Chicago

Chicago: The Curious Case(s)

February 22, 2012
By

I’ve always said there is nothing more boring than watching the local news in an area you don’t live in. When I travel I try to read national or international news,  but in Chicago, since I’m a local I read and watch the local news with great regularity. It makes me feel very grown up, and at a minimum allows me to join into adult conversations with a well placed “Well did you see what is happening with the school board?” and nod my head in all the right places. Also, the weather report is incredibly helpful when getting dressed.

As of late though, there have been 2 news stories dominating the headlines here in Chicago. Not the same 2 news stories, but rather the same 2 incidents happening over and over again.

  • Children dying or being severely injured by a falling television
  • People driving the wrong way down an expressway

I mean, say what? What sort of sick and twisted groundhog day is this? Sure these things happen from time to time, but since the end of 2011? Five children have been hurt by a falling television, most of them older models sitting on a piece of furniture (not a wall mounted flat screen like you might think).  We’ve also had at least 5 wrong-way expressway drivers (and 4 crashes) since December as well, the latest one being this morning and causing the outbound Kennedy Expressway (which, by the by, is how I get to work) to be shut down while they worked the scene of the accident. In fact, we’ve had 3 serious wrong way crashes with injuries in February.

You read about epidemics and pandemics and crime sprees and cold snaps, but right now Chicago is afflicted by something much stranger.

Most likely we will have a public safety campaign, and since we are short on money I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to merge it into one public safety campaign, something snazzy, albeit long, like PLEASE PROPERLY SECURE YOUR TELEVISIONS AND ALSO DON’T ENTER AN EXPRESSWAY EXIT. PPSYTAADEAEE for short. There will be mayoral meetings, and an unveiling, and a graphic design company will draw something to encourage people not to place old school heavy televisions on twee Ikea furniture. Perhaps all the off ramps in Chicago will get bright orange crossing gates and we will all pay a nominal fee (read: high tax) for some sort of wireless device that opens the gates for you when you exit the expressway but beeps loudly and tells you NO YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY if you try to enter an exit.

If that doesn’t work Chicago could give us all a tax credit to buy super lightweight flat televisions made out of carbon (I’m sure these exist, no?) and then employ strapping young men to come around to all the homes in Chicago and professionally mount them (the televisions you sickos) to the wall, all safe like. That will go well until one collapses, ala the back porch and the lawsuits start, but in the interim? Genius. It doesn’t solve the Expressway problem, but Chicago has tons of money, we can probably just put a police officer at every exit to keep an eye on them all. Or something.

I mean these are just general solutions, but you can see where it is going.

Save the people! From…themselves!

Member of the Family {Sponsored}

February 13, 2012
By

As I mentioned on Friday, last week I had the opportunity to attend the Chicago Auto Show as a guest of General Motors.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d never been to an auto show- a fact that blows my husband’s mind, as a Detroit native- and my husband just kept telling me it would be really cool. I shrugged my shoulders, as the daughter of a pilot I grew up attending air shows and to this day they bore the socks off of me, a little bit of “hmm my neck hurts from all this upward peering” and a little bit of “I’ve seen this act before….” so I just couldn’t believe an auto show full of vehicles that are not moving would be interesting.

But ever since I married into a General Motors family I’ve promised myself to keep an open mind about the iconic American brand. Last September I had the opportunity to drive the Chevy Equinox to review it and I was…pleasantly surprised. Even after that though I wasn’t 100% convinced I could love GM cars only and forever. Occasionally I’d hop into a friend’s new Volkswagon or see a photo of my Dad’s new Volvo and wistfully think “that is a pretty piece of machinery right there”.  So while I’d been thoroughly impressed with the GM car I’d driven, I wasn’t convinced I could love the entire line up.

This is where you shake your head and yell at the screen that you know EXACTLY WHAT IS COMING. My foreshadowing, it isn’t subtle.

I can’t exactly explain it, but at the auto show, where every car brand in the world was present with their most top of the line automobiles, I found myself…most comfortable…at the GM display. When all was said and done, with all the LED headlights and souped up engines and extra features and parking assists and blinking lights and safety ratings and a lot of “can you fit a golf bag in the trunk of this coupe?” I went back to the GM display and smiled. These were the cars that I found myself dropping my jaw at, where I lingered over a design feature or soft leather. This is where I found so much enthusiasm in every single employee that was there, that I couldn’t help but be excited with them. THE 2013 ACADIA HAS WHAT? MORE LEG ROOM IN THE THIRD SEAT? SIGN ME UP FOR SOME MORE LEG ROOM! HOLD ON, I NEED TO TAKE A PICTURE OF MORE LEG ROOM!

The love for design, the pride in the interiors, the explanation of new safety features was done by people who truly cared. GM wants my drive up the Northwoods to be comfortable. They want your kids to be safe in their car seats but have a place for their sippy cup. They want all of our commutes to as painless as possible. They showed off a new crown jewel with a lot of shy smiles, the Cadillac ATS, and all I could think the entire time was my husband would love this car so much. Truth be told, I think I would too.

 

When my visit was all said and done I said thank you and made my way home I was thinking about all the cars and the features and things that are important to buyers- mileage, interior space, cupholders, captain’s chairs, value- and I thought about what was important to me. Reliability. Safety. Gas mileage. Space for all of our stuff when we go sailing, on vacation, to the grocery store. The ability to fit in our tiny parking garage and parallel park on a busy Chicago street. Sure, I’d like a cupholder or two. I’d like my backseat passengers to have room for their legs. One day I’d like to fit a car seat for a wee one in the back. (No time soon). All of the things that are important to me seemed important to GM. What wasn’t important to them? That I write anything about my visit. They were not there to impress you or my parents or even my husband. GM took the time to impress me and didn’t ask for a blog post, a review, tweets with hashtags or a vlog discussing what I saw. They were there, with a group of owners and bloggers and Twitter personalities and the only people in the room that mattered was us. It wasn’t about what we promised them, but it was about what they are promising as a brand and as a company.

Consider me sold.

I’m proud to be a member of the General Motors family.

From what I hear, the membership is for a lifetime, no dues required.

 I was given one press pass for admission to the Chicago Auto Show on a media day, and a tour of the auto show floor by a GM employee. I have not been compensated for my time or post, nor did GM ask me to post my opinions. My opinions have been and always will be entirely my own and I am not paid to publish positive comments.

Animal Vegetable Mineral

January 30, 2012
By

We are now two weeks into our weekly vegetable & egg delivery from Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks. Two weeks ago right before our delivery I picked up a dozen eggs, which were then supplemented by our first delivery with another dozen. We diligently ate our eggs all week, knocking 9 out of the way, before our delivery showed up this week. With a bonus dozen. I’ll let you do the math but the generally correct answer is: we have a lot of eggs. So, challah happened (holla!):

Don’t worry we are having quiche tonight…..and eggs for breakfast all week long. We’ve also been enjoying all of our vegetables, some “normal” (lots of spinach), some a little more funky (swiss chard, you saucy minx you, you take up a lot of room in my fridge) to even more funky (Romanesco broccoli, HOW DO I COOK YOU?). I reintroduced myself to the art of gentle steaming with lots of garlic in the water for flavor, turning this….
Into this…..

A few of my friends are also getting produce boxes delivered and we’ve been swapping recipes and resources to help us creatively cook our new goodies. I thought I’d share a few of my favorites for vegetable cooking, from normal to slightly funky to….romanesco broccoli.

  • Smitten Kitchen: an amazing food blog with lots of farmers market inspired recipes, just search for your ingredient and see what pops up.
  • Outstanding in the Field: a cookbook my Mom gave us for Christmas, this farm-to-table inspired cookbook has a lot of really unique recipes featuring even more unique ingredients. Score!
  • Ad Hoc At Home: a Thomas Keller cookbook of fantastic proportions. It isn’t just vegetarian but it has wonderful instructions for all sorts of basic kitchen musts including jams, jellies and preserves as well as chutney and side dishes. You are bound to find something amazing to do with your produce.
  • Eating Local: A Sur La Table cookbook that I’m ordering this week- everyone I know who uses it says it is wonderful and it is based off of eating local produce- you are bound to find something new for your bushel of tomatoes or abundance of swiss chard.
  • How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: this is a Mark Bittman cookbook, has over 200 glowing reviews on Amazon and made their top “vegetarian cookbooks of 2011″ list – sold. This looks like it will be the place to turn for the totally crazy items that end up in our produce box, if for nothing else than an introduction to the item and a suggested method of preparation.

While we are not becoming vegetarian, we do try to eat meat-free a few times a week.  We are hoping that these cookbooks (in addition to our produce boxes) help us move beyond the boring noodles and tomato sauce with vegetables dinner. How about you, any awesome vegetarian cooking resources? Or….romanesco broccoli recipes?

Seriously. What is this?

Image Courtesy of Fractal Food @ http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/

Pin It

Superbowl Goodness

January 27, 2012
By

I’ve been celebrating (watching?) the Superbowl with two of my best girlfriends from law school for the past 5 years. Relationships have come and gone, but the three amigos have remained the same and year after year we have gathered at one of our houses with goodies, other friends and a little sadness that after the game we have to wait many, many months for football to return. This year the Superbowl extravaganza is at my house, where we have not hosted since the Saints won – there was King Cake that year. There will be no King Cake this year. But…there will be many, many delicious things. (Clicking through any of the Pinterest pins will take you to the original recipe on the web if you are interested.)

My menu, so far:

Cheesy Crack Dip: Ok fine, this is really a Pioneer Woman recipe, but a few years ago I made it when the Giants were in the Superbowl and we ran out of chips with half of the dip left. I found a bunch of guys hovering over the crockpot eating the dip with spoons. It was then titled Cheesy Crack Dip and has been ever since. This year mine will be sans jalapeno due to the dietary restrictions of a good friend and guest.

Source: thepioneerwoman.com via Daisy on Pinterest

 

 

B’s Famous Meatballs: You can imagine my surprise when my friend Heather recently blogged her recipe for 3 ingredient meatballs because they were surprisingly similar to the meatballs B makes that are a cult classic. We made them for K, AttyAtLaw’s holiday party this year and found people carrying entire fistfuls of toothpicks with meatballs bobbling precariously on them. B makes his with cocktail sauce (we like the Trader Joes, more of a kick) and Welch’s Grape jelly & a dash of garlic powder. Same general recipe though and OH SO GOOD.

 

Source: thespohrsaremultiplying.com via Daisy on Pinterest

 

Fruit Pizza: Something a little sweeter and without any meat in it but still an easy-to-eat finger food- fruit pizza it is! I might vary from this recipe but either way, it will be delicious. And not have any meat on it, which is a good thing, even during the Superbowl.

Source: thepioneerwoman.com via Daisy on Pinterest

 

 

Reuben Dip: My friend Elizabeth is bringing her famous Reuben Dip (actually she got the recipe from another member of our book club) with rye toasts and I could not be more excited. This is the recipe that I know makes my Mom sad she isn’t coming, cause she’d love Reuben Dip. (In a funny twist, my Mom totally has the Polish Pottery bowl pictured in this Pin of the dip….)

 

Source: skiptomylou.org via Daisy on Pinterest

 

Veggies & Dip: Mine might not be so beautifully presented, but I’m serving some fresh veggies & dip for anyone who feels overloaded with all the hot dips and heavy food:

Source: google.com via Daisy on Pinterest

 

Jalapeno Popper Dip: My friend Kristin is bringing her famous dish, jalapeno popper dip. I can’t wait to try it, I’ve only heard good things:

 

Source: annies-eats.com via Daisy on Pinterest

 

I think my menu is pretty close to done (contemplating just serving beer or perhaps making a punch as well) but there might be a few last minute additions- probably a few Trader Joe’s appetizers like their lovely pigs in a blanket. and of course my Mom’s famous salami squishes that must be served at every party I host. One of my best friend’s is bringing a batch of turkey chili (a must at any of our football parties) and I think we are good to go. Now I just have to decide who I’m cheering for.

(Just kidding. By default I have to cheer for the Manning. Go Giants!)

(Although if the Giants win the Superbowl I predict Easter dinner at the Manning house is about to get real awkward.)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Subscribe
BlogWithIntegrity.com
BlogHer Reviewer