There are some 38 uninhabited islands in Norway,* and three in Humboldt Park. Of course, there are the two in the Lagoon, but these days Ørkenoy—the two-year-old Nordic-inspired brewery, cocktail bar, and restaurant—is “deserted” in name only. (The word is a rough mash-up of two Norwegian words: ørken, for desert, and oy, for island.) But […]
Category: Food & Drink
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
The once and future Sausage King of Bronzeville rules the next Monday Night Foodball
The Hot Dog Box is a ketchup-safe zone. “I know they say you’re not supposed to put ketchup on hot dogs,” says Bobby Morelli. “But I think you know I don’t really follow rules.” As befits the Sausage King of Bronzeville—or rather, Portage Park—Morelli can do as he pleases. Since I wrote about him a […]
Posted inFood & Drink
A new kind of recipe book
(A)Part: A Recipe Guide-book to Chicago (if you will) is meant to introduce the reader to different restaurants, recipes, neighborhoods, and cultural landmarks through the eyes of 27 different Chicagoans.
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Demand your deli from Schneider Provisions at the next Monday Night Foodball
Jake Schneider’s path in life was derailed by Shabbat. In college, he majored in economics and planned to be a businessman, but after he started cooking Friday Sabbath dinner for his campus Hillel organization, he realized his place was in the kitchen. On breaks, he returned to Chicago and knocked on restaurant doors, offering to […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
It’s the Night of the Copi with Chả Cá Nuggs at the next Monday Night Foodball
Everyone knows that the popularity of the McDonald’s McNugget led to the eradication of the passenger pigeon, the Bering cackling goose, and the Spix’s macaw. That’s ancient history, man. But, as I wrote last week, there’s a far less tragic outcome in store for the invasive fish formerly known as the Asian carp, aka the […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
It’s a night of fresh pastabilities with Gemma Foods at the next Monday Night Foodball
Nobody makes eating fresh pasta at home easier than Tony Quartaro. Since I wrote about him last summer, the former Formento’s chef installed his roving fresh pasta delivery service Gemma Foods into a permanent Grand Avenue brick-and-mortar. Now you can watch your farro mafaldine rolled out and cut in the window, take it home, and […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Chả Cá Nuggs takes a nose-to-tail fin approach to eating the invasive copi
The invasive fish formerly known as Asian carp was renamed “copi” earlier this summer by the Department of Natural Resources. Short for “copious,” the state hopes that a vaguely Mediterranean-sounding rebranding will entice consumers to eat more of the bony, obscenely prolific, freshwater filter feeders that have outcompeted native species for all that good Illinois […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
It’s chicken and waffle night at Monday Night Foodball
The chickens roam freely over the pastures at Avrom Farm in Ripon, Wisconsin. But you might have spotted them in the wild this season at the Green City or Wicker Park farmers’ markets, where they nest on warm buckwheat waffles battered with their own eggs.
This Wednesday they’re flocking to Irving Park for Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly pop-up chef series at the Kedzie Inn.
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Kitchfix celebrates its tenth anniversary
Fall is a time of coming together and enjoying a bounty of good food, and this month Kitchfix’s tenth anniversary gives us a new reason to celebrate the season. Launched in Chicago in 2012, the company has spent the past decade servicing the city and its surrounding suburbs with delicious meals mindfully created and approved […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Food books are falling this month
Four titles dropping over the next four weeks—by a quartet of heavy hitters—offer plenty of projects for the cold weather kitchen-bound.
Posted inFood & Drink
Umamicue and Friends smoke out the neighborhood at the next Monday Night Foodball
The mad rush for limited walk-in orders begins at 5:30 PM this Monday, September 19, but you can secure your preorders for this barbecue supergroup right now.
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
The Melanin Martha gets rational at the next Monday Night Foodball
Since we left her last June, Jordan Wimby has taken a rational approach to pop-ups. “The amount of food enslaved people were given by owners was referred to as rations,” says Wimby, aka The Melanin Martha. “Corn or fatback or any of the things that the people in the house didn’t wanna eat. These small […]
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Pastry chef Ollyvia Putri’s 20-layer cakes are legit
Ollyvia Putri insists on only canned Wijsman sweetcream salted butter for her “bacon cake.” “I cannot change that,” she says of the imported Dutch butter. “My grandma would kill me.” “For problem-free use in tropical countries,” the distinctive red cans of Wijsman can run up to $10 for less than half a pound. But that’s […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Funeral Potatoes get light in the loafers at the Next Monday Night Foodball
Oranges were the only fruit aboard the Revenge. Even if Captain Stede Bonnet couldn’t taste them in the 40-orange cake he ordered—and even if the crew got scurvy—at least he caught Blackbeard’s eye. And with that the HBO comedy Our Flag Means Death cleansed the Florida orange of its residual 70s-era anti-LGBTQ+ rot, and repositioned […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Vargo Brother Ferments embraces Fast Food Nation at the next Monday Night Foodball
Taylor Hanna and Sebastian Vargo are masters of the fine art of low and slow fermentation. And they’re strict disciples of the Paul Masson Primary Principle: “We will sell no wine before its time.” So after a long hard day in the Vargo Brother Ferments underground caverns, putting up their signature G-Dilla Pickles, PowerKraut, collard […]