Bernardo Medina’s mother chased him into art with a foam rubber flip-flop. “Latina mothers call it a chancleta,” says Medina, a San Juan, Puerto Rico-based pop artist and publicist. “It is the weapon that they use against you as a kid. I was very hyper, and since there were no medications for it, it was […]
Category: Food & Drink Feature
Posted inFood & Drink
Like a blazing fried chicken, Thommy’s Toddy Shop rises from the ashes at the Next Monday Night Foodball
The Colonel came out of retirement to make KFC at the Kedzie Inn. OK, Thom Padanilam does not have an honorific title from the Indian state of Kerala. Someday, probably, but for now he’s back in the game as the boss man of Thommy’s Toddy Shop, the pandemic-born Malayali food pop-up and podi peddler he […]
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The tastes of home
It’s a common refrain in the city: Chicago summer is so worth the wait. Newbies and transplants can feel the buzz of opportunity in the air when the weather starts to turn. Visceral summer memories fuel locals through even the coldest, darkest months. And many of those memories involve food and drink—cookouts, summer cocktails, farmers’ […]
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If you teach a girl to pickle
Food has been the thread, through hope and grief.
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Drink less, party more
Many people are starting to refocus on wellness and realizing that their relationship with alcohol isn’t particularly . . . sustainable. And as is the case with all toxic connections that have run their course, it may be time for a break, babe.
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Something magic’s growing at Back of the Yards Algae Sciences
Vivid green fluid silently courses down a vertical stack of cascading glass tubes on the third floor of the Plant, the sustainability-oriented Back of the Yards small business incubator where the meat-packer Peer Foods once processed industrial quantities of ham, bacon, and sausage in cavernous stainless steel smokers. Nearby, spirulina-spiked Beyond Burgers sizzle and char […]
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Sugar and snacks and everything nice
What would you do with 22.4 pounds of treats?
Posted inFood & Drink News
Ramen Lord returns to the next Monday Night Foodball
Chui does exactly what you tell it to do. That’s the name of Mike “Ramen Lord” Satinover’s gleaming, new, half-ton Yamato Richmen Type One ramen noodle machine, currently in residence in the living room of his West Loop apartment. It’s named—or at least I’ve named it—for one of the minor AI drones in the classic manga […]
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Dawn Lewis wants you to “try meh hand” at the next Monday Night Foodball
Update: an earlier version of this post included an incorrect email address for ordering. The correct email is: Deesrotichicago@dsroti.com Most days the freshest, flakiest, most diaphanous Trinidadian roti in the city must be consumed al trunko on the 2500 block of South Wabash with your blinkers on (it’s the only spot for roti, in fact). […]
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The House of Wah Sun abides, in Irving Park
Last Saturday night at the House of Wah Sun in North Center, Mark Chiang lingered at the table of a few of the night’s last customers. His wife, Young Ja Kim, had already wheeled over the egg rolls, crab rangoon, and heaping platters of crispy chow fun, cumin lamb, and Sichuan green beans, but Chiang […]
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Umamicue brings Texas barbecue—via Asia—to the next Monday Night Foodball
Her name is Odesza. Charles Wong’s bright red, 22-foot, 500-gallon mobile road pit comes from Texas, and so does the barbecue she smokes—at least in terms of method and material. But the flavors and textures of his brisket banh mi and smoked crab rangoon come from other lands. “I’ve always wanted to marry the Asian […]
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The Melanin Martha celebrates Juneteenth at Monday Night Foodball
“I’m really trying to think of ways for us to take the trauma that’s linked to our food and uplift it in ways that makes us feel good and connected to who we are and our cultural identity,” says Jordan Wimby, aka the Melanin Martha, the subject of my column this week. You can see […]
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It’s a Lebanese-Armenian family feast at the next Monday Night Foodball
Lebanon and Armenia are separated by vast stretches of Syria and eastern Turkey, but when Mary Eder-McClure and Kat Stuehrk Talo compared notes about the heroic family meals they grew up on, they discovered that similarities in the food they ate shrank the distance. For one thing, there’s the abundance of generosity. And the stuffed […]
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The Melanin Martha wants Black food to triumph over its trauma
Jordan Wimby was the only Black kid on her Beverly block, and she ate like everyone else: Lunchables, Tyson chicken nuggets, TV dinners, and frozen potpies. “Growing up I was surrounded by this conversation of racism, oppression, colonialism,” says Wimby, whose mother and grandparents were teachers (most of them CPS) who specialized in American and […]
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Kedai Tapao returns to kick off a summer of Monday Night Foodballs
Annnnd we’re back . . . Last January when the couple behind Malaysian pop-up Kedai Tapao took an extended winter break to visit the folks back in Kuala Lumpur, Jennifer Pou-Alesi spent her first week quarantined in the comfort of her old bedroom, eating home cooking and tapao (“takeout”) of her street hawker favorites (roti […]