“Rain in the evening will transition to a wintry mix overnight,” the weather savants say. It’s already pretty wet out there already, more of a late March rain than mid-February. But not to worry: it will devolve into snow and ice by tomorrow.

I’ve read a number of PJ O’Rourke books over the years, as well as other writings of his, such as the highly amusing (unless you’re a pearl-clutcher) “Foreigners Around the World.” I even remember recommending Parliament of Whores to an Australian friend of mine to help him understand American politics. RIP, Mr. O’Rourke. You were a humorist who was actually funny. No mean feat.

We had some Korean-style chicken not long ago, acquired in a bright yellow box that says it includes joy, too.

ToreOre is a brand of Korean fast-food chicken, available in metro Chicago at the small mall attached to Super H Mart in Niles, a suburb that functions as the region’s Koreatown these days.

“Thanks to patented mixed-grains crust and fryers bubbling with 100% vegetable oil, the finished product is trans fat–free and nearly greaseless, but far from tasteless,” Time Out Chicago notes about ToreOre.

I agree. We got one of the spiciest selections this time around, and may tone it down a notch next time. But it made for a satisfying meal all the same.

In South Korea, the brand is much bigger than a mere suburban outpost. Nonghyup Moguchon is the food-processing arm of South Korea’s state-run National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (Nonghyup), and oversaw the rapid growth of ToreOre beginning in the early 2000s.

“ToreOre, Nonghyup Moguchon’s main restaurant franchise business, opened the first outlet in 2003 and had grown exponentially with the number of outlets reaching 1,000 in just five years,” Korean outlet Pulse News reported in 2018. “But it was forced to reduce the number of its restaurants to 700 amid intensifying competition in the country’s fried chicken business and has remained at a standstill for several years.”