Category: Chicago!

The new Wienermobiles

June 28, 2017 • 1:45 pm

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. I was a little kid, and we were driving through Ohio with my parents and my sister. All of a sudden there was a car next to us shaped like a hot dog! I was transfixed. I didn’t know at the time that the Oscar Mayer company had several of these vehicles, traveling the U.S. touting their hot dogs. (I happen to love a good dog, and the Chicago style dog is the best.)  Later in life I came across a parked one, and a man outside was handing out coupons for discount prices on the dogs, and little wiener-shaped plastic whistles; I had my whistle for a long time.

So I was chuffed to see that the Wienermobiles are still on the road, and now Oscar Mayer has supplemented them with a “Wienermini,” a “Wiener Rover,” a “Winercycle,” and a “Wienderdrone.”

I always wondered how these things managed to pass vehicle inspections, but I suppose they did; after all, they’re no more unwieldy than a Winnebago.

Here’s the new lineup, announced just two days ago. Wave if you see one!

And if you like dogs, check out “The official New York Times hot dog taste test.” Here are the two favorites, and it pains me to report that the top choice is sold only at Whole Paycheck Foods:

If you visit my town, write and I’ll tell you where to get the best dogs as well as the incomparable Chicago-style pizzas.

Last night’s feed

June 27, 2017 • 12:30 pm

(Trigger warning: MEAT)

My old friend Ivan from Berkeley came to Chicago for a meeting yesterday, and I offered to take him to a Chicago steak restaurant (he took me to many great places when I visited him two years ago during the Great Cross-Country Trip). My first choice, which was a BYOB (I prefer to bring a really good bottle and pay corkage than buy from an always-overpriced wine list), was full, so we went to a place I’ve been before: the Chicago Cut Steakhouse.

The restaurant is on the north side of the Chicago River, and is right along that river, so you can have your meat outside with a great view of the water and the center city. Walking from the train station to the restaurant, and over the LaSalle Street Bridge, you get a great view of Chicago and its splendid architecture:

Ivan cabbed in from O’Hare, and I met him at the place. Here he is:

And here he is in 1972 when we first met—as graduate students at Rockefeller University. This is my group of pals among the first-years.  I’m in the center and he’s on the right holding the guitar. 45 years have done a job on both of us. But we’re still here—and scarfing down steaks!

The appetizers: foie gras on buttered brioche toast for me, a salad (iceberg wedge salad, bacon lardon, and Maytag Bleu Cheese) for Ivan. This is not a place for vegetarians, though they do have, I’m told, good seafood:

Our steaks: we each had a big 35-day, dry-aged ribeye. Mine was rare, Ivan’s medium rare. This one’s MINE!:

The side dishes with the steak, which we shared, were sauteed mushrooms and truffled scalloped potatoes with cheese. The wine was a 2013 Guigal Gigondas, and was fine.

The sunset on the walk back to the train (taken with an iPhone). Chicago can be a lovely town when you’re enjoying its architecture with a belly full o’ beef:

Yesterday’s lunch

June 12, 2017 • 1:45 pm

From time to time I meet reader Simon—a cancer researcher who moved here from Vanderbilt—to sample the fare of a local restaurant. Yesterday we went to an acclaimed place that specializes in the food of Macau: Fat Rice. The restaurant, on West Diversey Avenue, is hard to spot because the name is very inconspicuous: on the red-and-yellow poster on the door:

It’s a cozy and crowded restaurant. There are tables but we ate at the bar, washing down the food with a few brewskis:
Our meal started with an appetizer: boiled pork and ginger dumplings in Szechuan sauce:

And we split the house speciality, Arroz Gordo (“Fat rice”), a paella-like dish made with curried chicken, barbecued pork, linguica, chilli prawns, clams, croutons, ginger, a leaf I couldn’t identify, and a big pile of rice underneath, which was slightly charred and crunch at the bottom. Delicious! I don’t remember this dish from when I visited Macau last November, so it may be a case of cultural appropriation.

 

Chicago! (and ducks)

May 31, 2017 • 7:00 am

Here are photos of the city skyline from my crib, the first taken last evening and the second at about 5 a.m. today:

Yesterday, when I made one of my three daily trips outside to feed the ducklings, I counted five instead of four! It turned out that another mother had just taken her new babies to the water—a brood of five. Now I have nine ducklings to feed, and believe me, what with competition between the mothers (they beat each other up) and from the hungry drake, it’s a nightmare! I will be bereft if any duckling doesn’t fledge.

The older brood:

The younger brood this morning (you can see the oatmeal I’ve been feeding them, which they greatly like):

Snow in Chicago!

December 11, 2016 • 8:00 am

The weather people report that it snowed about six inches here last night, and it’s started again. We didn’t get that much in Hyde Park, being next to Lake Michigan, but it’s still enough to beautify the campus.

Before. This is the arch that connects my building with the Anatomy Building (home of Neil Shubin and others). Incoming students are told that the three gargoyles ascending the arch represent the first three years of college (freshman, sophomore, junior), while the gargoyle at the summit are successfully graduating seniors. This was taken when the sky began getting overcast yesterday afternoon.

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After: this morning. The gargoyles are cold. 

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