Day 13: Native Foods, FWB, and bootcamp

Since I'd spent Day 12 cooped up inside I made sure to take full advantage of Day 13.

11am: Green City Market. I'd never gone to the farmer's market on a Wednesday before and was excited to see if it would be considerably less crowded. When I go on Saturdays, I try to get there between 9 and 9:30am to beat the crowds. I figured I could arrive later since it was a Wednesday, that, and I was up late watching 30 Rock on Hulu Plus. It was still pretty packed but not the zoo I'm used to on Saturdays.

This is the greatest time of year to visit the market in my opinion because there is so much to choose from: tomatoes, peppers, peaches, plums, corn, cucumbers, melons, lettuces, squashes, onions and more! You could easily get all of your regular grocery shopping done at the market this time of year. I got a ton of fruit and veg and two pounds of lamb spare ribs from Mint Creek Farm.

12pm: Native Foods Cafe. I forgot to mention that I did venture out on Day 12 to get some envelopes from Walgreens. On the way, I walked into RGB Lounge where they were having a vintage clothing sale. I bought this dress since it fits me pretty well but I'm not sure how or where I'll wear it yet:

80's meets Minnie Mouse.

When I purchased the dress they gave me a $5 promotional gift card for Native Foods Cafe, the new outpost for the California-based vegetarian- and vegan-friendly restaurant chain. I was extremely skeptical of this place since it seemed to freely borrow and, judging solely from the menu, bastardize global cuisines as it saw fit. Maybe I was just angsty over it opening right when Earwax Cafe closed. Even though I had never had a chance to try Earwax, I don't like seeing this neighborhood empty of independent establishments and fill with chains like Native Foods Cafe and Paradise Cantina.

Day 12: Re-imagining my apartment and rigatoni

Since I'd had a jam-packed weekend, I spent a rainy Day 12 mostly inside, cleaning and evaluating each room in my apartment, taking note of what didn't work and how I could fix it. I created a purchasing list and took a trip to Ikea on Day 14. Each room had a different problem but each problem resulted in my not wanting to spend much time in that room, and by extension, my apartment. Before I took the time to think about how I could transform my apartment into a place where I wanted to spend time, I had made my mind up that this was going to be my last year. Now that I've implemented Phase 1 of my home improvements, it's become way more put-together and I'm not so sure I'd want to move out next year.

Since I stayed in on Day 12, I continued eating through the contents of my freezer. I had braised the short rib and eye of round in garlic, dried guajillo chiles, coffee and red wine so I thought I'd make a rich lunch out of it. I took the short ribs off the bone, shredded all the meat, returned it to the pot with the braising liquid, and simmered it while I cooked up some rigatoni. Once the pasta was cooked, I sauteed the meat sauce and pasta in a separate pan and finished it with a pat of butter. After I removed it from the heat, I added some sambal oelek, white vinegar, chopped cilantro and chopped green onion.

The rigatoni. Incredible.

The idea for the final touches came from my dad's preparation of ox tail soup. The soup is so rich that you have to cut it with some vinegar and then add chopped cilantro, green onion and celery tops. If I'd had any celery, I would've used the leafy tops.

Do you have gripes about your apartment? Have you ever moved because you thought it would be easier just to start all over?

Day 11: Whales and Apes!

Day 11 was chock full of activities! I consider it to be the first day where I took full advantage of my sabbatical.

10:30am: My friend Damian taught me how to bench press. I wasn't my first time since I'd weight-trained for high school track but it's been a while and I wanted proper guidance before diving back in. Safety first! He and his roommates rent a house in Hyde Park and their basement is filled with weight-training equipment. They even used to have a "one ton rule" where everyone who lived in the house had to lift one ton of weight before bedtime every single night. 

We found out that my maximum for bench pressing is somewhere between 65 and 70 lbs. After benching, he showed me how to do squats and then hanging clean and jerks. My main objectives for weight-training are running fast and looking pretty. Even though we only did three exercises, I could feel the impact across my entire body and was cripplingly sore the next day. We lift again next week! 

1pm: Lunch at Piccolo Sogno. While walking through Wicker Park Fest this year, I spotted a deal on one of those a la card decks where each card is a $10 gift certificate to a different restaurant. Since they're only good for a year and we were already half way through, I snagged the deck for $20 (it's normally $30). I used my first card for lunch outdoors at Piccolo Sogno. Their patio is an urban oasis. 

There were a lot of moneyed people dining there.

We got: the beet salad, not good and not Italian; fava beans and pecorino with arugala; clam and pancetta pizza; and fresh pasta made from farro flour with truffle oil, asparagus and wild mushrooms. I liked the pasta and pizza the most.

Days 9 & 10: First Sabbatical Weekend

I have to be honest, Week 1 freaked me out a little bit. I'd been working almost every day for three years so I wasn't used to having so much time off and spending it at home. I got bored.

Things started turning around on Day 8 (Friday) when my friend Jamie came to hang with me. We had lunch at Longman and Eagle, which was surprisingly bad. I'd been for lunch and brunch before but I think we ordered the wrong stuff this time. She got the PBR breakfast and I got the Greek salad and a side of home fries. Both not good. Anyway, having her around really added some structure to my day and we finished it out with dinner at Silver Cloud, which I liked quite a bit. Jamie and I split the extra deluxe house salad with blackened chicken and green goddess dressing and a side of garlic bread. Very comforting.

On Day 9, I purchased quails, pork tenderloin and skirt steak at Paulina Meat Market. I'd been planning an Asian barbecue for Day 10. That evening, I attended the closing night for the Grant Park Music Festival. Since one of my former coworkers sings in the chorus, he reserved some seats for me in the fancy area! That's right, I got to sit in the seats instead of on the lawn.

Look how close!

The Grant Park Orchestra, the Grant Park Chorus, four soloists, and conductor Carlos Kalmar performed Verdi's Requiem. Full details about the performance can be found using this link. It was indeed majestic and sitting in the seats was a cool experience as well. However, there were two uncool portions of the evening:

Days 6-8: PBR Marketing and File Cabinets

If you read Day 5, you'll know that I basically spent Day 6 hungover, curled up in the fetal position.

I spent Day 7 cleaning my apartment and made a significant discovery. Either through denial or delusion, I've failed to acknowledge that I need a paper filing system in my home. I've always thought that I could scan important documents (I don't have a scanner) or photograph them and store them digitally on an external hard drive.

The problem with that idea is that I still create a "processing" pile that inevitably turns into an "I'll look at and deal with this later" pile. No more! I pared down several piles of paper into one and will try to find a small flat-file storage system this week. Examples of such systems from Urban Remains can be found here, here, here, and here. A more traditional, but still vintage/industrial option could be getting a couple of these. If a vintage one proves too pricey, I'll probably just pick up one of these from the container store.

That night I had a wonderful dinner at Chickpea restaurant, located at Chicago and Damen. If you haven't yet been, go now. It's one of the best Middle Eastern restaurants I've been to in the city. On the opposite corner of that intersection, I noticed an awesome PBR ad.

A pig hand puppet holds a can of PBR.

They picked a neighborhood where their beer is very popular, Ukrainian Village, and they recognized that their market doesn't want standard-issue, mass-produced beer ads. I spotted another in Wicker Park on Day 8.

Day 5: Isla de Cafe Slash Dousing My Caffeinated Paranoia With Alcohol

On Tuesday I tried out Isla de Cafe, Humboldt Park's newest food and coffee truck, with my friend Laura. I had heard about it through Time Out Chicago but had also seen it on my way to work (I used to commute on North Ave). You can see the airstream if you're driving on North Ave between Humboldt Blvd and Kedzie.

The pickup window.

We ordered two sandwiches, the mallorca and the jamon y queso. As for coffee, Laura got a large iced coffee and I got a cortado, which is an espresso with a small amount of milk. We met Cristina, one of the co-owners, and the head chef, Luis. 

Luis presses our sandwiches to order.

The mallorca.

The mallorca was delicious. It reminded me of when bacon becomes friends with french toast at breakfast. The jamon y queso was okay -- I'm more excited to try the other sandwiches than to get that one again. I think I'll have to get the pastrami next time. The coffee was kick-you-in-the-face strong and delicious. After eating our sandwiches, we went to the window a second time to get some desserts. We chose a guava pastry and a sweet corn cake. Since the coffee was so good the first time, I got a second drink, the chichaito, which is espresso with anise syrup. 

Day 4: Ohmygodmyfreezer

Have you ever seen that show Hoarders? It's about people who keep way too many things, often the result of a traumatic experience or mental illness. Last weekend when I opened my freezer in front of my family, I felt like I was the hoarder on an episode of Hoarders.

What, yours doesn't look like this?

I only realized how crazy it had become when I heard myself talking about it.

"Oh c'mon, it's not that bad."

"I keep animal carcasses so I can make stock!"

"I can easily fit four pints of ice cream in here. See, you just wedge one right here, another one right here .."

"I don't know how old that fruit is."

Day 3: Kitchen Table At Next, Tour of Thailand

Let's not pretend this is something it's not. Dining at Next wasn't the only thing I did on Sunday, but that's why most people will read this post. What makes this post different from other Next restaurant posts? We're Thai, my parents grew up in Bangkok and own an upscale Thai restaurant, we consider ourselves food enthusiasts and critical thinkers. So without further ado, let me launch into "Day 3" which is just a review of our experience at Next.

In case you aren't native to Chicago, Next is the latest project by Grant Achatz. The restaurant reinvents itself every three months to represent a different time and place. The first menu was Paris 1906 and until October you can take a Tour of Thailand if you're lucky enough to get tickets. Yeah, tickets. Getting a seat at Next is a pain in the ass. I don't consider that a complaint -- it's a fact. You can watch and read more about the restaurant and saga here, here and here.

We miraculously snagged tickets for the kitchen table and had dinner there last night. We chose four standard pairings, consisting of wine, beer and mixed drinks, and two non-alcoholic pairings. Just as a disclaimer, it was dark and I did the best job I could taking photos without using a flash. Flash photography isn't prohibited, but it is tacky.

A view of the kitchen from the table. My sister poses.

We'd been talking about this meal for a while and my parents, my sister and her husband flew into Chicago to dine at Next (and to visit me!). The exclusivity and hype move many to make a very special trip for this meal but my family is not the type to romanticize -- I was in the minority of the group because I was optimistic about the meal's outcome.

Let's talk about the food.

Day 2: Chizakaya, seafood tower, and gelato

Yesterday was both day 2 of the sabbatical and my family's visit.

11:30am: Lunch at Chizakaya. I heard through Tasting Table that they started offering lunch recently so we made a reservation for six and sat in the back room. When my family gets together we can get kind of obnoxious sometimes so I thought it'd be best if we sequestered ourselves off from everyone else. I guess not that many people know about lunch there because we were the only diners for the first hour or so that we were there. We met Harold Jurado, the executive chef and proprietor, and he made us a delicious lunch. 

Harold Jurado

The lunch menu is small -- a few appetizers and a handful of noodle dishes -- but we managed to get some dinner and off-menu items. Even though we were boisterous and demanding, Harold was cool and made us some okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki: bonito flakes on top.

Day 1: Andersonville

Thursday was my last day at my previous job and I don't begin my new one until September 19.

My parents flew into town yesterday morning and we had a full day of activities.

11am: Calumet Fisheries. We chatted with Carlos, the manager, and he gave us a salmon head to snack on. He showed us the smokehouse and told us about how he'd like to live in a quiet place on the countryside. The smoked salmon, smoked shrimp and fried shrimp were, as usual, out-of-control good.

12:30pm: Checked my parents into Hotel Allegro, part of the Klimpton properties. Their lobby looks like a circus. We play with a Chow Chow.

I didn't have her oral consent to take this photo so I'm taking care to hide her identity.

2:15pm: Walked around Andersonville.

Things I found out about Andersonville on the internet:

• After the fire, you couldn't build wooden houses in Chicago and Swedish immigrants couldn't yet afford brick or stone so they settled in the city's northern limits. 
• In 1910, Chicago had the second largest Swedish population in the world after Stockholm, Sweden.

There are a lot of cool stores on Clark Street and we spent almost two hours on the stretch between 5200 and 5400 N.