Not because I’m bursting at the seams to write about the latest deliciousness consumed while in Chicago.

Because I FINALLY get to share the hugest thing to happen to me in a while.  It also explains why I’ve sucked at [...]]]> I have been totally giddy to write this post for AGES! AGES I tell you.

Not because I’m bursting at the seams to write about the latest deliciousness consumed while in Chicago.

Because I FINALLY get to share the hugest thing to happen to me in a while.  It also explains why I’ve sucked at posting for the past few months…

I’M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!

Yes, at the ripe “old” age of 29 I’ve decided to forgo having an income for two years and go off to get my MBA so that I can have certified baller status upon completion.

And how does Chicago figure in all of this? Well I’ve been accepted at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (just outside of Chicago) so after years of exploring my inner Canadian, New Yorker and Parisian, I’ll be saddling up and trying my best to be a Midwesterner.  For the record I will not lose my edge nor will I don a North Face jacket (seriously, is it just me or is North Face HUGE in the Chicago area?). I will however do my best to consume copious amounts of beer, beef and Wisconsin cheddar.

School starts in September and I’ll be taking the summer off to “get ready for the school”.  I’m planning on continuing to update the blog while I’m at school.  I’m excited for Midwestern food adventures and finding my new fave spots to acquire ingredients.  Plus being so close to Chicago, I’m excited to continue to eat my way through that city and hang with my sis.

Speaking of Chicago eats… I’ve had to visit Chicago a few times during this whole application thing.  Here are some of my highlights from the food scene (all photos taken via iPhone and occasionally filtered through Instagram)…

The Doughnut Vault
400 North Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60654

I love doughnuts and on a trip to Chicago over a year ago decided to hit up the Doughnut Vault.  The thing about DV is that you have to line up when the shop opens and they often sell out EARLY.  Sadly when we went despite getting there at around 9am on a Saturday the doughnuts sold out not long after. Luckily this random guy on the street saw how sad we were and gave us one of his doughnuts so that we could experience the joy.

On this trip I just HAD to have me some doughnuts.  So much so that I literally took the El from the airport directly to the Doughnut Vault WITH ALL MY LUGGAGE to get doughnuts.  And even THEN they had sold out of some flavours.  Luckily I was able to snag a vanilla, a chocolate and a chestnut.  The doughnuts aren’t cheap (about $3) but they are HUGE and delicious.  I’m not sure what my fave was but they all made me happy.  I would recommend following them on Twitter on the day that you want to go in order to keep tabs on how many doughnuts they have.

Sable Kitchen & Bar
505 North State Street
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 755-9704

I decided to visit Sable on the recommendation of Lauren who had a great meal there while she was in Chicago.  Sadly Sable will always be cemented in my memory as the restaurant where I watched the events of Whitney Houston’s death unfold on my iPhone.  Le sigh.

Sable has a strong focus on cocktails but also offers a fairly  diverse menu featuring a wide variety of meats and some good vegetarian options as well.  They really had my heart when I saw that they offered half portions of a lot of their entrees.  I’m a sucker for wanting to try like 7 different things at dinner and this totally allowed me to explore that.

Dinner consisted of…

Chicken and waffles – mini waffles with little bites of chicken = totally delish

Pomegranate glazed spare ribs – good but a very large portion even at the half size

Duck fat steak fries – sprinkled with cheese and totally addictive

Sweet corn creme brulee – this is a side dish (think creamed corn but sweeter) and is most excellent

Sable is a great reasonably-priced option if you’re in the River North area.  Fun and busy vibe too!

Table Fifty-Two
52 West Elm Street
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 573-4000

My sis had been raving about brunch at Table 52 for ages so we finally decided to hit it up.  Art Smith is the chef and has some sort of association with Oprah.   The restaurant has a southern bent to it given Smith’s background which is a total win for me.  I opted for the shrimp and grits which were pretty good.  The shrimp were in a tomatoey sauce and the grits were creamy and delicious.  While the shrimp and grits were a hit what really had my heart was the chicken and waffles that my sister dined on.  Literally the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.  It even inspired me to recreate them at home.  This isn’t a cheap brunch (those chicken and waffles cost $24) but it was definitely worth it!

Pump Room
1301 North State Parkway
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 787-3700

Pump Room is a Jean Georges restaurant in the Public Hotel in Chicago.  It’s kind of like the sister restaurant to ABC Kitchen in New York (which I hope to visit this summer).    We had a hard time deciding what to eat.  The appetizers sounded interesting but when it came down to the mains nothing really jumped out at us.  So we opted to order a bunch of appetizers and forgo the mains.

We ended up going with a salad and the carrot and avocado salad. We also had a whole wheat flat bread with mushrooms and egg, calamari and for dessert this apple pie type thing.  The food was good but not fabulous.  We may have ordered poorly or visited on a day with a less than exciting menu. I’m open to giving it another chance and will definitely visit ABC Kitchen.

For the life of me I can’t understand people who aren’t down for chicken and waffles.  Especially people who have never tried it.  I mean, fried chicken = good.  Waffles = good.  WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE???

When I go for brunch and am presented with the option to order chicken and waffles [...]]]>

For the life of me I can’t understand people who aren’t down for chicken and waffles.  Especially people who have never tried it.  I mean, fried chicken = good.  Waffles = good.  WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE???

When I go for brunch and am presented with the option to order chicken and waffles chances are I’ll order it.  I MAY be swayed if shrimp and grits are on the menu or if I’ve already had the chicken and waffles and they weren’t all that and a bag of chips.  But chance are, I’m getting the chicken and waffles.

I’m not sure the first time I had chicken and waffles but my most distinct chicken and waffle memories come from living in Harlem.  I was a stone’s throw away from some of Harlem’s most popular soul food joints and hit up Sylvia’s, Spoonbread, and of course Amy Ruth’s (where I’d order The Rev. Al Sharpton, fried).  In Toronto my fave iteration of chicken and waffles can be found at Stockyards.  In Chicago I mess with Art Smith’s chicken and waffles at Table 52.  I even hit up Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles while in LA (my body is still oozing deep fried and sugar after that meal).  Actually typing up this list I realize that I’ve had A LOT of chicken and waffles and I don’t think this is even half the places that I’ve been to!

After my recent fried chicken exploits I had leftover chicken that needed to be consumed.  Rather than repeating my southern feast I decided to take things up a notch and make my own chicken and waffles.  With the chicken already done I had two pieces of business to sort out, the waffles and the syrupy goodness.

For the waffles I didn’t want to do a plain buttermilk waffle but I didn’t want anything too fancy.  So I decided to go with my fave pancakes/waffle mix-in… cornmeal!  I love how cornmeal adds an extra bit of nuttiness and some crunch to things.  I used this recipe from Martha Stewart for guidance and went to town.

For the syrupy goodness I wanted to recapture some of the magic I discovered with this post.  I’m out of my blueberry preserves and really, I don’t think that would work anyhow but I did have some marmalade on hand.  I melted the marmalade with a bit of water, added some red pepper flakes and maple syrup and allowed everything to get to know each other a little better.  The results, a slightly spicy, tangy, maply syrup.  Pretty brilliant if you ask me.

This was the best chicken and waffles I’ve had in a minute.  Every component was just spot on.  I now have to stop myself from making this all. the. time.

As some of you may know, I went to undergrad at NYU and lived in the village/Union Square for much of that time.  That time happened to be between 2001 and 2005.  During this time Sex and the City was hugely popular and a few months before starting at NYU there was an [...]]]>

As some of you may know, I went to undergrad at NYU and lived in the village/Union Square for much of that time.  That time happened to be between 2001 and 2005.  During this time Sex and the City was hugely popular and a few months before starting at NYU there was an episode where Carrie and Miranda ate cupcakes in front of a cute bakery in New York.  The bakery was Magnolia Bakery.  Upon moving to New York, it feels like I spent a significant portion of freshman year lined up outside of Magnolia for cupcakes.  Yes, in line.  That line would trickle out of the store and extend along 11th St.  Kind of insane.

And of course since the line was so long AND because I suffer from indecision, I would inevitably buy a box of 4(!) cupcakes and get a mix of vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with a variety of frosting colours.  It’s a wonder that I didn’t gain the Freshman 15. And for the record, it’s not because I actually gained the Freshman 25 instead.  At some point I decided to expand my Magnolia purchases.  Sometimes I’d get a mini cheesecake (and a cupcake).  Sometimes I’d get a red velvet cupcake (and another cupcakes).  Sometimes I’d even get a cookie (and… a cupcake).  But then one day I ordered the banana pudding and in changed my life.

I’m not sure why I ordered banana pudding.  I had never heard of it before, it didn’t look particularly appealing and I’m not a huge pudding fan. I suspect my sister was with me and suggested ordering it.  Whatever, I ordered it and it was delicious.  This shook up my traditional Magnolia order.  Now, I’d likely get an order of the pudding and a cupcake or two.  Again, it’s a wonder I’m not obese.

I recently made a southern feast and wanted an easy to execute southern dessert.  That’s when Magnolia’s banana pudding popped into my head.  Luckily they published the recipe in one of their cookbooks so the recipe is easy to find online.  The recipe is also surprisingly uncomplicated.  All you need is: condensed milk, Jell-O vanilla pudding powder, cream, bananas and Nilla Wafers.  This is totally on some Sandra Lee “semi-homemade” ish.

This is a great make-ahead recipe and is easily scalable for a party.  I opted to half the recipe and make it in jars of single-sized portions (although my definition of “single” is pretty loose).  This was one of the those rare cases where the homemade tastes quite spot on to what you’d get in the shop.  Seriously, it tastes just like the original.  But then I became concerned… the original uses Jell-O instant pudding mix?  You can’t win ‘em all.

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The crappy thing about winter is that there are far fewer things to can.  If you’ve been following the blog you know that this summer I transitioned to pickling instead of making jam.  I also preserved some peaches in syrup and made my fave Peach Jam with Pinot Noir and Cinnamon [...]]]>

The crappy thing about winter is that there are far fewer things to can.  If you’ve been following the blog you know that this summer I transitioned to pickling instead of making jam.  I also preserved some peaches in syrup and made my fave Peach Jam with Pinot Noir and Cinnamon but these days I’ve been craving some sweet canned goodness.  Around this time of year the most logical thing to make is marmalade since citrus fruits are in abundance.  I wanted to make a Seville Orange Marmalade (like I even know what a Seville orange is but people sure do love to use them to make marmalade) but I had just missed the season.  So it was onto blood oranges.

Here’s the things about marmalade, I can’t say with confidence that I’d ever had it before.  If given a variety of spreadable options, marmalade is probably the last thing I’d try.  How could I pass up a strawberry, raspberry or blueberry jam?  I’d probably even choose honey before marmalade.  I’m sure I’ve had it over the years but not enough to leave me with a distinct impression.  Since I wasn’t sure if I even cared for marmalade I decided to make a very small batch just to whet my canning desires.

Around the time that I decided to make marmalade, Monica over at Nervous Chef was doing the same… and with blood oranges!  Definitely check out her post.  She led me to Sarah Hood’s (local canning goddess extraordinaire) post about Seville Orange Marmalade which I followed as my guide.

Marmalade making seemed a bit less worry free than my usual jam making, I’m not sure why.  It could be my confidence since I’m much more experienced with canning now.  Towards the end I did become a bit unsure when I had to assess whether or not I had enough water in the pot.  Oh! And I got creative with things and added a vanilla bean into the mix.

For my first foray into marmalade I was impressed.  While I didn’t have as much jelly as I would’ve liked (things were heavy on the peel) I have to admit that marmalade is fantastic!  I served my marmalade on some homemade croissants with homemade ricotta… because I’m fancy like that. I’m already getting excited for next winter and all of the possibilities.  I’ll get in on the Seville orange goodness and maybe some clementines, maybe some meyer lemon… the possibilities are kind of endless.

A few weeks back I was in Chicago for a quick jaunt.   My sis had been raving about brunch at Art Smith’s Table 52 so we hit it up that Sunday.  I had the shrimp and grits and she had the fried chicken and waffles.  While my shrimp and grits were delicious [...]]]>

A few weeks back I was in Chicago for a quick jaunt.   My sis had been raving about brunch at Art Smith’s Table 52 so we hit it up that Sunday.  I had the shrimp and grits and she had the fried chicken and waffles.  While my shrimp and grits were delicious the fried chicken was to die for.  I’ve had my fair share of fried chicken but this fried chicken was perhaps the best I’ve ever had (cue Drake).

I couldn’t shake the thoughts of this chicken so I immediately took to the interwebs to see if this recipe existed anywhere.  And it did!  I found tons of recipes for “Art Smith’s Fried Chicken” but they were all different! Some required two overnight soaks, some involved cornflakes, some involved eggs.  WTF?  So obviously don’t believe anything you read when you see a recipe for your fave restaurant dish on the interwebs.  I didn’t know who to believe.  Should I go with Food & Wine or Serious Eats or any of the other blogs?  In the end I cobbled together my own recipe taking my fave elements of each.

I decided to start off with a brine because brining chicken often makes it better.  I then moved on to a hot sauce-laced buttermilk soak.  The chicken then met a floury coating filled with spices including my fave, Old Bay Seasoning.  Usually when I fry chicken I use my Le Creuset dutch oven but this time around I decided to go old timey and use my Lodge Cast Iron Skillet.  This meant I got to use less oil.  This was even more awesome since I decided to spring and use peanut oil instead of vegetable oil or shortening.  That’s how ballers do, obvi.

So, was this chicken as good as Art Smith’s?  Don’t be silly, of course it wasn’t. BUT it was one of the best things to come out of my cast iron skillet so I won anyhow.  I mean doesn’t it look like extra amazing fried chicken? Trust me, it was.  In the past, particularly with the Ad Hoc Fried Chicken recipe I’ve found that it turned out too salty so in this case I dialed back on the amount of salt.  The result, non-salty chicken that was still super juicy. I turned this into a true southern feast by serving some collard greens (and I went all out with a smoked pork hock and everything) and a side of mac n cheese (the white kind, out of a box but still my fave).  I’m obviously on a diet.

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A few weeks ago Mary Luz over at Sizzling Communications invited me to attend a butter tasting of Stirling Creamery at Lynn Crawford’s restaurant Ruby Watchco.  Seeing as butter is my middle name I was definitely going to be in attendance.

An event based around butter is certainly a [...]]]>

A few weeks ago Mary Luz over at Sizzling Communications invited me to attend a butter tasting of Stirling Creamery at Lynn Crawford’s restaurant Ruby Watchco.  Seeing as butter is my middle name I was definitely going to be in attendance.

An event based around butter is certainly a winner in my books.  The team managed to incorporate butter into every aspect of the event.  Not only was there butter to be spread on fresh baguettes but the rims of the cocktails served were butter-based and there were a number of dishes both savoury and sweet where butter was a main player.  The folks at Stirling had four varieties on display for us to try: an 84% butterfat European-style, Goat Milk, Whey and a salted butter.  Each butter was very distinct and so much better than the usual stuff I buy at the supermarket.  The whey was my favourite as it had this almost sort of nutty quality about it.  But don’t get me wrong, the goat’s milk was great and unique and the European-style was pure butter goodness.

At the end of the event we were gifted with A LOT of butter.  Fresh off my my French baking class, I decided that I just HAD to use the European-style butter to make a batch of croissants.

Truth be told, croissant making was so much easier in class.  Everything just seemed to hum along. Granted my at-home croissant making was SIGNIFICANTLY less traumatizing than my hot dog making experience, but the process did have it’s moments.  I just didn’t plan the whole thing out properly.  For example, the butter must be rolled out.  I didn’t think this through.  I set my butter on the cutting board and started rolling.  Of course as I was rolling I realized I was really rolling it INTO the cutting board.  Not ideal. I should’ve totally used parchment or something.  Not a huge deal but was totally hilarious when I realized how silly I was.  There were some other mishaps along the way including exploding dough in the fridge (you really have to wrap your dough in a gazillion layers before it goes into the fridge).  But in the end it was nice to get a tray of these…

Of course that was far more croissants than I needed so I wrapped the rolled but not cooked croissants and put them in the freezer for future croissant goodness.  My croissants turned out well.  Not French baker good but still pretty darn good.  And buttery.  Man oh man were they buttery.  And with really rich buttery taste… no complaints here.  I do think I over-handled the dough because the croissants weren’t as flaky as I would’ve hoped but there’s always next time.

In Toronto you can find Stirling butters at places such as Whole Foods, Fiesta Farms, The Healthy Butcher and Olliffe Butcher Shop)

Thanks to the folks at Stirling Creamery for the butter stash and for a lovely event.

I’m not sure what switch has been flicked in my brain but recently dessert has been a big deal for me. Sure, I’ve always been a dessert kind of gal but I’d usually be happy enough settling for a few squares of chocolate, an apple pie from McDonald’s (my kryptonite) or a cookie [...]]]>

I’m not sure what switch has been flicked in my brain but recently dessert has been a big deal for me. Sure, I’ve always been a dessert kind of gal but I’d usually be happy enough settling for a few squares of chocolate, an apple pie from McDonald’s (my kryptonite) or a cookie or two (OMG, writing the word cookie right now has me craving a Fig Newton. Is that weird?). But goodness! These days my palette only wants fancy desserts. This involves bi-weekly trips to my favourite French bakeries for adorable cakes or has me slaving in the kitchen whipping up something special.

On a recent Sunday I wasn’t really thinking about dessert, promise! I was just happily meandering the produce aisles when I spotted a bag of key limes. I’ve seen key limes in the supermarket before but had never bought them. I immediately through them into the cart and the decision was made to make key lime pies. Exercising restraint (and a desire to use my new acquired tart pans) I decided to make Key Lime Tartlets instead of one giant pie. Thanks to the magic of the interwebs I stood in the supermarket and was able to get a general idea of what I would need to make it all happen and went on my merry way.

One thing that always disappoints me about key lime pie is the graham cracker crust.  A graham cracker crust just doesn’t do it for me at all.  It seems like such a throwaway.  I love graham crackers but in crust form… I find it boring and plain odd.  Clearly I was not doing a graham cracker crust.  I didn’t want a pie crust either so I decided to do a shortbread crust because I think they tend to make things better.

The ingredient list for key lime pie is surprisingly short and uncomplicated.  It’s pretty much eggs, key limes and condensed milk.  How silly is that?  I’m pretty sure the list is so short because juicing key limes is a bitch.  I had a feeling that was going to be the case going in so I did a bit of research to find out the best way to juice key limes.  I just couldn’t fathom juicing those little buggers by hand.  Turns out you can use your garlic press to easily juice key limes.  That was probably the most brilliant thing I learned all week.

I adapted the recipe from Mar-A-Lago for my key lime tartlets mainly because it was Oprah-approved.  It did not fail.  They were sweet, tart, perfectly balanced and 100% delicious. And SO EASY to make.  Why had I never made key lime pie before? This is about to get dangerous…

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