Category Archives: Shopping

Chicago Summer in the City: Cobbling Together An All-American Holiday Dinner

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I am in the process of opening a new avenue in my freelance journalism career that will emphasize personal passions such as food, drink and photography. This makes me wonder if they shopping run I made Monday, to Binny’s (a big Chicago beverage store chain, for those who don’t live here), Best Buy and Trader Joe’s is tax-deductible.

At least I can buy all the eats and drinks and camera equipment I want here on the Third Coast. I worked covering elections in Washington, D.C., for 30 years, and just never amassed the resources I would have needed to buy a politician.

We had a second consecutive day of record-setting heat. After getting the walk by the lake out of the way in the morning before it became too unbearable, I decided to spend some more time outdoors at the rooftop pool, addressing my long-term Vitamin D deficiency. Unfortunately, the stiff breeze at ground level was like gale force more than 400 feet off the ground. Having to deal with turbulence is bad enough when you’re flying, but it’s pretty weird altogether when you are laying on a chaise lounge. Half an hour of that turned out to be quite enough.

Monday, of course, was Memorial Day, a day to remember my father, who passed away at age 90 four years ago. Milton Benenson served in the Army Air Force as a navigator during World War II. He must have been pretty good at it, and he certainly was fortunate, as he flew 36 missions over Nazi-controlled Europe and lived to make, among other things, me. I’m not sure how much of the world is grateful for that latter part, but I am.

I decided this would be a good occasion for an all-American dinner. Cooking out isn’t an option, as our apartments have no balconies, but the wide range of cast-iron cookware that I have provides as close to cookout taste as you can get indoors.

Hot dogs (a brand of all-beef organic franks carried by Trader Joe’s), corn on the cob, onion rings, a homemade peach and rhubarb cobbler, washed down with a mint julep. Hard to get more American than that.

The cobbler is worthy of a close-up, if only because I do a lot more cooking than baking as a norm.

I actually had the more traditional strawberry-rhubarb combo in mind when I hit the farmers’ market on Saturday, but I ended up with a bag of peaches that I bought because I thought it was so unusual to see peaches this early in the year. Also, we ate too many of the strawberries that I brought home to make a cobbler out of them.

Anyway, I found a lovely, easy recipe on the Web that had this added benefit: the syrup in which the fruit is briefly cooked to soften before joining the batter in the oven is made of sugar and… bourbon. The alcohol cooks off, of course, but the bourbon adds a nice little vanilla/butterscotch flavor. You have to trust me, but it came out great. And since the instructions say the batter can be the base to any combination of fruit, I need not worry too much about going overboard at the farmers’ markets this summer.

This looks like as good a place as any to catch up on the Cooler on the Lake Shore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown. According to Weather Underground…

Saturday, May 19: Chicago Midway reported a high of 91, a low of 64, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 84, a low of 56 and no rain. The 90s, for me, are a bit too hot. Point D.C.

Sunday, May 20: Chicago Midway reported a high of 92, a low of 65, and .14 of an inch of rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 81, a low of 59 and .01 of an inch of rain. Point D.C.

Monday, May 21: Chicago Midway reported a high of 65 — yep, a quick transition back to spring — a low of 54 and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 75, a low of 66 and .03 of an inch of rain. Point Chicago.

Tuesday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 68, a low of 49, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 81, a low of 66 and .01 of an inch of rain. Having experienced a lot of days in the 80s in D.C. that felt like they were in the 90s, I’ll give that one to Chicago.

Wednesday: Chicago Midway reported a high of 82, a low of 49, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 81, a low of 66 and .33 of an inch rain. That’s a lot of rain. Point Chicago.

Thursday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 90, a low of 65, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 83, a low of 69 and a trace of rain. Edge D.C.

Friday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 80, a low of 67, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 86, a low of 71 and a trace of rain. We’ll give this one to Chicago.

Saturday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 82, a low of 63, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 86, a low of 71 and a trace of rain. We’ll give this one to Chicago, too.

Sunday, a record-setting sizzler as Chicago Midway reported a high of 97, a low of 73, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 87, a low of 70 and .05 of an inch of rain. We’ll give this one to D.C.

That brings the overall score to 162-135 in favor of D.C.

The Lake Shore View: The Bus From Downtown To Christmas

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We have been looking forward to our first holiday season as residents of Chicago. It has been quite a few years, for a variety of reasons, since we’ve really been able to kick back and enjoy the Yuletide cheer.

Today, in fact, was going pretty sweetly even before I got on the 36 bus downtown to head home for the evening. It got off to a giddy start, as Barb and I looked at what I had on my breakfast plate — a banana, some blackberries and a sandwich comprised of a french roll, some New Zealand cheddar and a Trader Joe’s veggie sausage pattie — and decided it called for a little food art.

As I said when I posted this photo on Facebook, the sad truth is that when you’re freelancing and spending most of your time working at home, you do start to play with your food.

After Barb and I ran a couple of errands and grabbed some lunch out in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, I headed downtown and had a very pleasant get-acquainted chat with one of my new networking contacts.

I then walked a couple of blocks up to the German-style Christmas village that Chicago installs each December in Daley Plaza — creating an interesting juxtaposition with the square’s imposing Picasso sculpture — but it was a little too mobbed. So I walked a bit farther uptown to P.O.S.H., a lovely, eccentric little retro shop on State Street (between Ohio and Ontario), to do a little Christmas shopping.

And then, I caught the bus. Now, despite Chicago’s well-earned reputation as a pretty friendly place, a rush-hour bus on a chilly December evening normally isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. And to be honest, I’m usually more apt to lose myself in my iPhone than to socialize on the bus.

But somehow, I wound up holding friendly conversations with three separate fellow passengers.

First, there was a young woman who asked the driver when she got on whether he stopped at a certain intersection and indicated that she was unfamiliar with the city’s bus routes. I recognized the location — it is a block from a casual restaurant that has long been one of our Chicago favorites — so, since she was sitting nearby, I let her know when we were getting close to the stop.

She then informed me that she had just moved to Chicago yesterday. I told her we’d only been here since July, and told her that she would love it because it’s such a great city. She looked skeptical, and said, “Yes, it’s nice. But it’s so cold… I moved up here from Florida.” I responded that, yes, it is a lot different on that front, and wished her good luck as she got off at her stop.

Not long after, the woman sitting next to me noticed my shopping bags from P.O.S.H., and told me that was one of her favorite stores, too. I mentioned that I had, a couple of years ago, bought Barb a set of heavy painted lead bookends decorated with West Highland Terriers, her favorite dog; the woman said she had seen those in the store and had almost bought them herself.

Somehow, in the few minutes we spent chatting, she downloaded why we had moved to Chicago and that I write for a living. I even got an opportunity to get my little blog a plug, before she said her goodbyes and disembarked not too far from where Barb and I live.

Nonetheless, my last few minutes on the bus were filled with yet another chat, this time with the woman who had been sitting next to the woman with whom I was just talking. She had overheard me talking about Westies, and proceeded to inform me that she is a professional dog-walker. We talked about our pets, and I even got to see photographs of her beautiful golden retrievers before I finally hopped off myself.

Maybe the season just has people in a more gregarious mood. Maybe Chicago is just a fantasy camp for a people person like me. Whatever it was, I was in even more of a Christmas mood when I got off the bus than when I got on. With no insult intended to my former hometown, I just can’t recall ever thinking that after a bus ride in D.C.

So, how’s the weather, you ask.  According to Weather Underground, Chicago O’Hare yesterday reported a high of 57, a low of 33 and .02 of an inch of rain. Washington Reagan National had a high of 62, a low of 43 and no rain. So Chicago couldn’t break its losing streak in the Cooler on the Lake Shore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown even on a day when the high temperature was 22 degrees above normal. Its overall lead has now dwindled to 68-66.

The Lake Shore View: Old Friends, A Sad Nov. 22 Memory, And New Clothes

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Most of you who cook know that the secret to a (relatively) stress-free Thanksgiving dinner is to make a day or two in advance anything that can be successful re-heated without being ruined. So far, I’m two ahead: the cranberry sauce is made, as is the pumpkin soup (an easy and old-fashioned comfort food recipe). The bread for the stuffing is cubed and drying, and next up is a gravy base that I will reinforce with those yummy drippings after the turkey has finished roasting Thursday.

Tomorrow I will make the corn pudding and the mashed sweet potatoes that will go into the good old marshmallow-topped casserole (I’m not the world’s biggest marshmallow guy, but it’s a special request for our guests), and chop the veggies that will go into the stuffing. If I succeed at getting that far ahead, I think I can give myself the luxury of making the mashed potatoes on a “just in time” basis Thursday.

I haven’t given too many Lake Shore nighttime views, so here’s one for you. As you can see, some of the downtown skyscrapers have already gone seasonal with their green-and-red lighting.

My day started out reading a humorous Facebook post from the son of a guy with whom I’ve been tight since my very first week as a freshman at Michigan State University. He related that his wife had rebuffed his threat to dye his dark hair blonde or dark red to mark his upcoming 30th birthday. I posted a reply to tell him that he had no reason to worry about turning 30, but the fact that my best friend from college has a 30-year-old kid makes me want to do something with MY hair.

A little later, Facebook brought a more melancholy note, as another MSU friend recalled how he had first heard the news about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, 48 years ago today, and asked others to share their memories. Here is my response:

Third grade, P.S. 149, Jackson Heights, Queens. They called the teachers out of the classrooms to inform them. Our teacher, looking stricken, came back in, told us that we were being sent home, that we shouldn’t listen to the older kids (who were lurking by the doors to tell everyone what happened), and that we should pray for President Kennedy. I don’t remember if my then-37 year old mother, who picked me up, could tell me the news, but she had the New York Post, which had a headline that I believe read “JFK SLAIN.” Even at 8 years old, I understood what that meant. That, and Oswald’s live on TV murder 3 days later, were my rude awakenings to the bad things that could happen in the world.

I already had a precocious interest in politics. I was one of those totally geeky children who had the names of all the presidents memorized by kindergarten, and I have a memory of asking my parents who they voted for in the 1960 election that Kennedy won (I also believe they dodged the question).

My folks had a comedy record album called The First Family that featured a spot-on impersonation of the president by Vaughn Meader, whose stunted career as an entertainer was collateral damage to the JFK tragedy. I had a vague perception of parental worry during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, and we witnessed the rise of the civil rights revolution, though I was too young to really understand that. The murder of the president really was the first news event that I comprehended enough to remember in detail these 48 years later.

But life goes on, obviously, and this afternoon one of the chores that I find most mundane — clothes shopping — turned out to be unusually rewarding. Before we moved from Washington, I splurged on a new wardrobe at Men’s Wearhouse, something I needed to do because I tend to go clothes shopping every, oh, three to four years. In fact, I splurged so well that I received $350 of Men’s Wearhouse gift certificates in the mail, which I (in my I-hate-to-shop fashion) allowed to linger until just a few days before the expiration date.

Barb and I drove over to one of their outlets in the near-northern suburb of Niles, where I intended to procure a much-needed new raincoat and, if I had any gift certificate left, a couple of sweater vests (which I like to wear in the frequent event that I’m too lazy to iron a lightly wrinkled shirt). But it turns out — as we informed by a very friendly salesman who, we found out in conversation, used to be a producer for a local TV station — we stumbled right into a 2-for-1 sale… and the gift certificates were valid for the discount.

So I ended up with perhaps the nicest raincoat I’ve ever owned, a new winter jacket, and two sweater vests, about $700 worth of clothes, for all of $21 over the value of those certificates.

A little something extra to be thankful for.

Not so much the cold, rainy weather we had for most of the day.

Yesterday, according to Weather Underground, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 47, a low of 41, and no rain. Washington Reagan National had a high of 64, a low of 50 and .07 of an inch of rain. Sounds a little dreary, but 17 degrees warmer this time of year deserves a point for D.C., trimming Chicago’s overall lead to 64-46.

Happy Thanksgiving to any of you who are going off the grid for the next few days.