140 small space solutions, a blogger meat and greet and a do-it-yourself ice cream store

A host of home furnishings and accessories for cramped quarters, hanging out in a swell steakhouse with fellow food bloggers and an ice cream/frozen yogurt/sorbet store that lets you design your own flavors.

Okay, show of hands. Who out there doesn’t have square footage issues? The clever welcome mat above, available at Manhattan’s Tiny Living, says it all for most of us. And it’s one of nearly 150 different items chosen for space-challenged homes and apartments in a recent New York magazine online Shop•A•Matic. There are collapsible measuring cups and nesting measuring bowls for the kitchen; all sorts of storage boxes, units and racks; stackable and foldable chairs…everything designed with a small footprint in mind. And honestly, not everything is strictly speaking a spacesaver—I mean, throw pillows and curtains? But it’s all charming. And while some shops featured are solely New York stores, others like Urban Outfitters, Crate & Barrel, CB2 and Anthropologie can be found elsewhere. There are plenty of online shopping opportunities too. Continue reading “140 small space solutions, a blogger meat and greet and a do-it-yourself ice cream store” →

Chicago’s Vella Cafe: It’s not just for breakfast [and lunch] anymore

The popular Bucktown breakfast/lunch/brunch spot now serves up pizza three nights a week.

Looking at Vella Cafe’s airy, inviting space, its high ceilings festooned with a dozen or more vintage school light fixtures, it’s hard to imagine the place began as a panini stand under a 10-foot by 10-foot tent at Chicago’s Green City Market a couple of years ago.

Owners Sara Voden and Melissa Yen soon expanded their repertoire by hosting a crepe brunch at Kitchen Chicago in the summer. Later, they expanded again, trading their tent for a space with four walls and central air, tucked up against the Blue Line el tracks at the Western Avenue station, offering breakfast and lunch weekdays and brunch all day Saturdays and Sundays. Vella Cafe’s menu runs the gamut, from crepes and quiche on the weekend to panini, egg dishes, pancakes, a delicious sweet potato hash, house baked pastries and coffee. There are always vegetarian offerings too. On their website, they say their goal is “to become a part of the community by providing friendly service, a comfortable atmosphere and good, affordable food.” I think they’ve already achieved that.

Now they’ve expanded again, offering dinner three nights a week [for now]. From 5pm to 9pm Wednesdays through Fridays, Vella serves up a mostly pizza menu, along with salads, mac n’ cheese and desserts. Pizzas are the definite stars, 11-inch hand tossed pies with generous toppings and big flavor. Vella claims these pies serve one or two—we found that they easily serve two, especially if you split a salad as well. But go ahead and order one per person—they’re a mere 10 or 11 bucks each, and there are worse things than leftover pizza the next day. Vella Cafe is BYOB, which makes it an even bigger bargain.

Since discovering this little gem under the el tracks, we’ve eaten there countless times for the weekend brunch [which is not your typical overblown, overpriced affair, a plus in our book]. The food is unfailingly delicious and the entire staff is wonderfully welcoming. Now that we’ve tried the pizza, we know we’ll be back for that. You should get there too, before pizza nights are as bustling as their weekend brunches. You’ll find their complete menu [minus the daily specials] on their website.

Vella Cafe
1912 N. Western Ave.
773/489-7777
Monday – Tuesday, 7am – 3pm
Wednesday – Friday, 7am – 9pm
Saturday – Sunday, 9am – 3pm
Delivery available

Forget “Walk Like an Egyptian”—it’s time to eat like an Aztec

Ready to think way outside the bun? Chicago’s Field Museum is teaming up with more than a dozen area restaurants to give us a sampling of truly old school Mexican food, a Taste of The Aztec World. This weeklong, multi-venue celebration is part of their exclusive exhibition, The Aztec World. Acclaimed and up-and-coming chefs and mixologists will create dishes and cocktails with the Aztec empire’s cuisine in mind.

That cuisine, it turns out, has a lot in common with what we think of as traditional Mexican food. Plenty of maize [or corn] for tortillas, tamales and pozoles [soups or stews], for example. Lots of legumes, vegetables and fruits. And maguey, or agave, a native Mexican plant with broad, long, spiked leaves; it resembles a cactus plant, but it’s not—in fact, it’s related to lilies. I’ve seen these large, impressive leaves [often two feet or more in length] in produce departments of Mexican supermarkets in my Logan Square neighborhood and wondered what they were for. I’m still not clear how home cooks use the leaves, but agave nectar is a very sweet syrupy liquid that you can use like honey—in tea and coffee, on pancakes or French toast or in desserts… Agave is also used for making high-end tequila as well as mezcal and pulque, fermented maguey juice whose boozy origins actually predate the Aztecs. Seafood was also an important part of the Aztec diet, as it is in modern Mexican cuisine. Continue reading “Forget “Walk Like an Egyptian”—it’s time to eat like an Aztec” →

Pigging out: The week in pork

It seemed pigs were everywhere last week. On the cover of the Chicago Reader, in front of an old favorite grocery store and, most deliciously, in a glorious bowl of Udon noodles and pork broth in a wonderful new restaurant.

Writer Mike Sula is a self-proclaimed unrepentant omnivore. Working with Chicago’s leading weekly, the Chicago Reader, he undertook “The Whole Hog Project”—a year-and-a-half-long series in which he followed the progress of three young American mulefoot pigs from piglet to plate. Mulefoots, so named for their uncloven feet, are a rare breed; they numbered fewer than 200 just two years ago. Ironically, it is the farming of them for food that will ensure the breed’s continued existence. And it is farmers like Valerie Weihman-Rock in Argyle, Wisconsin, who are undertaking the task. As Sula’s article puts it, she reasons that “raising happy, free-ranging heritage mulefoot pigs for meat made up in some way for the millions of confined swine that live short, miserable lives before they’re churned into Smithfield hams and Spam.”

“The Whole Hog Project” isn’t always an easy read. Sula describes transporting the pigs, whose names he knows, to the slaughterhouse—a small, humane operation where the animals are handled gently, but a slaughterhouse nonetheless. He and others in the project witness their demise and butchering. Then they transport them to Blackbird, an elegantly austere restaurant on Chicago’s restaurant row along Randolph Street. Here they are destined to become a six-course dinner prepared by seven of Chicago’s top chefs.

For me, the central point of the article and the issue is that if we choose to eat meat, we should honor it. Sula references a New York Times op-ed by farmer and author Verlyn Klinkenborg about “the moral necessity of watching, if not participating in, the slaughter of animals he raises.” Reading Sula’s thoughtfully written piece has given a face to the idea of humanely raised meat, or three faces, to be more precise.

Before there was Whole Foods, before there was Trader Joe’s, there was Treasure Island. The venerable Chicago chain was opened in 1963 by the brothers Kamberos with the stated mission of providing “a supermarket that would combine the conventional with the best of specialty, imported and domestic products at competitive prices.” Julia Child dubbed their creation “The Most European Supermarket in America.” Sadly for us, Treasure Island had slipped from our radar screens for a while. Well, it’s back. And here are a few reasons why. Continue reading “Pigging out: The week in pork” →

“…Christmas gifts. Hahahaha!”

Like Thanksgiving, Christmas is another tradition-laden holiday. For seven or eight years now, one of our traditions has been to go to Chinatown for dinner on Christmas Eve. It started when Marion’s sister Lena told us in an offhanded, “isn’t that interesting” kind of way that two of her coworkers did this every year. We are HUGE fans of Chinese food—and of Chicago’s Chinatown—so any excuse to go there is fine by us. Thus, a tradition was born. Continue reading ““…Christmas gifts. Hahahaha!”” →