Author Archives: Miriam

About Miriam

I'm a big fan of Chicago's food scene and try to explore the markets, restaurants, and recipes that make Chicago taste so good.

Three Simple Things my Mother Loved

Posted on by
1

bisquickWe kidded my mom a lot about her “Irish” cooking, teasing her about “boiling the hell” out of everything and chiding her for her sometimes-simple palate. My sister recently reminded me of one of her favorite dishes: white fish cooked in milk, which I think is illegal in some cultures.

But when it came to desserts, her love of simplicity was welcome. Apple Betty, aka apple crisp in hour house, was delicious. Apples baked with an oatmeal-brown sugar topping. Served warm with ice cream, it’s a perfect mid-week dessert.

She would also make stewed peaches. Impatient, I guess, to wait for just the right few weeks in summer when they’re really in season, and just that actual moment during the week when they would finally be ripe enough to eat, she would encourage them along by placing them in a bit of water with a little sugar and bringing them to a gentle boil. More than a few times, I caught her having this treat alone in the middle of the day. A small treat to have, all to herself, while her six kids and her husband were out.

But more than anything, she loved Strawberry Shortcake. We would be on the lookout for good strawberries from the first sign of spring so she could make a batch. Strawberry shortcake topped with whipped cream was a Sunday treat. Hulled strawberries bathed in sugar and gently tossed all day to foster a nice thick syrup would sit atop a Bisquick shortcake (baking wasn’t her thing, so Bisquick would do just fine, thank you) and then topped with a big dollop of freshly made whipped cream. Don’t get me started on the whipped cream, a ritual that involved freezing a bowl — not just any bowl, the green Fiestaware bowl that was just the right height — along with the paddles from the mixer for a few hours and an alchemist’s mixture of cream, confectioner’s sugar and vanilla. Hitting the right consistency on the peaks in the whipped cream was essential. I still haven’t exactly matched her recipe.

The shortcakes tasted great after dinner, but somehow they were even better the next day. The strawberries were a bit more tender, and the shortcakes a bit more dry. Eating the left-overs with her at the kitchen table the next day was almost better than having first dibs.

Strawberries aren’t quite ready yet, so I’m waiting until they are. I’ll grab the first really beautiful pint of strawberries I see, and mix up a batch of shortcakes in honor of my mom.

And then I’ll wait for the peaches…

Intellectual Property and Food

Posted on by
Kent School of Law

Close-up of the poster promoting the Gastro-Intellectual” panel.

About two weeks ago, we were given tickets by Ground Up Chicago to attend a panel at the Kent School of Law, hosted by the school’s intellectual property law society. Not sure what to expect (what, us have time to read?) We knew it was going to be a quality event when we checked in — lovely name badges, a bar and a really interesting gnoshing table.

Entering the lecture hall and taking a closer look at the program, it was such a wonderful surprise to see who was on the bill: Nick Kokonas of Alinea fame, Kevin Boehm of Boka, Thomas and Lori Leavitt from Ground Up Chicago, and Sendil Devadas from DuPont Pioneer. The moderator was Chris Buccafusco (a dead ringer for Joe Mantenga, if you ask me.) Buccafusco led a truly interesting discussion.

What we want to know about food

If the expectation was that the law students and lawyers in the room would jump on the poor fellow from Dow, the poor fellow from Dow was disappointed. When it comes to intellectual property and the food we eat, there are no more fascinating questions in our society today than who has the rights to seeds, and the moral and ethical questions that genetic engineering evoke, but the audience focused their sights on Kokonas and Boehm, asking quite a few questions about restaurants and recipes — and who can blame them? Kokonas and Boehm have amazing stories to tell.

Kokonas was asked a number of times about how he and Chef Grant Achatz react to people who steal Achatz’s recipes and techniques, and weather or not he felt the recipes should be copyrighted. “Good luck copying our recipes” remarked Kokonas, explaining that development cycles for Alinea recipes can sometimes take as long as two years. He explained that the restaurant has always had an “open source approach” and that, while they are sometimes imitated, they don’t often get litigious about it unless the infraction is completely overt.

Boehm was asked about Boka recipes being stolen, to which he replied, “as long as you attribute a recipe, it’s OK.” Later in the evening, someone asked, “when does a recipe become public domain,” and the rejoinder was mumbled, “when it hits Des Moines?”

Tip your hat to your local farmer

Farmers, it turns out, love the attention that attribution brings to their products, and the Ground Up team agreed that the idea of attributing local products on menus heightens awareness about the idea of “local”.

Consensus for the evening seemed to be that while a restaurant or a recipe could be “often imitated” it could rarely be duplicated — at least not to the extent that it would impact the bottom line for businesses like Alinea or Boka. “Being at our restaurants is an experience,” says Kokonas, who backed that up by noting, “I could give you an Alinea recipe and all the equipment you’d need to reproduce it in your kitchen, but it could never be quite the same as in our dining room.”

 

 

 

Is that an heirloom in your salad?

Posted on by
scrumptious pantry

Art shamelessly stolen from Scrumptious Pantry.

Just loving what the Scrumptious Pantry is doing. These guys work with sustainable family farms to make sure that heirloom foods grown the old-fashioned way get into the hands of eaters like us.

On March 2, from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., Scrumptious Pantry is hosting a warehouse sale. You’ll have a chance to buy Spanish olives and olive oil grown, one must imagine, in a quaint grove somewhere in the south of Spain. There will be bakery from San Francisco, single blossom honeys direct from the bees, and much more.

They’ll be serving complementary virgin Bloody Mary’s, too, so bring a flask of your favorite hooch, if you want to add a bit of a charge.

Visit Scrumptious Pantry for more information, or just show up and see what it’s all about. Saturday, March 2, 3230 W. Fullterton at Kedzie.

 

Trendy Vegetables – Introducing the Watermelon Radish

Posted on by
watermelon radishes

Watermelon radishes with a simple salad — and a side of tomato bisque. Delicious.

I have to admit, when my eye fell on the splash of bright red at the farm market, I was immediately drawn to it. These dull, gray Chicago skies were starting to get to me, last weekend, so I was immediately happy to see some true color shouting out amidst all the dirty (but delicious) root vegetables. My curiosity about this fresh-looking upstart drew me right to it and the farmer proudly introduced me to his watermelon radishes.

Eating a Watermelon Radish

Even from the outside, watermelon radishes look a bit like very small watermelons, with a greenish tinge to their skin, which seems a bit thicker than a regular radish’s, and a size that looks a bit bigger than your standard grocery store radish.

Inside, these babies pop with color. They look enticing. They taste milder than a regular radish — not so much bite to them, and perhaps its just the suggestion of watermelon that makes you think so, but the texture seems a bit looser and you really want to imagine watermelon when they first hit your tongue.

Watermelon Radish Salad

Watermelon radish

Watermelon radishes from the farm market.

What else? I made a quick, simple salad to enjoy these radishes for the first time. I sliced them then and thick to see which gave a better experience — my vote is for thick in the future — and tossed them with some red-leaf lettuce, carrots, olive oil and a bit of red wine vinegar.

 

 

 

Farm Fresh Popcorn for Oscar Night

Posted on by
pocorn kernels

Popcorn kernels  at the Green City Market.

We love the dog sitter. He’s one of those great kids who is gonna be somebody someday, and we’ll tell folks, “No kidding, he used to dogsit for us…”

I always try to stock up on snacks for him, but the last overnight we planned came up too fast and as we were leaving I timidly said, “well…you know how to make popcorn, right?”

“Sure,” he replied, “Just pop the bag in the microwave.”

Something to pop about

We’re old-fashioned here at the house, and we love making popcorn on the stove, the way Mom used to. In fact, the method I use was taught to me by my BFF’s mom, Alice, who liked to get a pan hot with oil, toss in the kernels and pour salt on top of them before they even  popped. She would put a paper towel on top of the pan and secure the paper towel with the lid to catch some of the extra oil and then pop away!

Even more old-fashioned is the over-the-fire popcorn basket of yore — I’ve never had the opportunity to give that a try, but if our next home has a fireplace, I’m for sure going to.

For the Oscars, I want to make a nice big bowl of popcorn and enjoy the evening from the couch, celebrating the long-lasting relationship between the movies and popcorn.

Farm fresh popcorn

Have you tried fresh farm market popcorn? Available at all the markets, its grown locally and helps your local farmer pop a bit of extra income in these lean winter moths. Buy some and take the opportunity to show your child that popcorn doesn’t originate in a bag — they’ll love the experience of stove-popping with you, and they’ll appreciate 8,000 fewer chemicals, too.

Don’t forget the butter and the salt — and if you want to know more than you really want to know about popcorn, visit the Popcorn Growers Association site to read about the history or popcorn and the movies and find some great recipes.

Wanna Make a Rutabaga?

Posted on by
Rutabaga

Rutabaga with caramelized onions and honey.

Growing up, I had Irish aunts who seemed to be from another time. They used words like “pocketbook”, “davenport”, and “icebox”. They still  stocked white gloves in their drawers in case, I suppose, the trend for white gloves ever returned, and they cooked as if the depression was still on. I remember hearing the word “rutabaga” in their house for the first time. I think their kitchen was the only place I heard that word. I thought rutabaga must be some old-world food that they kept in their “root cellar”.

I have avoided rutabaga all this time.

What is a rutabaga, anyway?

Turns out rutabaga was the result of a liaison between a turnip and a cabbage at some point in the 17th Century — according to a very lovely entry in the University of Wisconsin Extension’s Alternative Field Crops Manual. Maligned for the first part of the 20th century for being a bit too difficult to grow, the root vegetable enjoyed a renaissance in the 1970s, and can now be found on grocery store shelves.

It’s one of those unsightly, often misshapen vegetables that makes you either feel a bit sorry for it, or spurs you to believe perhaps there’s something really great inside that dirty exterior. So today, I picked up some rutabaga at the Green City Market and decided to give it a try.

Cooking Rutabaga

Most recipes seem to suggest mixing rutabaga with its earthy companions — carrots, parsnips, turnips — for a hash, but I wasn’t in the mood for too much frying. Instead, I diced and boiled the rutabaga, then mixed it with some caramelized onion and honey.

Rutabaga’s got an earthy, interesting taste. “savory” was my husband’s word for it. I’d serve it as a side to a real juicy pork chop, or with stew — something that could really stand up to the texture and flavor of the rutabaga.

In all, as part of an “eat more vegetables” campaign, I’d say the rutabaga has got a place at our table for a change of pace every once in a while. And making it today gave me a chance to think of my aunts cuisine — so Irish with their cottage hams and cabbage. The simple meals they made for us came directly from the heart. As my dear old aunts would say, “Oh, heavens to Betsy, I haven’t had a rutabaga in ages!”

Get Experimental this Valentines Day

Posted on by
Flowers for the living experimental station

Flowers for the Living takes place February 14th — check it out now!

Looking for something different to do this Valentine’s Day? Attend a party and support the organization that brings you the 61st Street Farmers Market all summer. Experimental Station is planning quite a bash — Flowers for the Living features Chicago duo H.N.I.C. and special guests.

The evening begins at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 14th, and costs $15 per person or $25 per couple, so grab a date and get to Experimental Station at 6100 S. Blackstone Ave.

Experimental Station is a place you can go to get involved — from the farmers market in the summer to the bike shop where you can buy a bike and learn how o fix it — to arts and culture, this is the kind of neighborhood “station” every neighborhood should have.

Enjoy Valentine’s Day with them and give a little love.

 

Chicago Chocolate

Posted on by
bannana cream truffles

These truffles at Katherine Anne Confections had — if memory serves — a bannana creme pie flavor.

We’ve written about Katherine Anne’s Chocolate before, not just because her freshly-made chocolates, caramels, and marshmallows are inspired deliciousness, but because she embodies the small business entrepreneurship that this big town needs.

Catherine hosts what I like to call “chocolate release parties” and welcomes people to her shop to create confections with her. You really get the idea very quickly that she loves what she does and that she is passionate about sharing what she does with other people. And since what she loves is chocolate, it’s not very hard for others to love it, too.

Whatever you’re doing over the next week, consider participating in one of these activities with Katherine Anne:

  • SATURDAY 2/9, 12-6PM: handmade cards from a local artist will be for sale: a calligrapher will be writing complimentary love notes.
  • SUNDAY 2/10, 12-3PM: Illinois Sparkling will be pouring their delightful bubbly for you to sip while you hang with us.
  • WEDNESDAY 2/13, 6:30-9PM: Valentine’s truffle-making party! You know the drill on how awesome these are. We’re providing extra champagne for this one ;)
  • THURSDAY 2/14, all day! We’ll be pouring even MORE bubbly (we have a problem, we know) and adorning all boxes with a pretty floral sprig.

Chocolate Tasting at Garfield Park Conservatory

Posted on by

The Wednesday before Valentine’s Day (well-timed) The Garfield Park Conservatory is hosting a chocolate tasting program. Find out about the history of the caco plant and learn how the concoction of caco and sugar turns into a confection.

Register now for “From Bean to Bar” taking place Wednesday, February 13, from 6 – 8 p.m. Only $20!

 

Winter Vegetable Soup

Posted on by

soup over snowy chicagoFinally there’s snow in Chicago. It was creeping us out, not having any snow. Warm January days when the temperature climbed almost into the 60s felt wrong somehow. Now with the snow falling properly — we’re expecting a few inches — we’re ready to focus on that other favorite complaint Chicagoans like to focus on: a few extra pounds.

After all, Chicago is one of the meat-eatingest, beer-drinkingest restaurant towns in the Midwest (aw, heck, in the whole country) and without  lot of cold air to help us shiver the calories off, some of us have found a few extra pounds hanging around this year.

The weather has me craving meat stew, or bean soup, but I’m dedicated to getting in shape for the No Boundaries running program that start in about ten days at FleetFeet so I read all those delicious bean soup recipes and decided to go ahead and eschew the beans for hearty winter vegetables and lots of flavor. I chopped leeks, zuchini, butternut squash, and roasted tomatoes, and let this soup simmer on the stove for a few hours, filling the house with all the same satisfying smells you’d get from a higher-cal option, and turns out it rewards with just as much — flavor, a bit of crunch, and a satisfying feeling of being full when you’ve finished a bowl.

Read the Winter Vegetable Soup recipe.