164 BCE: The Maccabees have taken Jerusalem from the Seleucids and begun cleaning up the mess the occupiers left in the Second Temple. They’ve lit up the menorah, but there’s only enough sacred oil to last one day. Yet, on day two it keeps burning. And so it goes on days three, four, five, six, […]
Tag: the Kedzie Inn
Preview a brave new Kimski at the next Monday Night Foodball
Won Kim does not care that your grandma hates his food. One month into a five-month sabbatical from Bridgeport’s Korean-Polish Kimski, and the chef is feeling fine. “I think I did a pretty good job trying to respect each culture,” he says. “I was downright fucking paranoid and scared to honor the babcias and the […]
It’s a barbecue Umamicue Friendsgiving at the next Monday Night Foodball
The Pilgrims were not invited to the first Friendsgiving in 1622. The year before all that Puritan-flavored canned cranberry sauce, chalky white meat, and bland so-dry-you-choke-on-it stuffing taught the Wampanoag a lesson. So a few days ahead of November 24, they secretly gathered on the shady side of Plymouth Rock and pregamed their dreary holiday […]
Texas returns to Mexico with Heffer BBQ at the next Monday Night Foodball
Texas was once Mexican. Texas is Mexican again this November 14 when Heffer BBQ returns to Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at the Kedzie Inn in Irving Park. I’m sure you remember back in September, the last time someone parked a 500-gallon offset smoker outside the bar and the sweet haze of […]
Piñatta conquers Monday Night Foodball with a plant-based, precolonial Mexican Menu
Before the Spaniards showed up, nobody ate carne asada super burritos in this hemisphere. Nobody celebrated their birthday with a sombrero-topped flan. The Aztecs definitely didn’t start off dinner with queso fundido washed down with “Infamous” margaritas. And neither will you, when plant-based, precolonial taqueria Piñatta takes over the kitchen at the Kedzie Inn this […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Be good to yourself with the return of Tasting India to the next Monday Night Foodball
Update as of Mon 8/15/22 at 11:30 AM: Unfortunately Monday Night Foodball has been canceled tonight due to illness. Next Foodball is still on for Mon 8/22, and future dates are listed at the end of this article. Jasmine Sheth has had a hell of a year. Last March the impresario of the always fascinating Tasting India meal […]
Party like it’s Indonesian Independence Day with Waroeng and Friends at the next Monday Night Foodball
I’m not promising anything, but there might be a shrimp chip-eating contest at the Kedzie Inn this Monday. That’s what frequently happens on Tujuhbelasan, aka Indonesian Independence Day, the anniversary of the popular revolution that eventually kicked the Dutch out of the archipelago. What I do promise is a party fueled by the combined culinary […]
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 […]