Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hot Dog! A History of Chicago Foods

Tuesday, April 15, 7:00 p.m.

Everyone knows that Chicago is famous for great foodstuffs such as hot dogs and deep dish pizza. Whatare the origins of these delicacies and how did they evolve into the yummy treats we know today? What other goodies were invented in Chicago and how did the Windy City become an ethnic cuisine capital?

Join Museum historian Sarah Marcus and our panel of experts, including Monica Eng of the Chicago Tribune, and Bruce Kraig and Peter Engler of the Culinary Historians of Chicago, as they give you a taste of Chicago’s food history.

Arrive early to enjoy free Chicago-style hot dogs, courtesy of Vienna Beef, from 6:15–7:00 p.m.

Cost: $10; $8 members.

It’s a process. And it takes almost as long as producing one new penguin.

My oven was on for hours and hours and hours. Filled the house with a cozy, herbalicious scent. It was worth it. And the house didn’t burn down.

The last stove…well, porchetta probably would not have cut the mustard. The fire department guys had been by at least twice with their caution tape and slathered it liberally across the front of the oven door. As they rode off happily in the hook-n-ladder I peeled and crumpled the tape and turned the gas back on at the wall. Long as a burner was flaming, the leak would be absorbed. That’s how I figured it. Very, very childproof, seeing as you needed a bit of muscle power to twist that gas cut-off valve.

Read all about how to do it up here:

Put A Little Italy in Your Pork Roast

You wouldn’t think that bbq sauce would be part of the manifesto, but it is. Interesting.

I took this picture and it’s not too bad, actually. The light in my kitchen is so nice – surroundsound light. 

When I ascend to the throne, Virgin Proclamation: Get Rid of Those Stupid Plastic Boxes for Herbs! Long, graceful stalks contorted to fit a teensy, see-through case. All busted up and cracked in pieces. Don’t like it and it seems unnecessarily cruel.

Renee Comet took this beautiful picture and the one below, too. She has the huge advantage of not depending on luck (like me).

This is what you do to embed the pork shoulder with deep and abiding fla-vah. Score it. More surface for enhancement, embellishment, taste-adornment. Then cook it. Slowly. For ages.

And whaddya get? A sandwich. It’s a journey.

Last spring, in the central, frigid days of March, I had the pleasure of sharing an 8×8 foot cabin for 3 days and nights with the hilarious Karen Barry Schwarz, who had been a stranger prior. Did not get much shut-eye as Karen warms up around midnight and her humor hones on a half-sleeping funny bone.

The powers that be had no trouble matching us as cabin-mates seeing as we were the only two women on this rock-n-roll-esque retreat. Minus the verboten drugs and alcohol. (No wonder I couldn’t sleep.)

(Styling by me. Can you believe this is a job? For French Meadow, a very cool, all organic baking outfit.)

Did you know that Bread is Dangerous?
Let Karen enlighten you.

Ed Moose Savage‘s new album on the Guinea Pig label includes Bread is Dangerous and the “monumental hit” Iceberg Lettuce.

At the end of our weekended close encounter Karen said to me, “I was dreading you.” Ha.

Quite white, isn’t it?
Is mayonnaise the food of undesire? Is it a testosterone-free zone?

Washington Post reporter Bomani Armah’s comment that Obama should put more mayonnaise on his sandwiches struck me as racist or sexist or somehow icky. Okay, it was tongue in cheek, but still…

Since then I heard a report from a man who, due to a medical condition, had been utterly depleted of testosterone. Without testosterone you are without desire. Of any kind. For any thing. The man claimed that during his testosterone-free stretch he did not care about anything. He did not care what he ate. Wonder bread covered with mayonnaise would have been fine, he said.

By proclaimining Obama should “show ’em his white side”, perhaps Bomani Armah is asking the candidate to tone down his masculinity. His virility. Somehow this doesn’t sit right with me. Just sayin. We all know the stereotypes in question.

What do virile men put on their sandwiches? Metal shavings? Unrefined petrol?

“Toast” is coming, a dark Crazy Horse classic for the ages. This first NYA “Special Edition” is the beginning of a new series of unreleased albums.

More here on I’m Nobody! Who R U?

Are you crazy for Neil Young? Admittedly, I am not, but hope someday to crack the code and enter his world. I’m certainly crazy for enough of his devotees. Two degrees of separation, no wait, only one degree, makes me crazish. Close enough.

NY Latino Journal, Breaking Through to the Other Side

Forty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop“, followed by his assination in Memphis, Bomani Armah writes in his story, Okay, Barack. Now Show ‘Em Your White Side, (The Washington Post, March 23, 2008),

Barack Obama is as white as he is black. Staffers need to start snapping as many pictures as possible of him putting mayonnaise on his sandwiches and shaking hands straight up and down (no more low-fives that evolve into a shake with that pat on the back).

As white as he is black. How do we gauge what is embedded in each of us? Are we what we eat? Multi-faceted all, are we not? I don’t think you can expose one side without the light of your other facets shining through.

Black enough or white enough does not concern me. Is he man enough?

Here is Obama making tuna fish sandwiches and using…..mayonnaise!

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. …. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. …Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 3, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee  

Isn’t this so beautiful? For a burger in particular. Shot by an isn’t-she-so-talented photographer. Taran Z.

(Styled by me.)

I used to say, and probably still say, “isn’t this so cute?” about stuff, whatever. And my son, my testosterone-fueled, wipes-my kisses-off-his-face-while-sleeping, mesmerized-by-fire-power son, would say, in an effort to ingratiate himself to the person who was and is wildly in love with him, “Isn’t that so cute, mom?”. He didn’t know. Cute? Is that a word?

Wow, roast beef cliffs, unidentifiable foam embankments, and parsley that has never looked so bedraggled. I believe my appetite is beyond lost. It is MIA with no dog tags.

What gives with the steady stream of bizarre food ads??

In reference to my favorite off-color joke, let’s saunter down there and get us some roast beef for sandwiches. There is no beautiful urgency in the “land of lean beef”

Truly it’s more of a handwave. Call it the Sandwich Shove, or the Frame Finagle or the Pastrami Push. Any way you slice it, this is the universal gesture signaling dedication to eating with your hands.

James Farber demonstrates his sandwich devotion above. Caught him redhanded and had to laugh. In this one simple act he coined a new language. It’s a sign. An all encompassing sign.

When your digits are too slick for frame adjustment, and napkin use is too much of a lunch encounter speedbump, you got to put your wrists to work. They should be clean, after all, even if you are up to your elbows in Katz’s pastrami.