This is a list of what my sister and I could remember from our dinner at Alinea. I thought there were 28 courses but we could only remember 24. So maybe it was 24 courses. At any rate here they are, probably in the wrong order:
i / Amuse-bouche : zucchini, mango, saffron, and chamomile
ii / Kudos for not only room-temperature (ie spreadable) butter, but two kinds of butter - goat's milk and cow's milk (I liked the cow's milk better - it tasted like the cultured butter jessica and I made over IAP)
1 / Heart of Palm in five sections : vanilla pudding, fava bean with preserved lemon, garlic bulghur wheat with a garlic chip on top, prune puree, pumpernickel bread with black truffles (a note here: this was so much fun to eat! each piece was placed on a pedestal, and the way they tell you to eat the thing is to tip it back into your mouth as if you're taking a shot)
2 / Salmon : a dollop of frozen sour cream with microplaned salmon on top (this was resting on a charger and you picked it up by the sorrel leaf implanted in it to eat it)
3 / Soy : eggplant semifreddo, wax beans, and octopus with the most wonderful soy froth (and I usually don't go for froths and foams, but here it was wonderful)
4 / Striped bass : striped bass cooked in a custard (that was basically like the most wonderful chowder you've ever had, taste-wise) with water chesnuts and mussels, served in a bowl that was set into a larger bowl filled with rose petals - when they served it they poured hot water in the outer bowl and you smelled roses as you ate
5 / A1 : all the flavors/ingredients of A1 steak sauce, dissected and separated out, served on little mounds of mashed potatoes and connected by a paper-thin ribbon of potato, which was fried at the end and rested on slices of perfectly-cooked rib-eye (interestingly, you don't have any say in how well-done you want the meat, although i think you could send it back if you really wanted to)
6 / Chanterelle soup : chanterelle soup with, um...ok, I can't remember. Sorry.
7 / Zucchini cake : served on a wire and you leaned forward to eat it, no hands allowed; it had a bit of angelica root confit on top (do any of my Carlisle friends remember our superhero dinner party and the kryptonite cake? that's what color it was...)
8 / Lobster ravioli : lobster puffs (like cheese puffs - actually they were like those shrimp chips you get with the crispy chicken in a chinese banquet) on top of bright orange coconut milk ravioli, on top of chunks of lobster and "young coconut," in a lobster lemongrass consomme (say that five times fast!)
9 / Tobacco : a spoon with a little rectangle of tobacco custard on it, and a blackberry resting on top of the custard (strange to have my first taste of tobacco in a custard - it was foreign but not bad)
10 / Lamb : lamb pop (this phrase brings to mind josh's lamburger menu) - lamb coated with a mild mustard and preserved lemon, deep fried and served on the "squid" piece of food servery that the pb + j used to be served on - it's a circular base with a bunch of wires poking out from the middle point on the base, and then they umbrella out and hold the food
11 / Eucalpytus : eucalyptus yogurt, apricot puree, lemon thyme, and a milk custard all encased in a glass tube with open ends and you suck the whole thing out like a jello shot
12 / Sunflower seeds : sunflower seed soup (or was this part of the chanterelle soup?) with little capsules filled with sunflower juice and a slice of plaintain
13 / Cherry : served in a trumpet-shaped aperitif glass, a little cylinder of cherry sorbet with a stem sticking out of it as a handle
14 / Snap peas : snap peas, ham, fresh tofu, and crispy yuba, all served in a bowl set on a pillow of lavender air, so it surrounded you with provence while you ate
15 / Squab : squab breast and its foie gras (oh my god...so good....) in a cream-based sauce and caramelized onions, with a garnish of watermelon and fennel gelee, with grated licorice on top, served in a bowl that was shaped like an angular hourglass so you kept on finding more food
16 / Oysters : oyster cream and sevruga caviar with "chervil broth" on top (i'd never had oysters or caviar before, and wow, the caviar tastes like the ocean, concentrated...)
17 / Bison : bison topped with frizzled onions and shaved black truffle (crunchy!), with new potatoes and pistachios (ok, not really a fan of pistachios in any form)
18 / Bacon : wonderfully crisp bacon with micro-thin apple streamers attached to the end with a bit of fresh thyme, hanging from a wire seesaw - it looked like a bow and arrow, rocking back and forth on the curved part
19 / Maytag blue : maytag blue cheese (please, stop with the "bleu cheese"! we're in america, not ameriance!)...read the earlier entry for the complete description, but it looked like a smaller, rounder version of those chinese pastries that have the ground peanuts and sugar on the inside (the outside is a chewy type of skin made from rice flour and they're dipped in coconut flakes)
20 / beignet : served on a spoon, a single large bite of beignet filled with buttermilk that was flavored with lemon verbena (this was possibly the best doughnut type thing i've ever had, beyond that first krispy kreme that is...)
21 / corn cake : also described already in the original post, but i'll just reiterate here that this was absolutely amazing
22 / raspberries : served on this bowl/platter that was really a large platter with a small shallow bowl-like indentation in the middle, rather like a classy chip-n-dip type deal, but much nicer than the stuff people would churn out in ceramics classes at my high school
23 / chocolate : served on a long plate with the "cake" on one side and the semifreddo on the other, with sauce and candied dandelion bits in between - now i know what to do with all of those dandelions in the lawn at home
24 / vanilla : um, this was also described fairly descriptively in the previous post; it was served in a double-type glass
27 juillet 2005
26 juillet 2005
another bakery conquest
We made it into the bakery a couple blocks from my apartment right before it really started pouring. It’s funny (not in a good way) how here, after it rains, it doesn’t get any less humid. Anyway, I had been told to come into this bakery by the girl I’m subletting from, and again by another intern, and I finally made it over on Saturday morning. It pretends to be French, but it’s unclear if any French people actually work there. However, their pastries are quite wonderful. We got a ham and cheese croissant, a breakfast bun, and a cupcake. For breakfast, we had the ham and cheese croissant and the cupcake – the breakfast bun was for later. The ham and cheese croissant was great – the cheese had stayed all melty and the croissants were good, standard croissants. I don’t have that much experience with good and bad croissants, but basically I wouldn’t buy one at a supermarket and I definitely wouldn’t want to buy one at Costco. I think the ones you make yourself are ultimately the best ones, although the ones Josh brought back from Paris that one year were really good too (surprise surprise). The cupcake was really wonderful – sponge cake with whipped cream on it, topped with a thin layer of ganache. It was possibly the best cupcake I’ve had since the freshman picnic my sophomore year when Miriam made the chocolate cupcakes with marmalade. We had the breakfast bun after we got back from shopping and before Alinea, and it was also excellent – not too sticky, and not too soft or crunchy. If one were to go to the bakery to sit there it would be great – there are outside tables and it’s just like a café in Paris!
I still haven't quite found a satisfactory bakery yet, sadly. I think what I really want is one imported from France...
I still haven't quite found a satisfactory bakery yet, sadly. I think what I really want is one imported from France...
buffet (prounounced with the British accent)
The day after we went to Alinea, Nora and I headed over to Wicker Park to have brunch at Thyme Café. We got the bus and the train without a hitch, but when we exited the station we discovered that Milwaukee, Damen, and North all meet in a huge mess, since the street signs don’t really tell you where you’re going. We did eventually find our bearings, and made it to the restaurant without getting too scorched in what would become 100-degree weather. This part of Wicker Park reminds me a little of Allston and Brighton – there are neat places to explore, but it’s slightly dingy (ah, gentrification).
The restaurant is pretty pleasant – they have a brunch buffet, with live music. The music was a little loud, but fun, and a welcome accompaniment to brunch. The food was excellent, and I don’t know why I haven’t been to more brunch buffets. Perhaps I liked this one because it was the first one I’ve been to, and the novelty hasn’t worn off the way it has for dinner buffets. At any rate, there were many good things about it: the scrambled eggs, challah french toast with marmalade, spinach-goat cheese ravioli (an odd choice for brunch, but they were really good), and perfect bacon. Oh, and of course there were desserts: little mini coffeecakes that were soaked with cinnamon sugar syrup, cream puffs whose whipped-cream insides melted in your mouth, and tiny, dense cream cheese brownies. The fruit was sweet and fresh, though the salad was the last thing I wanted to eat at brunch with so many other delectable things to try. A pasta salad with…goat cheese and some sort of vegetable (you can see how memorable this one was) was similarly not compelling.
I can see why restaurants like to do brunches, and like to not do brunches. Brunches bring in money for a range of dishes that’s not very diverse – it’s as if everyone is cooking from the same proverbial cookbook – and if it’s a buffet you don’t have the same service needs. On the flip side, the lack of range bites you in the butt because you can’t be very creative (which is the desire of most chefs, if not all of them). I’m not sure if this is completely true, but it seems that the more posh a restaurant is, the less likely it is to do brunch.
The restaurant is pretty pleasant – they have a brunch buffet, with live music. The music was a little loud, but fun, and a welcome accompaniment to brunch. The food was excellent, and I don’t know why I haven’t been to more brunch buffets. Perhaps I liked this one because it was the first one I’ve been to, and the novelty hasn’t worn off the way it has for dinner buffets. At any rate, there were many good things about it: the scrambled eggs, challah french toast with marmalade, spinach-goat cheese ravioli (an odd choice for brunch, but they were really good), and perfect bacon. Oh, and of course there were desserts: little mini coffeecakes that were soaked with cinnamon sugar syrup, cream puffs whose whipped-cream insides melted in your mouth, and tiny, dense cream cheese brownies. The fruit was sweet and fresh, though the salad was the last thing I wanted to eat at brunch with so many other delectable things to try. A pasta salad with…goat cheese and some sort of vegetable (you can see how memorable this one was) was similarly not compelling.
I can see why restaurants like to do brunches, and like to not do brunches. Brunches bring in money for a range of dishes that’s not very diverse – it’s as if everyone is cooking from the same proverbial cookbook – and if it’s a buffet you don’t have the same service needs. On the flip side, the lack of range bites you in the butt because you can’t be very creative (which is the desire of most chefs, if not all of them). I’m not sure if this is completely true, but it seems that the more posh a restaurant is, the less likely it is to do brunch.
25 juillet 2005
review: alinea : the intersection between food + architecture
alinea / 1723 north halsted / chicago il / 312-867-0110 / dinner wed-sun / reservations required / chef's tour $195 or 12-course tasting menu $135
So now that the hottest day I have ever experienced in my life is over (104 degrees, felt like 110, though thankfully not as humid as other days have been), I can think again. It has been two days since Nora and I had dinner at Alinea, and I am relieved and somewhat amazed that I can still eat “normal”/”regular” food. Dinner - or our experience, cliche as that may sound - was nothing short of stunning, from the food, to the service, to the perfectly plumped pillows on the banquette across from our table, to the guy speaking to a couple at the table next over from ours who handed off an empty water carafe behind his back to the guy on the way to the kitchen, without even looking, to the guy who passed our table when Nora was in the bathroom, frowned at the napkin folded in quarters (ok, he didn’t actually frown, but his entire movement towards the table was a frown), and refolded it into a rectangle. I am not a novice to fine dining, but never have I experienced such good service. It was a bit pretentious sometimes, which was particularly apparent to me as the one who really hates any kind of bullshit (yes, even when Leo made me cry in studio), but that was just the speaking bit, rather than the actual action-oriented part of the service. Of all of our servers, the one who wasn't in a suit was the one I liked best. I am just amazed, though, that the restaurant is able to coordinate service for so many tasting menus.
My general impression of the food is that it reminds me of the way I like my architecture (Celina, if you are reading this, stop laughing, I do not have architecture on the brain - I swear). You can’t innovate without knowing what already exists - in the way that Picasso’s early work is technically very good, but his later work is a complete departure - you cannot innovate without knowing what you’re innovating from. A genius doesn’t suddenly come up with an idea out of nowhere; rather, past experience is the basis for genius. Picasso wouldn’t have been Picasso if he hadn’t learned good technique first. Anyway, I digress. The food at Alinea is like Picasso, if you will - you can tell that technically it is quite flawless, but they have gone much further than just technical perfection. It’s really fun for the adventurous, not in the sense that you will be eating eel guts (gross), but in the sense that you will be experiencing all kinds of different ways to eat food, whether it is the combination of flavors, the juxtaposition of savory and sweet, or the combination of the actual food and its surrounding environment (aha! architecture again!). To say that Alinea’s food is like architecture is a surprise to me, because I hadn’t imagined food being able to create that kind of experience. Food for me has always been a social thing, influenced by the fact that I lived at LMF, and never ate a dinner not with my family during my eighteen years at home, and thus I was somewhat (pleasantly) surprised to find that it could be such an intellectual thing.
A word about the entrance: a bit theatrical, but of course I loved it. Architecturally it’s a bit ambiguous (one might say that the entryway's intentions were a bit ambiguous): I loved the entry hallway very much, with that moment of apprehension when you’re not sure why the inner door is shut and there’s no sign on it, until it opens, but once you do enter that door, there’s the staircase in front of you and the maitre d’ off to the right, and thus it’s a somewhat awkward way to circulate. Presumably the maitre d’ is off to the right to prevent people from walking into what looked to be a test kitchen at the end of the short hallway, but there are many other things that could also prevent circulation but still provide a glimpse of what’s there.
I will not go into every single course that we had, since I’m at work and supposedly I’m working, but here are some thoughts about some of my favorites. I thought that the mango overpowered the zucchini in the amuse bouche, but it’s probably the first time I’ve ever liked saffron. I loved the hearts of palm - or rather, the different fillings, since I now know that I’m kind of indifferent to hearts of palm in general. I liked the vanilla pudding and fava bean versions the best.
My other favorites: the frozen sour cream with the microplaned salmon, the striped bass, the eggplant semifreddo with soy froth, the squab, and the oyster cream.
A brief explanation why these were my favorites: I liked the sour cream/salmon because it was so fun to eat, and it worked so well even though it was totally unconventional. Who would have thought that microplaned salmon could be so good? I really loved the striped bass, which, in addition to having the world’s best water chestnuts in it, was surrounded by this wonderful floral aroma from the hot water poured over rose petals.
The eggplant semifreddo was mostly soy in flavor, but the soy was fantastic (and the maitre d’ was even kind enough to print out what soy sauce it was on the restaurant’s letterhead, though I admit that I preferred the sous chef’s handwritten version). The thing that made the squab so good was the grated licorice over it - in general I don’t like licorice, but at that point I was convinced that in any given course I would like things I don’t usually like, and in fact, the licorice gave the squab the perfect balancing note between the richness of the squab and the smooth coolness of the licorice. And lastly, the oyster cream just tasted so much of the ocean. Everything else, even if it wasn’t my cup of tea because of my food tastes, was still fabulous, and fun to eat - the breadth of new ways in which one can eat food was great. I rather had the sense that I was a visitor in the culinary version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (without the disasters, the Ooompa-Loompas, and the scary children).
Dessert, of course, gets its own paragraph(s). My sister got her second wind at the moment that dessert was served, and I was amazed to see the rapidity with which her plate emptied. I suspect that the pastry chef here, who came from Clio in Boston, finds himself able to do much more experimental things here than he did at Clio, and every single dessert was a perfect ten (there’s an earlier post somewhere about perfect-ten desserts, I think in my review of Aujourd’hui). In fact, some of those were probably somewhere in the stratosphere.
The first thing we had was a cheese course, “maytag blue,” which was blue cheese somehow formed into a ball filled with walnut milk, on top of celery and red wine jelly. Our server noted that the addition of celery was unusual (I have no idea if that’s true or not), and that it was actually quite good. Of course, we were beyond thinking that anything unusual wouldn’t be good, but it defied our expectations. I don’t know how the blue cheese got the light, airy, smooth consistency it had - it was how you would expect a marshmallow to taste, texture-wise, if you had never actually eaten one and just had the image of a marshmallow in your mind. The walnut milk was amazing - as I write more, I keep wishing that my friend Jessica had been with us, because she is the one other person I know besides my sister who would fully appreciate the food at Alinea.
The second dessert we had was a beignet filled with lemon verbena-infused buttermilk, which, while not as creative as the other desserts, perhaps, was still outstanding. It reminded me of the time I made ginger doughnuts last summer, except that the beignet was worlds better than my doughnuts were (note to anyone trying to make doughnuts: don’t make them when it’s really humid).
The third was a corn custard filled with honey, with vanilla ice, cornbread crumbs, and tonka bean crème anglaise. I don’t think I really have words to describe this combination, beyond “I absolutely loved it.” I especially liked the cornbread crumbs, which were almost unbelievably crispy.
The next dessert was a red pepper sorbet and foam with raspberries that were filled with rosewater gelee, on top of milk curd. This was the most unusual of the desserts, I think, and our server told us that there is a huge difference between red bell pepper with skin, and without. I am now in dire need of a red bell pepper so that I can taste this difference in a normal bell pepper. The dessert itself was amazing. (I think I’ve used that word too much already.) The kicker for me was that I was wondering what these little crunchy things were - they had a really familiar taste, but I couldn’t place what exactly they were. I looked at them, and I realized that they were bell pepper seeds - maybe fried? I was absolutely delighted.
The fifth dessert was the molten chocolate cake that is now quite famous - the one that consists of ganache sprayed with a thin layer of chocolate. That thing is incredible. The best thing about it, beyond the fact that the chocolate they used was wonderful, was the inclusion of fresh tarragon, and the candied dandelion root. The last thing I used tarragon for was roasting a chicken… When you ate the candied dandelion root, it was more of a texture initially, and as you chewed it longer, you got this wonderful grassy, wild flavor in your mouth.
The last dessert was the vanilla pod-sponge cake spoon, with the vanilla sauce/pudding and foam. It was really difficult not to eat the sponge cake before finishing the pudding.
The thing that makes Alinea so special for me is that it’s different for a reason, not different for the sake of being different. I have always hated anyone or anything that was different just to be different. Being different just to be different is a hallmark of bad architecture. Good architecture always has intentions and it should be clear from the architecture what those intentions are. That said, I think that the intentions of some of the food is a little unclear, although the vast majority of it was particularly wonderful. For example, there was that course with the zucchini cake speared on a wire, which you’re supposed to lean forward and eat. I like the idea of the specific way of eating (no-hands), but I wasn’t sure that the zucchini cake needed to be eaten in that way.
My only regret is whether or not I tipped correctly. Rather, I tipped correctly in the technical sense, but theoretically your tip is supposed to reflect how much you liked the restaurant. Then again, if I were to tip according to how much I liked the restaurant, I would probably be very broke right now. Ah, internal struggles. In the end I went with 20%, but if I had been a little more flush I probably would have gone at least a little higher than that. At any rate, I'm sure they get enough high rollers to make up for some of the slack that we poor people impose on them. ;)
Last comment in what is probably my longest post ever - the restaurant really made me feel at home. I don’t mean this in the service-was-friendly way (although it was), but rather, the creativity at Alinea is the same kind that I was surrounded by at home - that kind of zany, no-holds-barred type of environment I left behind when I came to Chicago for the summer. The intensity of everyone who works at the restaurant reminds of me of the intensity of my architecture studio last spring, which I miss desperately (I gave planning one last chance and I’ve determined that yes, it really isn’t for me). When I leave in August to go back to school, I will most certainly miss having the opportunity to go there. If you are in Chicago, and you can afford it, you must go here - it's just a joy to eat there. (Also, the chairs are actually comfortable to sit in - it really feels like you're sitting in somebody's very nice, minimalist living room.)
So now that the hottest day I have ever experienced in my life is over (104 degrees, felt like 110, though thankfully not as humid as other days have been), I can think again. It has been two days since Nora and I had dinner at Alinea, and I am relieved and somewhat amazed that I can still eat “normal”/”regular” food. Dinner - or our experience, cliche as that may sound - was nothing short of stunning, from the food, to the service, to the perfectly plumped pillows on the banquette across from our table, to the guy speaking to a couple at the table next over from ours who handed off an empty water carafe behind his back to the guy on the way to the kitchen, without even looking, to the guy who passed our table when Nora was in the bathroom, frowned at the napkin folded in quarters (ok, he didn’t actually frown, but his entire movement towards the table was a frown), and refolded it into a rectangle. I am not a novice to fine dining, but never have I experienced such good service. It was a bit pretentious sometimes, which was particularly apparent to me as the one who really hates any kind of bullshit (yes, even when Leo made me cry in studio), but that was just the speaking bit, rather than the actual action-oriented part of the service. Of all of our servers, the one who wasn't in a suit was the one I liked best. I am just amazed, though, that the restaurant is able to coordinate service for so many tasting menus.
My general impression of the food is that it reminds me of the way I like my architecture (Celina, if you are reading this, stop laughing, I do not have architecture on the brain - I swear). You can’t innovate without knowing what already exists - in the way that Picasso’s early work is technically very good, but his later work is a complete departure - you cannot innovate without knowing what you’re innovating from. A genius doesn’t suddenly come up with an idea out of nowhere; rather, past experience is the basis for genius. Picasso wouldn’t have been Picasso if he hadn’t learned good technique first. Anyway, I digress. The food at Alinea is like Picasso, if you will - you can tell that technically it is quite flawless, but they have gone much further than just technical perfection. It’s really fun for the adventurous, not in the sense that you will be eating eel guts (gross), but in the sense that you will be experiencing all kinds of different ways to eat food, whether it is the combination of flavors, the juxtaposition of savory and sweet, or the combination of the actual food and its surrounding environment (aha! architecture again!). To say that Alinea’s food is like architecture is a surprise to me, because I hadn’t imagined food being able to create that kind of experience. Food for me has always been a social thing, influenced by the fact that I lived at LMF, and never ate a dinner not with my family during my eighteen years at home, and thus I was somewhat (pleasantly) surprised to find that it could be such an intellectual thing.
A word about the entrance: a bit theatrical, but of course I loved it. Architecturally it’s a bit ambiguous (one might say that the entryway's intentions were a bit ambiguous): I loved the entry hallway very much, with that moment of apprehension when you’re not sure why the inner door is shut and there’s no sign on it, until it opens, but once you do enter that door, there’s the staircase in front of you and the maitre d’ off to the right, and thus it’s a somewhat awkward way to circulate. Presumably the maitre d’ is off to the right to prevent people from walking into what looked to be a test kitchen at the end of the short hallway, but there are many other things that could also prevent circulation but still provide a glimpse of what’s there.
I will not go into every single course that we had, since I’m at work and supposedly I’m working, but here are some thoughts about some of my favorites. I thought that the mango overpowered the zucchini in the amuse bouche, but it’s probably the first time I’ve ever liked saffron. I loved the hearts of palm - or rather, the different fillings, since I now know that I’m kind of indifferent to hearts of palm in general. I liked the vanilla pudding and fava bean versions the best.
My other favorites: the frozen sour cream with the microplaned salmon, the striped bass, the eggplant semifreddo with soy froth, the squab, and the oyster cream.
A brief explanation why these were my favorites: I liked the sour cream/salmon because it was so fun to eat, and it worked so well even though it was totally unconventional. Who would have thought that microplaned salmon could be so good? I really loved the striped bass, which, in addition to having the world’s best water chestnuts in it, was surrounded by this wonderful floral aroma from the hot water poured over rose petals.
The eggplant semifreddo was mostly soy in flavor, but the soy was fantastic (and the maitre d’ was even kind enough to print out what soy sauce it was on the restaurant’s letterhead, though I admit that I preferred the sous chef’s handwritten version). The thing that made the squab so good was the grated licorice over it - in general I don’t like licorice, but at that point I was convinced that in any given course I would like things I don’t usually like, and in fact, the licorice gave the squab the perfect balancing note between the richness of the squab and the smooth coolness of the licorice. And lastly, the oyster cream just tasted so much of the ocean. Everything else, even if it wasn’t my cup of tea because of my food tastes, was still fabulous, and fun to eat - the breadth of new ways in which one can eat food was great. I rather had the sense that I was a visitor in the culinary version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (without the disasters, the Ooompa-Loompas, and the scary children).
Dessert, of course, gets its own paragraph(s). My sister got her second wind at the moment that dessert was served, and I was amazed to see the rapidity with which her plate emptied. I suspect that the pastry chef here, who came from Clio in Boston, finds himself able to do much more experimental things here than he did at Clio, and every single dessert was a perfect ten (there’s an earlier post somewhere about perfect-ten desserts, I think in my review of Aujourd’hui). In fact, some of those were probably somewhere in the stratosphere.
The first thing we had was a cheese course, “maytag blue,” which was blue cheese somehow formed into a ball filled with walnut milk, on top of celery and red wine jelly. Our server noted that the addition of celery was unusual (I have no idea if that’s true or not), and that it was actually quite good. Of course, we were beyond thinking that anything unusual wouldn’t be good, but it defied our expectations. I don’t know how the blue cheese got the light, airy, smooth consistency it had - it was how you would expect a marshmallow to taste, texture-wise, if you had never actually eaten one and just had the image of a marshmallow in your mind. The walnut milk was amazing - as I write more, I keep wishing that my friend Jessica had been with us, because she is the one other person I know besides my sister who would fully appreciate the food at Alinea.
The second dessert we had was a beignet filled with lemon verbena-infused buttermilk, which, while not as creative as the other desserts, perhaps, was still outstanding. It reminded me of the time I made ginger doughnuts last summer, except that the beignet was worlds better than my doughnuts were (note to anyone trying to make doughnuts: don’t make them when it’s really humid).
The third was a corn custard filled with honey, with vanilla ice, cornbread crumbs, and tonka bean crème anglaise. I don’t think I really have words to describe this combination, beyond “I absolutely loved it.” I especially liked the cornbread crumbs, which were almost unbelievably crispy.
The next dessert was a red pepper sorbet and foam with raspberries that were filled with rosewater gelee, on top of milk curd. This was the most unusual of the desserts, I think, and our server told us that there is a huge difference between red bell pepper with skin, and without. I am now in dire need of a red bell pepper so that I can taste this difference in a normal bell pepper. The dessert itself was amazing. (I think I’ve used that word too much already.) The kicker for me was that I was wondering what these little crunchy things were - they had a really familiar taste, but I couldn’t place what exactly they were. I looked at them, and I realized that they were bell pepper seeds - maybe fried? I was absolutely delighted.
The fifth dessert was the molten chocolate cake that is now quite famous - the one that consists of ganache sprayed with a thin layer of chocolate. That thing is incredible. The best thing about it, beyond the fact that the chocolate they used was wonderful, was the inclusion of fresh tarragon, and the candied dandelion root. The last thing I used tarragon for was roasting a chicken… When you ate the candied dandelion root, it was more of a texture initially, and as you chewed it longer, you got this wonderful grassy, wild flavor in your mouth.
The last dessert was the vanilla pod-sponge cake spoon, with the vanilla sauce/pudding and foam. It was really difficult not to eat the sponge cake before finishing the pudding.
The thing that makes Alinea so special for me is that it’s different for a reason, not different for the sake of being different. I have always hated anyone or anything that was different just to be different. Being different just to be different is a hallmark of bad architecture. Good architecture always has intentions and it should be clear from the architecture what those intentions are. That said, I think that the intentions of some of the food is a little unclear, although the vast majority of it was particularly wonderful. For example, there was that course with the zucchini cake speared on a wire, which you’re supposed to lean forward and eat. I like the idea of the specific way of eating (no-hands), but I wasn’t sure that the zucchini cake needed to be eaten in that way.
My only regret is whether or not I tipped correctly. Rather, I tipped correctly in the technical sense, but theoretically your tip is supposed to reflect how much you liked the restaurant. Then again, if I were to tip according to how much I liked the restaurant, I would probably be very broke right now. Ah, internal struggles. In the end I went with 20%, but if I had been a little more flush I probably would have gone at least a little higher than that. At any rate, I'm sure they get enough high rollers to make up for some of the slack that we poor people impose on them. ;)
Last comment in what is probably my longest post ever - the restaurant really made me feel at home. I don’t mean this in the service-was-friendly way (although it was), but rather, the creativity at Alinea is the same kind that I was surrounded by at home - that kind of zany, no-holds-barred type of environment I left behind when I came to Chicago for the summer. The intensity of everyone who works at the restaurant reminds of me of the intensity of my architecture studio last spring, which I miss desperately (I gave planning one last chance and I’ve determined that yes, it really isn’t for me). When I leave in August to go back to school, I will most certainly miss having the opportunity to go there. If you are in Chicago, and you can afford it, you must go here - it's just a joy to eat there. (Also, the chairs are actually comfortable to sit in - it really feels like you're sitting in somebody's very nice, minimalist living room.)
19 juillet 2005
the dilemma of dining alone
ever since i realized that my dining compatriots are on either coast and not here in the midwest with me, i have begun debating the question of dining alone. i have discovered that going off on my own after work is quite a pleasurable pastime, as is shopping by myself on weekends, and to some extent exploring the city. but i have always viewed food as a social thing - having spent four years eating communal dinners at lmf, and all eighteen years of my life before that having dinner every day with my entire family, i realize i have never dined alone. now, since i arrived in chicago and my roommate gets home at 8pm in the evening, i have been eating alone, but i am always doing something else - reading a book, watching the news, etc. i would like to draw a distinction between eating alone and dining alone; to me, eating alone is a home type of thing, and dining alone is a restaurant type of thing. eating alone is something that is easily feasible after, for example, cooking for yourself, or as a matter of necessity. but dining alone is an entirely different animal. who will you discuss your food with? will other diners give you strange looks and looks of pity? who would feel comfortable in a situation like that? how will the waitstaff treat you? at any rate, i am determined to find out, once i find a good restaurant.
food etiquette and a pet peeve
food etiquette comment first. i have discovered that many of the people on egullet take photos of their food. i feel that the breach in etiquette outweighs the benefit of taking a photo of your food. after all, won't you remember it if it was memorable? ditto about taking notes. i guess i just feel that you're there to eat, not document. but, to each his own.
and the pet peeve: having spent so many years studying french, i can no longer stand it when people mispronounce words that are french. this is not an attack on specific people, but rather more a reflection on the american society's failure to make an effort to pronounce things correctly. i find that if i want to pronounce something correctly - ie, "au bon pain," "sur la table," "au gratin," etc - i cannot do so because people just won't understand me. and then i end up reverting to the american pronounciation, at which point the funny look i got from pronouncing something correctly transfers seamlessly to a look of instant comprehension.
and the pet peeve: having spent so many years studying french, i can no longer stand it when people mispronounce words that are french. this is not an attack on specific people, but rather more a reflection on the american society's failure to make an effort to pronounce things correctly. i find that if i want to pronounce something correctly - ie, "au bon pain," "sur la table," "au gratin," etc - i cannot do so because people just won't understand me. and then i end up reverting to the american pronounciation, at which point the funny look i got from pronouncing something correctly transfers seamlessly to a look of instant comprehension.
anticipation
i have become addicted to eGullet, which i browse all day when i'm bored or have nothing to do at work. i wish the people who post on it were more bored at work than they are, so they would post more frequently (slashdot comes to mind), but i do love it anyway. i found this blog today, which seems to have rid me of my aversion to looking like a tourist when taking photos in the city. it also makes me wish i lived in france. i just know food tastes better there - though by the time i make it there again, i will have psyched myself up so much that the food might taste better just because it’s an ingrained belief. another great food thing i across is an article in the globe about dinner parties - one on a shoestring budget of $50 (for ten people) and one for a budget of $150 - which is a fun thing i'd love to try sometime when i get back. i have wanted to do smaller dinner parties (six to eight people) for a long time now, so I can plate everything myself, and set the table myself. unfortunately, the logistics of doing so when one is at school and living with thirty people renders this kind of dinner party impossible. who do you invite? you will inevitably leave people out and then they’ll feel hurt. i considered announcing a revolving set of dinner parties - i would invite a different six to eight people every time until everyone got invited to one - but scrapped it because it just wasn’t going to work with my schedule. i thought about it last summer when i started inviting people over to dinner, but decided against it, instead going for the buffet-style thing. i do heartily hate buffet style dining now, after four years of it at lmf. it makes dining so...frenzied.
this week is going by fairly quickly, as i have been planning happily for my sister’s visit. on thursday we are going to alinea for dinner, and on friday we are going to another well-known, excellent restaurant. (the second restaurant is supposed to be a surprise and i don't know if nora is reading this.) on saturday we’ll do actual sightseeing and we’re going to go to a red sox game (which was, in fact, the instigator for the trip). then on sunday we’ll do brunch in either lincoln park or pilsen. but dinner on thursday and friday has kept me in a state of blissful anticipation since i made the reservations. and in fact, i read about alinea on egullet and decided that i had to go, whether or not i actually buy into the premise of the restaurant (the full dining experience in that the lighting, music, and dishes are specifically designed for the food you're eating). even better, when i called the restaurant to see if they had a reservation available, resigned to having to go by myself since i don't know anybody who is willing to drop that much money on food, i found that they had a reservation available for the night nora would be getting in. it will definitely be the best food i've had all summer (i haven’t yet found any small, affordable-but-mind-blowing eateries. i'm also in the home stretch of my stay in chicago – this week my sister is visiting, next week miriam is visiting, the week after that i have a “free” weekend, the week after that i am visiting jessica (and we’re going to french laundry) and then i’ll be on my way home, ready to paint my room.
this week is going by fairly quickly, as i have been planning happily for my sister’s visit. on thursday we are going to alinea for dinner, and on friday we are going to another well-known, excellent restaurant. (the second restaurant is supposed to be a surprise and i don't know if nora is reading this.) on saturday we’ll do actual sightseeing and we’re going to go to a red sox game (which was, in fact, the instigator for the trip). then on sunday we’ll do brunch in either lincoln park or pilsen. but dinner on thursday and friday has kept me in a state of blissful anticipation since i made the reservations. and in fact, i read about alinea on egullet and decided that i had to go, whether or not i actually buy into the premise of the restaurant (the full dining experience in that the lighting, music, and dishes are specifically designed for the food you're eating). even better, when i called the restaurant to see if they had a reservation available, resigned to having to go by myself since i don't know anybody who is willing to drop that much money on food, i found that they had a reservation available for the night nora would be getting in. it will definitely be the best food i've had all summer (i haven’t yet found any small, affordable-but-mind-blowing eateries. i'm also in the home stretch of my stay in chicago – this week my sister is visiting, next week miriam is visiting, the week after that i have a “free” weekend, the week after that i am visiting jessica (and we’re going to french laundry) and then i’ll be on my way home, ready to paint my room.
yet again, a bakery saves the day
i'm going to do a quick rundown of restaurants i've been to in chicago. none of them have been particularly memorable, though thai food has a way of pushing all of the right buttons (pad thai and pad see eiw in particular) with regards to food cravings. the reason why you haven’t seen better food experiences this summer is because first i was getting oriented in the city, then i ran out of money because the government couldn’t get their act together to pay us, and now i am trying to save up so i can afford dinner with my sister when she comes to visit me this week. although it’s not really about taking my sister out (sorry, nora) as much as it is feeling guilty about booking such expensive restaurants that i happened to want to go to – not everyone is as willing as i am to be a spendthrift at really good restaurants.
so i have been to reza’s in the northern part of the loop, in the middle of nowhere seemingly (the inconsistency of density in the downtown is baffling to me). as the name suggests it’s lebanese, or i think it was technically iranian but everything on the menu was either persian or lebanese. it was a lot of food, but merely standard in quality - i have had better at lmf (notably that chicken thing with the pita bits that waseem makes every year). nina and george, your hummous/hummus/chickpea-and-tahini-paste is better.
last thursday i went to dunlay’s on clark, which is just a regular upscale bar/american eatery type place in lincoln park (owned by the uncle of one of the other interns). it was pretty good, and a welcome change from the lame stuff i’ve been eating at home because i don’t like to cook in the heat. perfectly serviceable stuff, nothing out of the ordinary, but it was my first time having blue cheese (or bleu cheese if you’re pretending to be well bred) on a burger so it was also a sufficiently horizon-expanding eating experience, in conjunction with my first manhattan. a few days later, i am not quite sure if i enjoy manhattans more than martinis (real martinis - anything that contains more than vodka/gin, vermouth, and olives is not a real martini), but i am excited to have found another cocktail that i actually like.
finally, on sunday i went to TAC quick, which is this tiny thai place outside the sheridan stop on the red line that features white walls, blue glass crate and barrel candle votives, and lots of pulsing electronica. it was pretty good thai food, although i have had better in cambridge (brighton, to be specific, at bamboo, which is my favorite thai restaurant). i think the thing i've missed at thai restaurants in chicago is thai basil, which is one of my favorite herbs. regardless, TAC quick is a fun place, in an area that has a bunch of small restaurants - so it seemed out of the ordinary that more people weren’t around. on the other hand, it was sunday evening and the area, while it has nice restaurants, is a little rundown. (a quick commentary on the el: i appreciate that it exists, and the fact that it’s elevated is akin to riding a bus facing backwards - you get a view you wouldn’t normally get - but it’s slow, and ugly. i generally prefer the T, which has wider platforms, and occasional art in the stations - something that the el seriously lacks. the nicest light rail system i've seen is the one in lisbon, although new york city definitely wins for system coverage.)
there is also a thai restaurant - or, more specifically, a pan-asian restaurant that runs the gamut - a block from my apartment that’s pretty good. one can’t actually call its pad thai “pad thai” because they added a very peanut-y sauce to the noodles, but it’s darn good anyway. i must say that i was put off by the view of the guy in the kitchen who was cutting up chicken - he was sitting on a plastic pickle barrel, cutting it up on a huuuuge plastic cutting board, and pushing it into a bowl that was on the floor in between his legs. but the “pad thai” is so good that i'm willing to overlook that; besides, i've never gotten sick…
on the way to TAC quick, we discovered a mexican bakery. this is how it went down (to use a lauren-ism) : jazmin, mimi and i walk to the pizza place to check out the menu. we pass a bakery on the way. we decide to go to the thai place so we pass the bakery again, and if you’ve seen the way that i look at bakeries, well, this was no exception. i don’t think it’s in me to pass up a bakery, wherever i am. most of the time i don’t even want anything; i just like bakeries. i would like to live above a bakery…anyway, this bakery turned out to be mexican, which thrilled mimi, who is cuban. it was charming in its spareness - or, not quite charming, but somehow it felt like home even though the bakery part was a bunch of tall wooden cabinets with glass doors, and behind the cabinets was the actual bakery area, and the floors were concrete. maybe it was just because i have been so starved for things that will make this city seem like home to me - a bakery was exactly the right thing. chicago still doesn’t feel like home, but i feel a lot better having been inside a bakery for the first time since i got here. i will most certainly have to check out the scandinavian bakery i saw on my way to dunlay’s.
so i have been to reza’s in the northern part of the loop, in the middle of nowhere seemingly (the inconsistency of density in the downtown is baffling to me). as the name suggests it’s lebanese, or i think it was technically iranian but everything on the menu was either persian or lebanese. it was a lot of food, but merely standard in quality - i have had better at lmf (notably that chicken thing with the pita bits that waseem makes every year). nina and george, your hummous/hummus/chickpea-and-tahini-paste is better.
last thursday i went to dunlay’s on clark, which is just a regular upscale bar/american eatery type place in lincoln park (owned by the uncle of one of the other interns). it was pretty good, and a welcome change from the lame stuff i’ve been eating at home because i don’t like to cook in the heat. perfectly serviceable stuff, nothing out of the ordinary, but it was my first time having blue cheese (or bleu cheese if you’re pretending to be well bred) on a burger so it was also a sufficiently horizon-expanding eating experience, in conjunction with my first manhattan. a few days later, i am not quite sure if i enjoy manhattans more than martinis (real martinis - anything that contains more than vodka/gin, vermouth, and olives is not a real martini), but i am excited to have found another cocktail that i actually like.
finally, on sunday i went to TAC quick, which is this tiny thai place outside the sheridan stop on the red line that features white walls, blue glass crate and barrel candle votives, and lots of pulsing electronica. it was pretty good thai food, although i have had better in cambridge (brighton, to be specific, at bamboo, which is my favorite thai restaurant). i think the thing i've missed at thai restaurants in chicago is thai basil, which is one of my favorite herbs. regardless, TAC quick is a fun place, in an area that has a bunch of small restaurants - so it seemed out of the ordinary that more people weren’t around. on the other hand, it was sunday evening and the area, while it has nice restaurants, is a little rundown. (a quick commentary on the el: i appreciate that it exists, and the fact that it’s elevated is akin to riding a bus facing backwards - you get a view you wouldn’t normally get - but it’s slow, and ugly. i generally prefer the T, which has wider platforms, and occasional art in the stations - something that the el seriously lacks. the nicest light rail system i've seen is the one in lisbon, although new york city definitely wins for system coverage.)
there is also a thai restaurant - or, more specifically, a pan-asian restaurant that runs the gamut - a block from my apartment that’s pretty good. one can’t actually call its pad thai “pad thai” because they added a very peanut-y sauce to the noodles, but it’s darn good anyway. i must say that i was put off by the view of the guy in the kitchen who was cutting up chicken - he was sitting on a plastic pickle barrel, cutting it up on a huuuuge plastic cutting board, and pushing it into a bowl that was on the floor in between his legs. but the “pad thai” is so good that i'm willing to overlook that; besides, i've never gotten sick…
on the way to TAC quick, we discovered a mexican bakery. this is how it went down (to use a lauren-ism) : jazmin, mimi and i walk to the pizza place to check out the menu. we pass a bakery on the way. we decide to go to the thai place so we pass the bakery again, and if you’ve seen the way that i look at bakeries, well, this was no exception. i don’t think it’s in me to pass up a bakery, wherever i am. most of the time i don’t even want anything; i just like bakeries. i would like to live above a bakery…anyway, this bakery turned out to be mexican, which thrilled mimi, who is cuban. it was charming in its spareness - or, not quite charming, but somehow it felt like home even though the bakery part was a bunch of tall wooden cabinets with glass doors, and behind the cabinets was the actual bakery area, and the floors were concrete. maybe it was just because i have been so starved for things that will make this city seem like home to me - a bakery was exactly the right thing. chicago still doesn’t feel like home, but i feel a lot better having been inside a bakery for the first time since i got here. i will most certainly have to check out the scandinavian bakery i saw on my way to dunlay’s.
18 juillet 2005
the mystery of chocolate chip cookies
it would seem that i’ve become a jaded gourmet/foodie/insane lover of all food (have you noticed how there’s no good, unpretentious way to describe yourself as someone who simply loves food?). last night i made chocolate chip cookies to bring to the office, and they aren’t even particularly attractive – they didn’t rise correctly and i don’t really know why (humidity, bad baking soda, dough not chilled enough, racks not at the right level, etc). it's truly a mystery to me as to why everyone keeps telling me thank you, even though chocolate chip cookies are perhaps one of the easiest things to make in the world. there is no special recipe (although the one i usually use, by nick malgieri, does have slightly different proportions) - just the one on the back of the bag. somehow i have never made it into that superstar level of chocolate chip cookies - the one where the chocolate chip cookies from la provence in concord reside (the butterscotch cookies are even better, fyi). however, i did make an important discovery : i don't like my chocolate chips with vanilla in them. i prefer to have them be purely sugar and butter, slightly caramelized. anyway, i do understand the lure of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies, having been treated to them often enough, and having treated others often enough, during my lmf years. but at lmf we are rather blase about them : you want cookies, ok! we'll just whip some up in a jiffy... the first thing that came to mind for a couple of friends a month ago for what i might make for them was chocolate chip cookies. i love chocolate chip cookies as much as the next person, but there are so many other things in the world that are just as good, if not better (for example, nanaimo bars...).
it was actually a bit of a chore to make the cookies, although i hadn't cooked in a while and was thus happy to cook at all. it's just miserable to cook in any kind of humidity, which was plentiful last night. i came home after the beach and was kind of tired, and not really in the mood to make cookies, but i had said i was going to make them, and i wasn't about to go back on my word (this situation - being tired but verbally bound to make something - is a familiar one. unfortunately, the experience of baking in the humidity here was somehow worse than baking in the humidity at 44 columbia last year. i think i just like to feed people, which really makes me feel all matronly and motherly - not really something i want to feel at my age. ugh. at any rate, the experience i'm aiming for is the one i had when mika made me nanaimo bars for my birthday, two months belatedly - it was possibly one of the most pleasant surprises in my life, especially because it was totally unexpected. while i had told some people i was going to make cookies, i had talked about it so much without actually doing anything that i think people doubted my sincerity, and thus it was a surprise in spite of that.
12 juillet 2005
banyuls, banyuls, banyuls
one of the wonders of getting paid is, well, having money. i stepped into binny's express yesterday (a block from my apartment) and i discovered again that i know nothing about wine, despite having taken linn hobbs' class last iap. the visit was really a reconnaissance mission: i wanted to mentally catalogue what they have there, and to see what kinds of out-of-the ordinary stuff that they had.
mary once said that if she doesn't buy anything in a store, she has gotten in and out for free - a very apt observation. i escaped from binny's not unscathed, but with a half-bottle of a sweet red dessert wine (domaine du mas blanc, banyuls) and a bottle of creme de framboise. i forget the exact name of the guy who made the creme de framboise, but i'm a sucker for it. it was lucien something, and whether or not my suspicion that i'd heard that it was supposed to be good is actually true, it will be fun to drink. i opened the banyuls last night and had probably what amounted to two glasses, while making some pesto in a semi-operational blender, without a grater for the parmesan cheese. the pesto turned out ok, and the wine is pretty good. it's not earth-shattering, and for sure the one that i had in my wine-tasting class was approximately one million times better, but it was nice to have in the evening.
and if celina is reading this - they have an enormous selection of sauternes! ok, maybe not enormous, but it's the biggest selection i've ever seen - full bottles and half bottles.
mary once said that if she doesn't buy anything in a store, she has gotten in and out for free - a very apt observation. i escaped from binny's not unscathed, but with a half-bottle of a sweet red dessert wine (domaine du mas blanc, banyuls) and a bottle of creme de framboise. i forget the exact name of the guy who made the creme de framboise, but i'm a sucker for it. it was lucien something, and whether or not my suspicion that i'd heard that it was supposed to be good is actually true, it will be fun to drink. i opened the banyuls last night and had probably what amounted to two glasses, while making some pesto in a semi-operational blender, without a grater for the parmesan cheese. the pesto turned out ok, and the wine is pretty good. it's not earth-shattering, and for sure the one that i had in my wine-tasting class was approximately one million times better, but it was nice to have in the evening.
and if celina is reading this - they have an enormous selection of sauternes! ok, maybe not enormous, but it's the biggest selection i've ever seen - full bottles and half bottles.
11 juillet 2005
culinary adventures in a culinary wasteland
my fellow bat-cave (we call it the bat cave because we don't turn the lights on) denizens are out at various meetings, so i’m playing music on my computer right now (k’s choice). music aside, i finally got paid at work, so i finally have money for food again! no more subsistence living for this one! (actually, i'm trying to save money right now because i'm taking my sister out to dinner twice when she comes to visit. to be more specific, i'm dragging her along to restaurants i want to go to - because eating is a social thing, and thus something you shouldn't do by yourself. we're going to alinea and one other restaurant that will remain unnamed for now, since it's a surprise and she periodically looks at my blog, or so i like to think...)
as food is consumed within x period of time, it’s one of the few things that is feasible to buy while i am here in chicago – since everything i buy, i’ll have to take back with me. i learned my lesson in seattle, where i had this stupid idea that buying books would be fine. then i realized that they’re heavy when combined with the rest of your belongings. but buying food, i can be totally guilt-free! i am, however, planning to buy a knife while i'm here. a wonderful, beautiful, chef's knife. right now i have my eye on a misono knife, but i need to figure out what length i want.
i’ve been disappointed with the supermarkets here. there are two chain supermarkets within a block or two of my apartment – the co-op and village foods. neither is really any good. the produce at the co-op is particularly terrible, but not to fear – the produce at hyde park produce, four or five blocks down 53rd street, is wonderful, and very cheap. cheaper than star (the coop and village foods are about star-level, price-wise), which makes me happy. i like carrots much more when they're 50 cents a bag. i guess i’ve been spoiled with the wonders of trader joe’s and whole foods, which only exist in the lincoln park/wicker park areas of the city (waaaay north). there is only one whole foods and only one trader joe's in the entirety of the city, which to me is just ridiculous. where am i supposed to shop???
at any rate, the nice thing about my apartment’s location is that it’s a block away from the farmers market, which comes by every thursday morning. there's also a farmers market in daley plaza downtown in the loop, but who's going to buy produce on the way to work? where do you put it? anyway, the last time i went to my farmers market, last thursday, i bought a pint of morels, which had been tantalizing me since i first went to the market four weeks before that (but then i ran into budgetary problems with the absence of paychecks). i didn’t actually get paid on friday – specifically, it was too late to deposit the check by the time we had them in our hands at 5:45pm – but that was good enough for me. i spent my last credit at the supermarket on food to make dinner with my friend shen.
i spent a while looking at recipes in an attempt to calm myself down from being late on my credit card payment for the first time (as it turned out my mother helped me out), and nothing caught my fancy as much as the oatmeal-spiced plum shortcake at epicurious.com. whoever invented this dessert is a genius. to go with dessert we made chicken and rice (with sautéed morels) and moroccan-spiced carrots. the chicken and rice was the typical, no-frills deal: sauté some onions and garlic, add rice, then wine, then chicken broth, then the chicken (which you brown beforehand). we brought it to a boil, then stuck it in the oven for about half an hour or so. the carrots are also easy – boil them, then sauté them briefly with sugar and spices.
the real excitement was not only the food, but also the three explosions during the night. hyde park is a fairly safe neighborhood and based on the fact that no police cruisers made their way into the area (at least with sirens), we figured that it was just some leftover firecrackers, maybe set off in trash cans or something. all three explosions came from different places.
dinner was pretty good. we got a cheap bottle of wine at the supermarket that was a fizzy white wine from california, i think. very serviceable and summery. i was a bit disappointed with the morels, which were a little less assertive than i had thought they would be. then again, i’ve only ever had morels twice in my life: once at craigie street bistrot and once at no 9 park, so the bar was set pretty high. the chicken and rice was really quite good for chicken and rice, though – i discovered that my choice not to put any spices into the thing was the right choice. i don’t know how something can taste clean and earthy at the same time, but that’s the best i can do description-wise. the carrots were a bit too garlicky, but it was a nice respite from the typical steamed carrot treatment that they usually get.
i think we all liked the dessert the best (by the time dinner was ready my roommate kashfia had returned home). i hadn’t checked the kitchen before i picked it, so i had no idea that we didn’t have a whisk or an electric mixer before i chose something that had whipped cream in it. oops. i whipped the cream a bit with a fork, before conceding defeat. to my defense, there was a bit of foam in the top layer of the cream… it didn’t matter, though. the shortcakes were great – really like sugar-crusted scones – and the plums (cooked a bit with sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and slices of ginger because they were cheaper than the ground spice) were fantastic. i prefer this to strawberry shortcake, though that’s partly because usually the shortcake i’ve had was made from bisquick, which is always a bad idea.
the shortcake recipe is below - it's from epicurious. some notes, first, though. i would buy more plums than this calls for - a pound of plums yielded closer to three portions for us than six. i also cut the plums into smaller wedges, and we used slices of ginger (three, to be exact) instead of ground ginger because it's cheaper.
oatmeal shortcakes with spiced plums
for shortcakes:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons sugar
for fruit:
1 pound firm but ripe plums (about 6), halved, pitted, each cut into 4 wedges
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup chilled whipping cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Make shortcakes:
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Using fingertips, rub in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk; stir until dough forms.
Drop dough onto prepared baking sheet, forming six 2 1/2-inch-diameter biscuits and spacing 3 inches apart. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons sugar. Bake until biscuits are golden and tester inserted into biscuit comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Cool. Store airtight at room temperature.)
Make fruit:
Combine plums, 1/3 cup sugar, lemon juice, ginger and cinnamon in heavy medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until plums release their juices but are still firm, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Add butter. Stir until butter melts. Cool slightly.
Using electric mixer, beat cream and powdered sugar in large bowl until stiff peaks form. Using serrated knife, slice off top 1/3 of biscuits. Transfer biscuit bottoms to plates. Spoon half of plum mixture over biscuits. Spoon whipped cream atop plum mixture. Spoon remaining plum mixture atop cream, dividing equally. Place biscuit tops over plum mixture. Serve immediately.
[serves 6]
as food is consumed within x period of time, it’s one of the few things that is feasible to buy while i am here in chicago – since everything i buy, i’ll have to take back with me. i learned my lesson in seattle, where i had this stupid idea that buying books would be fine. then i realized that they’re heavy when combined with the rest of your belongings. but buying food, i can be totally guilt-free! i am, however, planning to buy a knife while i'm here. a wonderful, beautiful, chef's knife. right now i have my eye on a misono knife, but i need to figure out what length i want.
i’ve been disappointed with the supermarkets here. there are two chain supermarkets within a block or two of my apartment – the co-op and village foods. neither is really any good. the produce at the co-op is particularly terrible, but not to fear – the produce at hyde park produce, four or five blocks down 53rd street, is wonderful, and very cheap. cheaper than star (the coop and village foods are about star-level, price-wise), which makes me happy. i like carrots much more when they're 50 cents a bag. i guess i’ve been spoiled with the wonders of trader joe’s and whole foods, which only exist in the lincoln park/wicker park areas of the city (waaaay north). there is only one whole foods and only one trader joe's in the entirety of the city, which to me is just ridiculous. where am i supposed to shop???
at any rate, the nice thing about my apartment’s location is that it’s a block away from the farmers market, which comes by every thursday morning. there's also a farmers market in daley plaza downtown in the loop, but who's going to buy produce on the way to work? where do you put it? anyway, the last time i went to my farmers market, last thursday, i bought a pint of morels, which had been tantalizing me since i first went to the market four weeks before that (but then i ran into budgetary problems with the absence of paychecks). i didn’t actually get paid on friday – specifically, it was too late to deposit the check by the time we had them in our hands at 5:45pm – but that was good enough for me. i spent my last credit at the supermarket on food to make dinner with my friend shen.
i spent a while looking at recipes in an attempt to calm myself down from being late on my credit card payment for the first time (as it turned out my mother helped me out), and nothing caught my fancy as much as the oatmeal-spiced plum shortcake at epicurious.com. whoever invented this dessert is a genius. to go with dessert we made chicken and rice (with sautéed morels) and moroccan-spiced carrots. the chicken and rice was the typical, no-frills deal: sauté some onions and garlic, add rice, then wine, then chicken broth, then the chicken (which you brown beforehand). we brought it to a boil, then stuck it in the oven for about half an hour or so. the carrots are also easy – boil them, then sauté them briefly with sugar and spices.
the real excitement was not only the food, but also the three explosions during the night. hyde park is a fairly safe neighborhood and based on the fact that no police cruisers made their way into the area (at least with sirens), we figured that it was just some leftover firecrackers, maybe set off in trash cans or something. all three explosions came from different places.
dinner was pretty good. we got a cheap bottle of wine at the supermarket that was a fizzy white wine from california, i think. very serviceable and summery. i was a bit disappointed with the morels, which were a little less assertive than i had thought they would be. then again, i’ve only ever had morels twice in my life: once at craigie street bistrot and once at no 9 park, so the bar was set pretty high. the chicken and rice was really quite good for chicken and rice, though – i discovered that my choice not to put any spices into the thing was the right choice. i don’t know how something can taste clean and earthy at the same time, but that’s the best i can do description-wise. the carrots were a bit too garlicky, but it was a nice respite from the typical steamed carrot treatment that they usually get.
i think we all liked the dessert the best (by the time dinner was ready my roommate kashfia had returned home). i hadn’t checked the kitchen before i picked it, so i had no idea that we didn’t have a whisk or an electric mixer before i chose something that had whipped cream in it. oops. i whipped the cream a bit with a fork, before conceding defeat. to my defense, there was a bit of foam in the top layer of the cream… it didn’t matter, though. the shortcakes were great – really like sugar-crusted scones – and the plums (cooked a bit with sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and slices of ginger because they were cheaper than the ground spice) were fantastic. i prefer this to strawberry shortcake, though that’s partly because usually the shortcake i’ve had was made from bisquick, which is always a bad idea.
the shortcake recipe is below - it's from epicurious. some notes, first, though. i would buy more plums than this calls for - a pound of plums yielded closer to three portions for us than six. i also cut the plums into smaller wedges, and we used slices of ginger (three, to be exact) instead of ground ginger because it's cheaper.
oatmeal shortcakes with spiced plums
for shortcakes:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons sugar
for fruit:
1 pound firm but ripe plums (about 6), halved, pitted, each cut into 4 wedges
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup chilled whipping cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Make shortcakes:
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Using fingertips, rub in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk; stir until dough forms.
Drop dough onto prepared baking sheet, forming six 2 1/2-inch-diameter biscuits and spacing 3 inches apart. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons sugar. Bake until biscuits are golden and tester inserted into biscuit comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Cool. Store airtight at room temperature.)
Make fruit:
Combine plums, 1/3 cup sugar, lemon juice, ginger and cinnamon in heavy medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until plums release their juices but are still firm, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Add butter. Stir until butter melts. Cool slightly.
Using electric mixer, beat cream and powdered sugar in large bowl until stiff peaks form. Using serrated knife, slice off top 1/3 of biscuits. Transfer biscuit bottoms to plates. Spoon half of plum mixture over biscuits. Spoon whipped cream atop plum mixture. Spoon remaining plum mixture atop cream, dividing equally. Place biscuit tops over plum mixture. Serve immediately.
[serves 6]
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