Chard Out the Wazzoo!

A couple of months ago, I signed up for a program called One Seed Chicago. If you've ever heard of the idea of a whole city reading the same book at one time, it's basically the gardener's equivalent of that. So I signed up and voted for chard as this year's seed. I promptly forgot all about it. Until a couple weeks ago when I opened my Fresh Picks box and found a little envelope that said "One Seed Chicago: Open to see this year's winner." I opened and discovered it was a handful of chard seeds.

I happily planted my chard. A few days later, another little One Seed Chicago envelope came in the mail--with more chard seeds! Apparently this envelope was the one I'd signed up for. The one in my FP box was a bonus. So I planted more chard.

Then last week, I opened my FP box and discovered a THIRD little envelope with more chard seeds. Holy cow! I haven't planted this packet yet. I'm hoping to space them out a bit so we'll have plenty of chard for a while. This was way more than I expected when I signed up for One Seed Chicago--not that I'm complaining. I love it!

Also, as a side note, the past two weeks, my FP box has included living basil! So I've added all 4 plants to my garden. I'm so excited that now we have some basil to sustain us until my plants start producing. I cannot say enough good things about Fresh Picks. Seriously, check them out if you're in the Chicago area.

Orange

Last week, Mr. Foodwhore and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. We played hookey from our jobs, went to brunch and spent the day walking around downtown, looking at the Tulips and all of the other beautiful things in bloom. It was a lovely day.

We started things off by eating at Orange. The menu looked delicious, but we were sold on the two specials: an omelet with apples, brie, onions and ham, and a pancake flight. What is a pancake flight, you may be thinking. It's a sample plate of four different kinds of pancakes: raspberry cheesecake, blueberries and cream, apple cranberry, and sweet potato and coconut. I'm usually a savory breakfast person, but the flight looked just too good to pass up. And it didn't disappoint. I didn't even need syrup!

Orange has several locations, but we went to the one on N Clark Street. It was just a short walk from there to the Water Tower in the heart of Mag Mile. While this location is BYOB, they didn't even charge us the advertised $3 fee. We brought our own champagne and ordered a large OJ to make our own mimosas. (I love this city!) The atmosphere was nice, the service was friendly. I only wish they'd had their patio open so we could have enjoyed the beautiful morning. We'll definitely be back.

A Taste of Chicago

I'm back! Chicago was great fun. We did everything we could possibly do in 5 days in Chicago, including seeing snow! Our days pretty much revolved around eating. Each morning we planned where we wanted to eat and how we would navigate the sites around those particular restaurants. After an exhausting 5 days, I think we saw, did and ate everything the Windy City had to offer. Here's a little run-down of the food we sampled:


Pizano's Pizza: We were definitely looking forward to sampling some deep dish pizza, but we decided to check out the award winning thin crust pizza at Pizano's first. We split Mark's Special, topped with tomatoes, fresh basil and garlic. It was spectacular. The deep dish pizza we would try later in the week had big shoes to fill.


Garrett's Popcorn: I adore popcorn. I eat a bowl of it almost every night while watching TV or relaxing on the couch. So I knew we had to hit up this place. We stopped in to get out of the cold while window shopping on the Magnificent Mile. The line was to the door, but moved quickly. We got a small bag each of cheese popcorn and caramel popcorn. I could have eaten their 6.5 gallon bucket it was so good. The cheese was my favorite (I prefer salty snacks), but the caramel was a close 2nd. I'm just happy Garrett's delivers all over the country. I will be taking them up on this offer soon.

Lou Malnati's: Oh my goodness! This pizza was to die for. Lou Malnati's came highly recommended and they were right. The four of us shared 2 small deep dish pizzas, a plain cheese and the Lou (topped with spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes). I could have stuffed myself, but we had to save room for the dessert pizza, a tiny chocolate chip creation, hot out of the oven and topped with vanilla ice cream.

Zeus was a great little restaurant in the heart of Greektown. We met a friend over there on his lunch break and he insisted that Zeus' was the place to eat. I'd never had lamb before, but I figured, "when in Greektown...." For $5.50 each we got a heaping lamb gyro with tomato, onion and tzatziki sauce, a side of fries and a soda. It was enough to make 2 meals out of, but in the spirit of American over-indulgence, I ate the whole thing. The lamb was delicious. I will certainly head back to Zeus' if I'm ever in Chicago again.

Zen Noodle's: On our last day there, we headed out into Bucktown (where we were staying) to try this great little Asian place. Thankfully Katie and I shared because the noodle bowls were HUGE! We split a cucumber salad and the Malaysian Hokkein Noodles--a mix of noodles, onions, carrots, sprouts, chicken and cucumbers.

Vienna Beef Hotdogs: Right before leaving town, Katie brought us to this hotdog stand to grab an authentic Chicago hotdog and fries. Mike got the polish sausage and I got the meal (hotdog, tamale and fries). So good, and such a good way to end our trip.

Goose Island Beer: Before heading to the improv show in Wrigleyville, our friend Mike took us to Goose Island to sample a Chicago-brewed beer. We tried the IPA, the Honker Ale and the Oatmeal Stout, which was my favorite. Too bad we don't get Goose Island down here in FL.

If you're ever headed to Chicago, I highly recommend checking out all of these places. They were excellent and a pretty good deal. Feel free to email me if you have questions about Chicago eateries (or anything else visitor-related).

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Windy City Grub

I'm taking a few days off from blogging and cooking. Mr. Food Whore and I are headed to the Windy City for a vacation. We'll be visiting a good friend who recently moved up there. While we're there, we are looking forward to checking out some of the food that Chi-Town is known for...mainly the deep dish pizza. We'll be heading to Lou Malnati's, which comes highly recommended and delivers all over the world so we'll be able to get a fix when we're back in the Sunshine State.



We've also been told that Hi Ricky Zen Noodles is amazing Asian cuisine. And our friend Katie says that we absolutely cannot leave Chicago withouth checking out Vienna Beef Hotdogs. Appearantly there is a shop right by her house that sells 1 hotdog, 1 tamale, fries and a soda for $5. Now that's my kind of deal. We're also planning to have cocktails at the Hancock Observatory Lounge on the 94th floor and at Big Bar Chicago which serves 20 oz ($24) martinis. I'll take 2, please!



I can't wait to get a taste of Chicago. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post all about it.

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore