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 […]
Category: Food & Drink Feature
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Ørkenoy is deserted no more
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 […]
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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.
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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 […]
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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.
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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 […]
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Bernardo Medina’s Sofrito Manifesto slaps like a flip-flop
Bernardo Medina’s mother chased him into art with a foam rubber flip-flop. “Latina mothers call it a chancleta,” says Medina, a San Juan, Puerto Rico-based pop artist and publicist. “It is the weapon that they use against you as a kid. I was very hyper, and since there were no medications for it, it was […]
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Like a blazing fried chicken, Thommy’s Toddy Shop rises from the ashes at the Next Monday Night Foodball
The Colonel came out of retirement to make KFC at the Kedzie Inn. OK, Thom Padanilam does not have an honorific title from the Indian state of Kerala. Someday, probably, but for now he’s back in the game as the boss man of Thommy’s Toddy Shop, the pandemic-born Malayali food pop-up and podi peddler he […]
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The tastes of home
It’s a common refrain in the city: Chicago summer is so worth the wait. Newbies and transplants can feel the buzz of opportunity in the air when the weather starts to turn. Visceral summer memories fuel locals through even the coldest, darkest months. And many of those memories involve food and drink—cookouts, summer cocktails, farmers’ […]
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If you teach a girl to pickle
Food has been the thread, through hope and grief.
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Drink less, party more
Many people are starting to refocus on wellness and realizing that their relationship with alcohol isn’t particularly . . . sustainable. And as is the case with all toxic connections that have run their course, it may be time for a break, babe.
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Something magic’s growing at Back of the Yards Algae Sciences
Vivid green fluid silently courses down a vertical stack of cascading glass tubes on the third floor of the Plant, the sustainability-oriented Back of the Yards small business incubator where the meat-packer Peer Foods once processed industrial quantities of ham, bacon, and sausage in cavernous stainless steel smokers. Nearby, spirulina-spiked Beyond Burgers sizzle and char […]
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Sugar and snacks and everything nice
What would you do with 22.4 pounds of treats?
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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 […]
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Dawn Lewis wants you to “try meh hand” at the next Monday Night Foodball
Update: an earlier version of this post included an incorrect email address for ordering. The correct email is: Deesrotichicago@dsroti.com Most days the freshest, flakiest, most diaphanous Trinidadian roti in the city must be consumed al trunko on the 2500 block of South Wabash with your blinkers on (it’s the only spot for roti, in fact). […]