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.