“I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet,” wrote mycologist Paul Stamets. “A consciousness with which we might be able to communicate.” Yeah, that’s also kind of how a figurative fungal network operated when Sauce and Bread Kitchen’s Mike Bancroft infused an Italian-style amaro with shitake mushrooms and gave Drew Fox a taste. Invisible […]
Author Archives: Mike Sula
Posted inFeature
The Reader’s 2023 Holiday Gift Guide
1 Chicago stepping lessons from award-winning south sider Shaun Ballentine of Effortless Stepping. —Salem Collo-Julin Open group lessons Wednesdays at 7 PM, Effortless Stepping Studio, 1850 E. 79th. $20 per person, 21+ only. For private lesson rates or information about having Ballentine do a stepping class at your event, message through Instagram or Facebook. 2 […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Cadinho Bakery explores the dazzling world of Portuguese pastry
Alejandra Rivera kept burning the pastéis de nata. The flaky Portuguese egg custard tartlets, known the world over, should have a bit of dark-brown caramelized stippling on top, but the numbers on the old oven in her little flat had worn off, so she kept scorching the iconic pastries. Rivera and her husband were reluctantly […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
It’s a Balkan three-peat with the Brothers Milunovic at the next Monday Night Foodball
I’d happily eat a shoe leather sandwich every day if I had unfettered access to Nemanja Milunovic’s tortoise shell-shaped somun bread. There was a brief period back in summer-autumn 2021 when I could have it whenever I wanted. That was when Milunovic operated Kiosk Balkan Street Food out of a ghost kitchen a mere mile […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Pierogi Papi does dumplings at the next Monday Night Foodball
All Max Glassman had was a torn, water-stained recipe card. That’s what was left of his Busia Rose’s pierogi recipe. “It was what to do with the water and the flour, but it wasn’t how much and there were no ingredients,” says Glassman. “It just said warm water, and then it was letting the mixture […]
Posted inFood & Drink
At the upcoming Bonyeon, chef Sangtae Park will have a hundred tastes in his head
Thirty-one years ago, the Leo Burnett Company, on behalf of Michigan Avenue’s erstwhile National Live Stock and Meat Board, branded cattle flesh onto the American brain with the slogan, “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.” That’s not a bad run by advertising standards, but it’s nothing compared to “One head with a hundred tastes,” or “일두백미,” […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
This year is getting old, but Monday Night Foodball is brand-new
I spent nine mornings last month in Portugal eating every possible pastry I could: among them pastéis de nata, pastéis de feijão, croissant brioche, travesseiros, Jesuítas, and the infamous pudim Abade de Priscos, aka bacon pudding. That was for work. And for work, I mean training in preparation for Cadinho Bakery’s debut on the new […]
Posted inFood & Drink
18th Street Distillery brings weird, wonderful new spirits to the midwest
A 25-gallon oak barrel sits upright on a pallet among hundreds of others in a former furniture factory in Hammond, Indiana. Drew Fox lays it on its side, yanks out the bung, and inserts a long, copper whiskey thief into its depths. From that he drains a luminous, tobacco-colored liquid into a pair of juice glasses […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Fuck Around and Find Out with Rafa Esparza and Anthony Baier at the next Monday Night Foodball
The voice on the phone cracked with emotion. “When I ask people, ‘Did you like it?’ I really want them to be honest. I mean, if there’s something about it that’s a mess, they can let me know as long as they’re not assholes about it. Because yeah, I’m a person. My feelings get hurt […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
All hell breaks loose with Chubby Boy’s Burgers at the next Monday Night Foodball
Mondays take a lot out of me. That’s why most other days when the sun starts sinking, I’m slapping on the night cream, pulling on my Dr. Dentons, and getting ready to hit the hay before the freaks come out at night. That’s also why I was ignorant of the summerlong rotating residency of Chubby […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Piñatta paints the tortilla black at the next Monday Night Foodball
Back in October 2015 Burger King’s limited edition black-bunned Halloween Whopper provided an unanticipated spooky surprise: it turned people’s poop green. Such a thing never would have happened in October 1492 when most people in the western hemisphere were mostly eating plants—and didn’t eat artificial food coloring. Or burgers. Such a thing will not happen […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Join the Filipino food movement with Mabu Yami at the next Monday Night Foodball
Matisse and Buko are good boys who have been best friends from the beginning. Together they’re known as “Mabu,” which makes their ears perk up whenever anyone shouts “Mabuhay!” Matisse and Buko are the Shiba Inu and Australian shepherd-Lab mix that are also best friends with, respectively, best friends Nicholas del Carmen and Evan Kalaw, […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Laimoon normalizes wood-fired pita at the next Monday Night Foodball
Brandon Dumot traffics in soft, warm five-inch saucers of astonishment, pillows of char-stippled pita bread that gently exhale steamy gusts when he pulls them from the fire. They taste like they’re alive. Most of us are so accustomed to plastic-shrouded factory flatbread—dead bread—that when you first encounter a fresh one, licked by live fire and […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Shaker Barbeque takes you down at the next Monday Night Foodball
Shaker Barbeque ended its summerlong weekend stand at Ludlow Liquors last week, and the barbecue sauce smeared across my sticky gob hadn’t even dried before jefe Mike Shaker made a break for the nation’s capital to clean it out of shellfish and go swimming in a river of Aperol and Prosecco. By the time I’d […]
Posted inMonday Night Foodball
Dive Bistro creates a Waffle House à la campagne at the next Monday Night Foodball
At La Maison de la Gaufre in the tiny French village of Pourriture, they serve boudin noir Big Macs with pork blood Special Sauce until the sun comes up. It was a life-changing, late-night hangover helper at this mythical oasis that inspired chefs Kevin Ealey, Joy Kirkland, and John Dahlstrom to unite under the banner […]