Georgia Gilmore’s Club From Nowhere sold peach pie and pound cake to support the carpool system that sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. Sixty-five years later, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, the Bakers Against Racism movement followed her path and took the ad hoc social justice bake sale worldwide. “Black folks, we […]
Author Archives: Mike Sula
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Behold, a brand-new pumpkin spice-flavored Monday Night Foodball schedule
I told you it was coming. The world is burning, but there’s plenty of patio time left in the year. I have here the eight chefs who are going to fill it—and feed you—at Ludlow Liquors, the home base of Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up—now in its third year! Kicking it off […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Local food books you might have missed—and some you shouldn’t
Years ago, at the height of the craze, I bought an Instant Pot. Of course I had to have the largest size possible—the eight-quart. If I’d read any reviews, I might have learned that this hissing countertop monster had a few technical liabilities that the smaller ones didn’t. I was particularly annoyed that I couldn’t […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Diaspora weaves together the threads of the Black culinary experience at the next Monday Night Foodball
Nanny Evon could throw down chicken and dumplings for her 21 siblings and cousins like it was nothing. “She cooked for all of them,” says Rob Carter. “She doesn’t know how to cook for a small group of people.” That’s just one thing Carter got from his grandmother. I saw it myself earlier this summer […]
Posted inFood & Drink, Monday Night Foodball
It’s breakfast for dinner with Vargo Brother Ferments at the next Monday Night Foodball
You know how it goes. You spend your sweaty, fitful sleeping hours tossing and turning, dreaming of biscuits and gravy; eggs and hash; ham, cheese, and jam deep-fried French toast sandwiches. Your stomach is gnawing on itself, and when the alarm finally rings, you bolt upright out of your stupor and—damn! It’s 6 PM already. […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Publican Quality Meats butcher Rob Levitt returns to the kitchen—but don’t call it a comeback
One Off introduces PM at PQM, a casual after-hours cafe featuring a debut menu of plates that is at once hauntingly Mado-esque and evolved, coming from a chef who’s done a lot of eating, cooking, and living since 2010.
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Immortal Milk summons a bizarro seaside fry shack at the next Monday Night Foodball
On a faraway beach in a land only now rising above the water, a shack sits between the dunes and the crashing waves. For all you know, you could be in Galicia, Oaxaca, Normandy, or on the white sands of Boracay. It’s impossible to say because the sandaled, wine-swilling terry-clothed Speedo specters idling around this […]
Posted inFood & Drink
It’s Dhuaan BBQ’s greatest hits at the next Monday Night Foodball
Do you know how long it has been since you’ve housed a Philly Masala Cheesesteak? I’m talking about the signature sandwich of Dhuaan BBQ Company: that gooey cheesesteak seasoned in the style of the famous seekh kebab from Mumbai’s legendary Bademiya. At best it’s been a complete trip around the sun—if you happened upon the […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Schneider Deli returns to the next Monday Night Foodball—just because it can
Arthur Salk loved a good burger. I mean, he probably did. I can’t say for sure, because the renowned architect behind the midcentury masterpiece that is the Ohio House Motel passed on last November at the ripe old age of 97. I’m certain he’d be delighted that its attendant but frequently vacant diner, the former […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Bow before the Hot Dog Box at the next Monday Night Foodball
The Sausage King and Boss Lady Brooklyn have conquered Bronzeville. They wielded their blinged-out, quarter-pound steak scepters in Portage Park. Currently they’re—ahem—reigning hot dogs on Block 37 at Urbanspace. But there’s really only one way to bend the knee under the shimmering lights in the warm summer breeze with a gator sausage in your paw, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Maman Zari has the only fine-dining Persian tasting menu in the country
Last November, chef Matteo Lo Bianco took a crash course in Persian food. Each day he’d show up at Farzad Shahsavarani’s house and begin cooking under the eye of his former boss, and his sister Farideh. They made all the classics: the intensely herbaceous lamb and bean stew, ghormeh sabzi; the fruity egg-stuffed meatballs, kofte […]
Posted inFood & Drink
It’s West African street food with Dozzy’s Grill at the next Monday Night Foodball
There would be no jambalaya without jollof rice, and yet Dozzy Ibekwe figures most people in Chicago can’t name one West African restaurant. “[West African food has] been around since the beginning of time,” he says. “So it’s really not something that’s foreign. In fact, it’s been a part of the American journey since the […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Raise your glass to Lucky when Laos to Your House returns to Monday Night Foodball
On Saturday nights, Lucky Seuamsothabandith kicks back with his buddies, drinking Henny and Perrier. There’s always a spread on the table, and it invariably includes yum seen, the minty, chili-flecked beef salad with red onions, lime, fish sauce, and toasted rice powder that’s the ideal Lao drinking food. “I try to outlast them,” says his […]
Posted inFood & Drink
From the finest kitchen scraps in the city, Wilson Bauer summons the best worm poop
For more than a year, Flour Power has produced almost no food waste. It all gets tossed into two large Amazon courier totes Wilson Bauer stores just to the right of his toilet.
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
It’s a brand-new, late summer schedule for Monday Night Foodball
If you haven’t binged the second season of The Bear yet, skip ahead to the fifth paragraph for news of the new late summer schedule for Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Ludlow Liquors. If you have seen it, you know it’s full of a lot of the same white-knuckled, barely controlled […]