will make it soon.

So will I become vegetarian friendly? I hope so. All this animosity I have for their lack of bacon eating needs to end. As someone once asked me, "Where's the love?"

Only time will tell, and then I'll let you know.

 

Porky Publican

The Publican. Chicago.

One of the places the husband and I have been itching to visit. We had been given several chances to go in the past and when they fell through we sadly cried ourselves through dinner in front of our plates at home.

Not this time. This time we went. Post Schubert concertings, it was the obvious choice to go. We were on a budget but the choice of eatery tipped us into it. None of us had been and all of us had it on our lists. And this is what happened.

We waited in the bar for our table of 6 - though it might have well been 8 or 12. This joint has communal long table seating that extends around the room in front of their pen-like booths (complete with swinging doors). Ordering our beers, we chose frites with garlic a., a sliced ham sampling, and house made pork rinds. You heard right. And they were, as one diner put it, "lovely fat popcorns," sprinkled with cayenne or some other spicy red spice combo.

Here's where we should have seen the soon to come challenge. Pork rinds, ham, fatty fried frites. Getting the picture??

Once seated at the table, we get a heads up that one in our dining party, let's call him OC, had a connection with members of the restaurant's team and we might get a few perks. Briefly after fanny met chair, what arrived at our table? Why, more pork rinds and frites. A lot more. So we're already porked up and we get more. Awesome, we think, this is going to be awesome.

Note: this is the kind of place you share everything, so we ordered for the table and shared like good little first graders.

OC ordered wisely some apps.: Grilled octopus, beet salad and yellow fin tuna. These were great. The tuna was a little tough for my tastes, especially for how thin it was cut, but it had good flavor with diced kohlrabi on top - though I thought something like a granny smith apple would have been a more interesting flavor with the same texture element.

Grilled octopus was pretty standard, everyone seems to be doing the same thing with some kind of white bean variant, pretty standard. Yet really, really great. I wonder if there's any other way to have octopus other than grilled that would be just as interesting...

The beet salad. Okay. This was amazing. The chef used golden beets, grapefruit, avocado, red onion, red watercress, and something else I cant remember because the beets were too good, and they have blocked out my memory. Those of you who were there, please remember and tell me. Soon. So I can recreate it at home.

OC expertly ordered a couple of bottles of wine to follow our beers (I had drunk a Matilda, as it is so tasty). Then things got crazy.

Pork. Hmmm. This place has giant pictures on the wall of the fattest pigs you've ever seen. Looking at the menu you see a lot of non-vegetarian choices. In fact, there are no. vegetarian. choices. I think even the beet salad uses pork fat in the dressing.

We ordered the lamb curry, pork belly, sardines (actually an app), and the country ribs for the table.

This was THE fattiest meal I've had eaten.

The pork belly was really well cooked, except the crust was a bit to sweet for me. It was kind of like candied bacon. Still very tender, and had a really nice accomp of roasted cauliflower. The sardines were very good, looked like they were roasted whole...mmmmm. The ribs were HUGE. and very good, though with a thematically large amount of fat present with the meat.

The lamb curry was also made with belly. Lamb belly. And only lamb belly. These lambs were the fattiest little buggers ever created by the maker. At one point, with still three pieces of lamb in the bowl, no actual lamb meat was present. It was all fat. I mean, this was delicious fat, if you could get past the point of it being fat and actually put it in your mouth. And the curry was fine, I guess. Not really a curry, kind of a curry-like infused broth. It did have Jerusalem artichokes in it, which were great and totally complimented the lamb-fattiness.

Now, we had all been waiting to come to this place since its inception. And what did we think? Well. It was good. It was alright. Okay, as one of our fellow diners Lance Manyon said, "It's...it's not worth it." I think Lance was referring to the fact that not only was he gypped on his portion of the octopus being served last, but also that after only a few bites of the lamb, there was no actual lamb meat on the plate. I have to concur on the lamb bit. Though my piece of octopus was great.

So, what did we have for finishings? What else, a waffle. And what was on top? A big, luscious scoop of butter.

Are your arteries hard yet?