If you haven’t checked out Chicago Neighborhood festivals (page 18), it’s high time to do so. For the next three weeks, Chicago turns out to be a permanent festival joint, music performances as well as artistic exhibitions and social meetings. Most of them are free.
Week: May 24th-30th
Chicago Turkish Festival: Demonstrations of art (calligraphy and ceramics), film, dance (whirling dervishes) and food to celebrate Turkish culture in Chicago. When? May 23rd-26th, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Where? Daley Plaza on Washington Street between Clark and Dearborn. Price? Free
Memorial Day Wreath Laying Ceremony and Parade: This is one of the largest Memorial Day parades in the country, featuring marching bands, veteran groups and current soldiers. When? May 29th at 12 p.m. Where? State St. from Lake to Van Buren Price? Free
Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival: If you want more music after Dillo Day, check this two-day musical festival attracting regional and local bands. It is usually considered as a springboard for new musical talents. When? May 29th (12 p/m to 10 p.m) -30th (12 p.m to 9 p.m) Where? North Sheffield and Belmont Price? Free (a suggested donation of 5 dollars)
Week: May 31st- June 6th
Mayfest: Not the Dillo Day organization. Originally the German celebration of the arrival of spring (as Oktoberfest is in the fall), this festival has a mix of traditional music, beer tasting and German folk art. When? June 3rd-6th (Thursday 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., Friday 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.) Where? Lincoln Square Price? Free
Music without borders: World music on Thursday nights in Millenium Park. When? June 3rd- July 22nd (6:30 p.m.) Where? Millenium Park Price? Free
Eastside Millenium Art Festival: Enjoy colorful food, art works and kids’ activities in Millenium Park. When? June 4th-6th (Friday, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Sat-Sun 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) Where? Millennium Park Price? Free
Do Division Street Festival: This street festival in Wicker Park features live music selected by the Empty Bottle and the Subterranean. The street sidewalks are left open to food and craft retailers. Hipsters, it’s the place to be. When? June 5th-6th (12 p.m to 10 p.m) Where? Division Street, from Ashland to Leavitt. Price? A $5 donation is suggested.
Chicago Gospel Music Festival: Two days of gospel music performances in Millennium Park welcoming local and international gospel talents. When? June 5th-6th (11 a.m. to 9 p.m.) Where? Millennium Park (Jay Pritzker Pavillion and Walgreens Day Stage) Price? Free
Week: June 7th-13th
Chicago Blues Festival: It’s the world’s largest free jazz festival. A nice venue (5 stages) and event (more than 70 blues performers) to celebrate the end of finals week. When? June 11th-13th (11 a.m to 930 p.m) Where? Grant Park Price? Free
Wells Street Art Festival: An art fair presenting a great variety of crafts such as ceramics or paintings. It also features music entertainment and Wells street restaurants’ food. When? June 12th-13th (10 a.m. to 10 p.m.) Where? North Wells Street, between North Avenue and Division Street (Old Town) Price? $7 suggested donation before 7 p.m. and $10 after.
Andersonville Midsommarfest: This Swedish neighborhood festival is a good occasion to discover this neighborhood’s heritage by walking along the Sidewalk Sale with food and art vendors. When? June 12th-13th (11 a.m to 11 p.m) Where? North Clark Street and Foster Avenue Price? 5 dollars.
I have never seen so many food samples in one place as at the NRA Show — that’s National Restaurant Association, not National Rifle Association. If you delight in the samples at Whole Foods, multiply that by infinity and you’ll get a sense of what McCormick Place was like.
The NRA Exhibit Guide is over 200 pages long. There are 16 booths selling and sampling ice cream alone and 20 sampling cheese. Yes, I love my dairy products. Perhaps I should have made a plan for what I wanted to accomplish for the day. I intended to see Rob Levitt’s demonstration of how to butcher a pig, but it took me over three hours to maneuver my way to the World Culinary Showcase, so I unfortunately missed it. I was just a bit distracted. Instead, I just wandered through the show, gobbling up everything in sight. I justified eating well over an estimated 20,000 calories with the fact that this show is a once-a-year event (as are my birthday, Christmas and Thanksgiving).
I somehow missed Eli’s Cheesecake in the fray, though they were constantly posting photos of their delicious desserts on Twitter throughout the day. But you know what? I didn’t even mind, because after 6 hours of constant eating, another slice of cheesecake would have been just too much to handle.
General trends at the show included way too many frozen yogurt machines, domestic wines available at less than $4 a bottle to restaurants (it seems restaurants do make an exorbitant profit on their wines) and twisty potatoes on a stick – the latest in deep-fried fair food.
After trying everything, here are a few standouts:
These are the secret ingredients chefs in high-end restaurants like New York City’s Daniel use to garnish five-star dishes. I was particularly partial to the Atsina Cress, which tasted of sweet anise and licorice. Start your own little cress garden and you too can be a faux-top chef.
I had never heard of starfruit jam before, but it’s as close as I’m going to come to a tropical getaway this summer. This Malaysian jam is delicious, and the ingredients list is short too, with starfruit puree, cane sugar and a little citric acid rounding out the list.
While most of these products are available only directly to restaurants, there were a few commercial brands exhibiting products as well. This tangy cultured milk drink and other Nancy’s yogurt products are available at Whole Foods. Blueberry and blackberry were my favorite flavors and agave nectar is the only sweetener used. On a hot summer day, Kefir is the new milkshake.
You can be sure I tried all of them, and Ashby’s came out on top. La Bella Cafe and Internet in Rogers Park is the closest place you can taste some, but they have lots of incredible flavors. I loved the Mocha Almond Fudge but the Banana Pudding, Spumoni and Tennessee Toffee all are worth trying.
They look pretty ordinary, regular thin-cut fries, but taste incredible. Blackfoot, Idaho, it is time for you to relinquish the “Potato Capital of the World” crown.
These delicious sweet corn sandwiches oozing with mozzarella cheese are the perfect study snack. Mozzarella sticks out, Arepas in. Maybe Lisa’s or the new convenience store opening in Willard next year can stock them? Bonus: they’re gluten free and available for purchase online.
I foresee a future in competitive eating if this journalism thing doesn’t work out.
As the weather finally warms up, it’s worth taking a break from the Northwestern campus and Evanston in favor of a trip to Oak Park. This west suburb of Chicago shelters some great architectural houses. You’ll be able to venture into the childhood years of Ernest Hemingway by visiting the author’s birthplace home. The house hints at why he became an itchy foreign reporter and novelist.
At the same time, Oak Park had been the experimentation ground of the young and ambitious architect Frank Lloyd Wright. With his sidekick and mentor Louis Sullivan, they designed the houses which would be further known as the ”Prairie Houses” and epitomize his conception of organic architecture. Oak Park has no reason to be jealous of Fallingwater, Lloyd Wright’s most famous architectural project in Pennsylvania.
To visit the Ernest Hemingway museum and birthplace home, it will cost you $8 with your Wildcard. As for the Frank Lloyd Wright house and district area, you can choose several options: either a guided tour of the house and Prairie school of architecture district area for $25 or a self-guided audio tour of the area for $15. I’ll recommend picking the second one as it’s less expensive and it offers a general background which will not blitz you with tons of details, unless you’re a Lloyd Wright convert.
To get there, you could take either the Metra until the ”Oak Park” stop (1H20) or the Green Line from downtown until the ”Oak Park” stop (1H40).
For a glimpse of Oak Park, see the slideshow below.
It’s a popular (and false) belief that Cinco de Mayo is the Mexican Independence Day. Actually, Cinco de Mayo (May 5th, 1862) celebrates the victory of underequipped Mexican troops over the larger French army under the direction of General Ignacio Zaragoza.
This Mexican retelling of David and Goliath is much more celebrated in the United States than in Mexico, where the celebrations are pretty much limited to the state of Puebla, where the battle took place. Cultural exaggeration or not, you should get a look on what’s happening in Chicago for Cinco de Mayo’s festivities.
If you’re looking for colourful parades, earlier celebrations of Cinco de Mayo happened in Douglas Park over the weekend and in the Pilsen neighborhood with dance sessions, carnival rides, Mexican music and food tasting. Stop brooding behind your computer screen: this weekend, the Little Village (South Kostner Avenue and 26th street, the El stop Kostner on the Pink Line) will host a three-day festival with music, food, art and kids activities.
But Cinco de Mayo should not wait until next weekend. Here some foodie tips to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in your own way. Take a walk in Pilsen, contemplate its murals along 16th street, and visit the free National Museum of Mexican Art, which features two exhibitions on US artists’ interpretations of Mexican muralists and the plight of women living in Juarez. After satisfying your intellectual and artistic appetite, it’s time for some Mexican eateries: the area is full of competition.
Speaking of competition, for its second year in Pilsen, the Mole de Mayo festival will take place next Saturday. Mole refers to a variety of Mexican sauces. Besides the Best Mole Award contest and food sampling which will be distributed, music entertainment and outdoor Mexican markets will continue the weeklong celebration of Cinco de Mayo.
To celebrate Cinco de Mayo on Wednesday, these are my favorite restaurants in Pilsen: Nuevo Leon,the mecca of Mexican food for Pilsen residents, Cuernavaca, Tacos Palas where the owner and cook, an old lady, will prepare your food in front of you, and Taqueria La Justicia, a taco joint with a punk-rock touch.
If you’re looking for a closer eatery, Old Town and River North (accessible with the Intercampus shuttle) could be convenient locations. Favorite restaurants include Adobo Grill, which offers a special Cinco de Mayo menu, Salpícon, Topolobampo and the new Rick Bayless’ quick-service restaurant, XOCO.
If you’re too busy to leave Evanston and Northwestern campus, a Cinco de Mayo event called “Beyond Ponchos and Tequila: The Real Cinco de Mayo” will take place in Norris (Wildcat Room) from 6 to 7:30 p.m offering free food and dance performances.
Bistro Bordeaux is so unassuming that even after walking past it dozens of times, I am a little afraid I might not be able to find it. Located just east of Whole Foods on Church, this cozy French restaurant is romantic without being pretentious. Our plates did not match and the fresh baguette was served plainly in a brown paper bag. The simple presentation focuses your attention squarely on the food. In this case, that’s a good thing.
On Saturday night, the restaurant was packed from 5:30 p.m. onwards. When we left around 8 p.m., there were still people pouring in — a reservation is a must. Most patrons were in the 50+ demographic, but this would be the perfect special-occasion date for younger Francophiles.
Our server Venus, though not French, was very lovely just the same. She gave great recommendations and somehow graciously materialized whenever we needed her without being overbearing.
I started with the Coeur de Laitue, a Bibb lettuce salad with champagne vinaigrette and fresh herbs. Very simple, and the lettuce was fantastic. It was the first time I ever had to use a knife while eating my salad because the leaves were so big and lush.
The Bouchot mussels were prepared in a sweet and tart verjus, adding just enough flavor to the freshly steamed mussels. French food is often stereotyped as heavy and butter-laden, and while the buttery steak frites were well-received, the mussels surprisingly stole the show. It was refreshing to taste a variety of foods prepared so well.
Our meal was wonderful from start to finish, with dessert leaving everyone particularly satisfied. At Venus’ recommendation, we had the crème brulee and dark chocolate mousse. For me, a dark chocolate addict, the mousse was heaven. Made with pure dark Valrhona chocolate, this mousse is dense with rich chocolate flavor and not at all too sweet. The cooking vessel was brought to the table, where a serving of chocolate mousse was spooned out and drizzled with raspberry coulis. The coulis adds a tang to the mousse that lifts it to divine. I will never be able to eat a Chocolate Raspberry Fudge Balance Bar again.
The owner, Pascal Berthoumieux, who recently won a Time Out Chicago Eat Out Award for Last Living Maître d’, was even kind enough to stop by and make sure we were enjoying our desserts.
Bistro Bordeaux has been open since December, and I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to visit. It deserves a spot on my very short list of great upscale dining in Evanston.
If you come to Mercat a la Planxa for lunch, definitely take advantage of the Catalan Express. This lunch special allows you to pick one first course and one second course for $18, soft drink or iced tea included. This is a great deal considering that the priciest second course, tuna, is already $17.
Our waitress was very knowledgeable, but the busboy was totally clueless. He looked perpetually confused and mixed up dishes between tables and amongst diners at our table.
I started with the Ensalada Verde, mixed greens with asparagus, avocado, green beans and shaved Mahon cheese. I particularly liked the sharp crumbly cheese, although I wish I could have tasted it a little more. Its flavor was overwhelmed by the vinaigrette.
Everyone else started with the Arroz a la Cazuela, a saffron scented broth with shrimp, chicken chorizo, artichoke confit and piquillo aioli. The crostini with aioli was a hit, and the soup was well-received, although quite salty. Everyone was pleasantly surprised by the jumbo size of the shrimp.
Two of us had the atun con apio-nabo, or yellowfin tuna, smoked pine nuts, celery root and basil-emulsion. It had very light flavors and was wonderfully presented. Our tuna was lightly grilled, though it might have been better even rarer. The celery root was the highlight of this dish.
The Black Angus Hanger Steak and Mercat Burger were both prepared well. The burger had a very unique La Peral cheese sauce, padron peppers and red wine onion jam. Good enough to rival DMK Burger Bar. The hanger steak was accompanied by potato croquette and beech mushroom escabeche. Iron ChefJose Garces really personalizes each offering on the menu while remaining true to the restaurant’s Catalonian roots. Not a single dish disappointed.
For dessert we had the signature Croquetas de Xocolata — milk chocolate croquettes, banana marshmallow, rosemary caramel and arbequina olive oil. Unlike anything I have ever tasted. I was in love with them because I don’t generally like fried food and I much prefer dark to milk chocolate, but I can appreciate the combination of flavors in this sweet dish. My brother, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough.
I will definitely be back, perhaps to try the special tapas menu! I hear they have a pretty nice bar too, which I will be sure to check out, but not for a couple of years.
Starting Thursday, Kresge has been hosting a conference discussing art, politics and culture – my three favorite subjects. Go for one speech or go for all. Or just enjoy the fantastic images on the flyer.
Where: All discussions are in Kresge 1-375.
When: April 8th, 9th & 10th. See the flyer for details about which talks are when.
Flyer from the Northwestern University Department of French and Italian.
This Friday there’s an art walk in Wicker Park with buses to and from the event. Check out contemporary art that could be fantastic or not; it’s your call to make when you see the exhibit. Go to make friends with the artists dressed as a hipster, or go knowing you’re there to see the art, not just to be seen in your new thrift store finds. And definitely go for the free food and wine.
Place: 2010 Spring SmART Show at the Flat Iron Arts Building Address:1579 North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60622 Area: Wicker Park How to go: Three NU art institutions – The Block Museum, Stitch, and Northwestern Art Review – are bringing you busesat 6:30 and 7 p.m. from 40 Arts Circle Dr. (right in front of the Block Museum/Pick Staiger/the Norris food court side entrance), and are taking you back at 10:15. RSVP to the Facebook event.
The cozy Museum of Contemporary Photography boasts engaging exhibits. Photo by the author.
Hey and welcome. We’re here to tell you about what’s going on in Chicago – art, theater, talks, walks, restaurants and anything else you need to know about to go downtown. We’ll tell you what’s worth going and why you’ll like it; we’ll tell how to get there and how much of a dent it’ll make in your time and your wallet. We know what’s going on in the art world and we want you to know it too.
Place: The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Address:600 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605 Area: The Loop Cost: Free Phone: 312.663.5554
Why you should go: This museum is great, but also bite-sized and convenient, with just 2 ½ small floors tucked into the corner of Columbia College on Michigan Ave., across from Grant Park and next to the Spertus Institute (where you can stop for some Jewish learning if the mood strikes). If you really want an art-packed day, you could get off the Intercampus and hit the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute, the Chicago Architecture Foundation and finally the MoCP in pretty much a straight shot. Plus it’s free, so you don’t have to feel guilty if you can only spend a few minutes.
If you really can’t get away from your homework and just need a few minutes to procrastinate, you can browse the MoPC’s collections online here.
Current Exhibitions: 50% Grey: Contemporary Czech Photography Reconsidered
Through March 28, 2010
These photographs are from the Contemporary Czech Photography Reconsidered exhibit. Photo by the author.
A plaque explains that the photographers focus on how a national label, more than the weight of a nation’s history, affects them. I felt the weight of the iron curtain more than an expression of Czech identity, though. The abstract and mostly gray pictures were cold and hard. They looked to me like pictures of machines in factories across the Eastern Bloc. The dilapidation in the few street scenes seemed to express the results of an era of deprivation under Soviet rule.
The photographs are lonely, but beautiful. A slide projector shows, over and over, the same view out of a city window into a gray square as a tiny, solitary figure dressed in white flits back and forth as the slides change.
Recent Acquisitions of Czech Photography from The Baruch Foundation
Through March 28, 2010
This exhibition is livelier, more populated, with odd, quirky figures.
Two photos depict the same scene. A lady, the greengrocer, looks out at us from behind a table in the foreground. Two people in the background read a sign, their backs to us. In the first photo, the greengrocer’s table overflows with produce. The people are elaborately dressed. In the second, the table and the people are naked. The photos seem, again, to capture the era and to give us a look into the psyche of an artist behind the Iron Curtain.
