A Different Christkindlmarket, But Pretty Similar

Posted on December 18, 2023 by admin

Above freezing temps on Friday encouraged us to pay a visit to the Aurora Christkindlmaket, my second such market this year, which is vastly more than most years’ total of zero.

Lights. Artisans. Dark-wood booths evoking Germany. Walking around food. Hot drinks. High prices. Pretty much everything you’d see and experience at the market at Daley Plaza, except you’re in RiverEdge Park along the Fox River.

Adjacent to Hollywood Casino on the Fox is an enormous complex of parking lots, from which a pedestrian bridge crosses the river, opened only a little more than two years ago. A walk across takes you to RiverEdge.

Ornaments of the giants mark the way to the market.

Merchants.

Merchandise.

Swedish joy juice to help get through those near-Arctic Circle wintertime blues?

Called glögg, but the fine print says non-alcoholic, so I’m not sure that counts. The glögg I got at Ikea some years ago had some kick to it. I didn’t check these bottles too closely, so I’m not even sure it’s Swedish, though a Chicago-area company called Lars Own offers imported goods from Scandinavia – yet its web site is a little vague on its Grandpa Lundquist brand glögg.

Wasn’t Grandpa Lundquist a supporting character on Phyllis? The hard-of-hearing hoot-and-a-half curmudgeon played by a wizened character actor whose career was pretty much simultaneous with talkies? No, I made that up, AI-style.

I didn’t buy any 0.0 glögg anyway. I did buy some praline-filled Ritter Sport, a variety I hadn’t sampled before. It’s good. Of course it is. Yuriko acquired a few ornaments – a few per year, that’s how a mass of Christmas decorations grows. We ate pretzels from a Milwaukee-based bakery, and Ann got hot chocolate in a 0.2-liter mug with scenes of the downtown Christkindlmarket painted on it. Designed in Germany, Made in China, it says.

The similarities between the downtown and Aurora markets are no accident. It’s a seasonally oriented cottage industry.

“The Christkindlmarket Chicago was first conceptualized in 1995 when the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest Inc. (GACC Midwest) was seeking alternative ways to promote bilateral trade between the USA and Germany,” the event web site explains. “Companies from Germany and the Chicago area [participated] in the first Christkindlmarket Chicago in 1996. The market was an instant success and continues to flourish through the work of GACC Midwest’s subsidiary, German American Events LLC.”

Not everything – in fact not a lot of it – is German, or even European. You might call it an international market with North European holiday trappings. It works.

In summer, RiverEdge Park is the setting for concerts and plays. The John C. Dunham Pavilion was familiar, though the last time I was there, temps were high and the entertainment was free Shakespeare.

The stage control tower, decked out for this time of the year.

Heard as we were leaving, passing by two people entering:

“So that’s what it’s called? All this time I thought it was the Kris Kringle Market.” (laughs)

Venn Santa

Posted on December 17, 2023 by admin

Today: tree decoration. I set up the tree (Friday), put on the lights (Saturday), and hung a few ornaments. Ann adjusted the lights and did most of the ornaments.

Out in the world there are plenty of images of Christmas ornaments as they hang on trees, but fewer pics of agglomerated ornaments, which is how they spend 11 months of the year in my household. Their boxes were opened for distribution to the branches of our Christmas trees on Sunday, one shortish natural tree and two stubby artificial trees, all green, none aluminum.

The decoration process also called for hot chocolate. Ann’s came in a Christmas-themed mug that had been in the house less than 48 hours and pretty much blended into its background tablecloth.

A trickle of cards arrived last week. On Friday I got Wendy and Ted’s annual holiday card, hand drawn on a plain white card, high in amusement value. Even better, idiosyncratic amusement value.

Somewhere in my poorly organized correspondence files, there are examples from earlier years. I ought to dig up a few.

New York in the Days of the Omicron Variant

Posted on December 10, 2023 by admin

Has it been two years now since the omicron variant reared its ugly – head’s not quite the word for viruses, but anyway made a splash? Seems so. I happened to be visiting New York City at that moment in Covid history. I got through it. Even had a good visit, spending a lot of time outdoors, a safe place to be, I suppose, as New Yorkers went about their business.

Among other things, I enjoyed a Uyghur meal for the first time – I really need to do that again – washed down with an apple-flavored drink I’d never had before either, Laziza, a non-alcoholic malt beverage made in Lebanon.

It is really? Not something I think of when I think of moving.

It might be beyond belief even now, but not in the way meant in 2021.

What does Manhattan need that it doesn’t have? A system of alleys, for garbage pick up and other uses. There are some epic piles of trash out on the sidewalks.

The Korean War memorial in Battery Park, honoring not just U.S. forces, but all who fought against the North Koreans and red Chinese. Note the flags; others are on the other sides, including the U.S., ROK, UK, France and more.

In the pavement around the memorial are the names of those nations and how many of their troops died and were wounded. Luxembourg suffered two killed and five wounded, for instance. (If I remember right, a wounded and missing Luxembourger soldier was a plot point in a M*A*S*H episode. Yes.)

Near Little Island park.

Hard to read, but it’s (sort of) a Titanic memorial. Marks the dockside where the steamer would have docked, had it not had its date with an iceberg.

On the wall near the men’s room at Dos Caminos, a Mexican restaurant.

A comment on the food? A reference to a record label? An app I’ve never heard of? Couldn’t say, but it’s the kind of detail I like in a place.

Billy Goat Tavern & Grill ’23

Posted on December 7, 2023 by admin

I can’t say whether Billy Goat Tavern & Grill looks exactly the same as it did in the ’80s, but it sure felt the same on Monday night. The walls of photos, neon, beer taps, rows of bottles, knickknacks and basic restaurant tables and chairs, and plenty of worn red bar stools. The vibe is Chicago tavern clutter, comfortable as an old shirt.

Now that I think about it, I had the most Greek experience I’ve ever had at the Billy Goat, having never yet made it to Greece. Shortly before the 1988 presidential election, the Dukakis campaign staged a campaign parade on Michigan Avenue, and after work I went to watch, on a spontaneous quasi-date with a fetching Greek-American woman I knew. Was it a torchlight parade? In my memory, there were torches, but probably no: that seems like a 19th-century thing.

We were within feet of the candidate as he walked by, his expression a little stiff and discouraged. Later we repaired to the Billy Goat, which was wall-to-wall packed, including many Greek Americans – wearing the colors of the Greek flag, some of them — with everybody feasting on cheeseburgers and beer, the place alive with talk, and the clank of spatulas on the grill, and the hissing burgers and onion air, and the clouds of cigarette smoke still common in bars and restaurants.

I’m pretty sure the workers called out Cheezborger! Cheezborger! in those days, which might be an example of life imitating art, or more likely, life and art reinforcing either other.

Rumor was that Dukakis himself would make an appearance, and well he should have, but he never did. He should have shown up in his tank helmet, shaking hands and mugging for cameras. Rather than be embarrassed by it, he should have leaned into it, but no.

Back here in the 21st century, there are reminders of goats at Billy Goat. How could it be otherwise?

You can see a wall of bylines at Billy Goat. Once upon a time, both major Chicago newspaper buildings were within easy walking distance, even in winter, so newspapermen hung out there.

Best known was Royko, who worked the place into his column from time to time. From there, the place went on to wider notice, sort of.

I expect the number of journalists is fairly low these days, outnumbered by other kinds of downtown residents and workers, plus tourists. On Monday night at least, no one called out when you ordered your cheeseburgers; they just went to work at it.

Except for the vegan in our group – she was a good sport about it — we had cheeseburgers and chips and beer. What else? In theory, a few other things are on the menu, but we didn’t test it. No fries, either.

We also sipped from a single glass of Malört. It’s a Chicago thing to do.

Around the corner from the entrance of the Billy Goat, directly facing Lower Michigan Ave. and just north of the Chicago River., is a mural and a tavern sign.

The mural is a work by Andy Bellomo, “a self-taught artist who began her creative interest as a young teen studying the color, light, shapes, and lines of traditional stained glass in churches,” according to the the Magnificent Mile Association, as part of a number of murals known as Undercurrent (at least to the Mag Mile Assn.).

It’s been there about a year, which would account for me never noticing it before. Haven’t been down to Lower Michigan Ave. in a some years, but I can assure the world that it’s still the hard urban space it’s always been.

There’s more of the Undercurrent mural on the other side of the tavern’s entrance, not captured in the below image.

But I did capture, without realizing it, part of a different mural, one that’s been there for decades, by an artist mostly lost to time in Chicago, even though his heyday was only about 50 years ago. It’s on the extreme right edge of the image: a rainbow goat.

“Many people ask about the rainbow goats painted on the walls outside of The Goat,” notes the tavern web site. “They were painted in 1970 by Sachio Yamashita, known as Sachi… Billy [Sianis, original owner of the tavern] made a deal with Sachi. Every day after Sachi and his helpers finish their work, beer and borgers are free! Unfortunately Billy Goat Sianis passed away on October 22, 1970 just days before the paintings were complete.”

I might have noticed the goats before, but didn’t give them much thought. I didn’t notice them this time, or I’d have taken a full image, since how many rainbow goats could there be in the world? On walls, that is.

Charcoal Inferno

Posted on November 19, 2023 by admin

Warmish by day, chilly at night, though not quite freezing most of the time. Today was clear and, since our deck has a southern exposure, it was warm enough out there to eat lunch in some comfort.

On Friday, which wasn’t quite as warm, I got started on building a back-yard fire a little later than planned, as the daylight ebbed away. At first it didn’t catch, but eventually it did. I’ve documented fires out back before, but not the charcoal chimney in use.

Doing my (very) little bit to release carbon into the atmosphere.

Eventually, all the charcoal caught fire.

A small inferno? Can infernos be small?

It was hot enough to cook brats, at least, once I tumped over the charcoal chimney (carefully) and put on the grill. The last outdoor cooking this year, and probably the last until April or May.

Centennial Park and the Vanderbilt Ramble

Posted on November 8, 2023 by admin

On Saturday the sun came up in Nashville and we weren’t there to greet it, having stuffed ourselves with hot chicken and beer the night before, and then engaged in conversation until fairly late. On the other other hand, we were there to see the sun set later that day from the roof deck.

Between those moments, we did a lot of walking. First we set out from our well-located short-term apartment along side streets past the site of our residence in the early ’80s, which was also the place we built an isolation tank for ourselves, then to Centennial Park, the crown jewel among Nashville parks.

On Saturday morning we merely crossed the park, where one of our number had been arrested for drinking beer in public 40-plus years ago, exiting it at the end (or beginning) of the short Elliston Place. We noted the buildings and businesses gone from that street – such as Rotier’s and its barbecue chicken without peer – and additions, none of any particular character.

The Elliston Place Soda Shop still serves tasty meat-and-threes, wonderful breakfasts, and incredible milkshakes, though in a larger location next door to its original site, where it reopened in 2021. The look is about right, a larger space but still a close homage to the original. The real test was the food, and the place passed with flying colors.

Then came the Vanderbilt Ramble: along sidewalks and across greens, past dorms and classrooms and other buildings, many tied to specific sets of memories: McGill Hall, Sarratt Student Center, the Main Library, Furman Hall, and 21st Avenue to the former Peabody Campus, where we noted that Oxford House had vanished, replaced by a parking garage still under construction; East Hall is still that and West Hall that; but Confederate Memorial Hall is merely Memorial Hall and the Social-Religious Building is named for some chancellor or other. Former Social-Religious has ten pillars out front, which to this day I believe stand for the Ten Commandments. On its expansive front steps, every day once upon a time, a blind student practiced his bagpipes. He wasn’t bad.

Further wanderings took us through Hillsboro Village, a storefront shopping district that existed 40+ years ago, though most of the shops are different these days. Returning to campus, we passed through the blocks of fraternity and sorority houses, once marked by regular streets, which are now pedestrian walkways. We had little to do with them in our student days, though one of us pledged ATO, which didn’t take. I noted the spot where I had a short springtime conversation with a tipsy future vodka billionaire. Indeed, besides going to the same junior high and high school as I did, he spent one year at VU.

The arboretum that is the Vanderbilt campus, including Peabody, was near peak coloration, a blaze of leaves in places. Many trees are enormous and stood well before anyone on campus today was born. The day was warm and campus alive with people, though never crowded anywhere. Students went about their weekend business, and paid no attention to the oldsters wandering by, with their collective recollections trailing behind them.

On Sunday afternoon, we spent more time in Centennial Park, legacy of a long-ago expo.

The temporary art building, a replica of the Parthenon, was rebuilt in the 1920s to be more permanent, and it abides. So does Athena inside.

She wears the world’s largest sandals, probably.

Though Steve and Rich had never seen her, Athena isn’t exactly new, having been completed by sculptor Alan LeQuire in 1990. I’ve visited a few times in the years since.

Much more recent (2016) is the Tennessee Women’s Suffrage Monument, also done by Alan LeQuire. None of us had seen it.

We visited a few other spots in the park, but forget to visit the new Taylor Swift Bench. Oops.

Churches After Lunch

Posted on October 17, 2023 by admin

“Nothing matters but the weekend, from a Tuesday point of view.”

Lyrical wisdom from The Kings, a Canadian band who had only one hit in the United States that I know of (or two, depending on how you count the songs). I don’t think I’m going to look it up to confirm that notion. It’s been more than 40 years, after all, and that level of detail doesn’t matter much.

Lunch on Saturday was in Uptown, specifically near the Argyle El station, which is home to a sizable number of Vietnamese immigrants and their descendants. Once upon a time, at a small strip center in the neighborhood, there was a pho restaurant that had the distinction (for me) of being the first place I tried pho. It was the also first restaurant we ever took Lilly to, when she was exactly a month old in December 1997. I’m glad to say she slept through the entire experience in her detached car seat, next to our table. The other patrons were probably glad, too.

That restaurant is gone – or has moved, its space taken by the next-door Vietnamese grocery store – so we repaired to a North Broadway storefront pho spot. Actually much larger than a typical storefront, with room in back for a small stage for live music, colorfully decked out with a handful of small spotlights ready for action, as we saw at some of the larger restaurants in Saigon. Lunch was filling and as good as pho almost always is. Who can ask for more?

After lunch we walked the few blocks to Saint Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church in Uptown. I lived not far away for a number of years, but had no idea it was there.

Another unusual church style, at least for Chicago. Colonial Meeting House, though looking a bit more Georgian than that, my sources tell me. An architect name Joseph W. McCarthy, not to be confused with the number-one proponent of McCarthyism from Wisconsin, did the design. He’s yet another noted designers of churches, back when that was a growth industry.

Many of the shrines in the church reflect the local population, as shrines tend to do.

In case you want to know who the 17 Martyrs of Laos are, a poster at the back of the nave tells you. Martyrs figure prominently at Saint Thomas, fitting right in for a church honoring a churchman murdered in a church.

Later in the day, in fact the last place we visited on Saturday, was St. Ita Catholic Church in Edgewater, at the edge of my old stomping grounds in Andersonville.

“St. Ita Parish was founded in Edgewater in 1900. On October 23, 1923, His Eminence George Cardinal Mundelein commissioned Architect Henry J. Schlacks to design and build a new church specifically in French Gothic design for St. Ita Parish,” the local parish web site says. I’ve seen a number of his churches.

“The current church, which opened in 1927, was the capstone of Henry Schlacks’ distinguished career as an ecclesiastical architect…. The open tower appears airy and delicate, yet it contains 1,800 tons of Bedford limestone and rises to 120 feet in height. Elaborate Gothic detailing marks the altar, but the medallion windows containing more than 200,000 pieces of stained glass, designed by Schlacks, are the real highlight of the interior.”

I have a vaguely remember visiting the church on a cool rainy Saturday – sometime in the late ’80s, maybe? — but not lingering for too long inside because a wedding was in progress. Last Saturday, cool and rainy, another wedding was in progress.Some other time I might see those many pieces of glass, artfully arrayed.

Thursday Rolls Around Again

Posted on October 5, 2023 by admin

Lilly’s been in town for a few days. We’re glad to see her, as always. We’re glad to eat sushi with her, as always.

Another big thing this week is that I got a new phone. Today. With a new carrier. Apparently my old phone was old indeed, since I bought it so I could take it to Mexico City. Soon after that, I discovered the highest and best use for a mobile phone: pulling up Google Maps.

Lately the old phone had been showing its mechanical senility by disconnecting at inconvenient times. This happened more and more often, until it was completely unreliable. One of the last messages that got through, yesterday, was the modern version of the Emergency Broadcast System: The National Wireless Emergency Alert System.

Or Sistema Nacional de Altera Inalambrica de Emergencia.

The sound was jarring, as I expect it’s supposed to be. I wonder how cacophonous a big room full of phones was — say a classroom that doesn’t make its students turn off their devices.

A presidential alert, no less. I like to think that FEMA technicians brought a suitcase to the Oval Office, opened it up, and President Biden pushed a button inside to set off the alert. Maybe a blue button, since a red button might be on the nuclear football, and set off something else all together.

Temps cooled down today after overnight rain. No freezes yet, so we still have flowers in the back yard.

The Flowers of October. That has to be the title of something.

Pyro-Monday

Posted on September 18, 2023 by admin

One of the benefits of the soaking rain over the weekend is that I felt I could grill this evening without much risk of an embarrassing and possibly dangerous grass fire. Brats were duly cooked for dinner about an hour ahead of sunset, which we consumed on the deck along with salad and for dessert some cannoli I bought on Sunday at a Polish grocery store, which were very close to being as good the best in my experience, those I found years ago not in Italy but in Little Italy in NYC.

There will be fewer such grilling opportunities as the movement of the Earth drags us in the Northern Hemisphere toward shorter days.

At dusk, I decided to burn some of the excess sticks always present in the back yard. The wood was a little damp still, but hot charcoal dries it out, and then ignites it.

There wasn’t much wind – another reason to grill – but enough movement give the fire occasional dramatic arcs.

The peculiarities of digital photography added to the seeming movement of that shot, I think. Soon the fire reached full blaze, best shown by zooming in a bit.

The declining phase.

Staring into a fire you’ve made is surely a pleasure we share with how many generations before us? Many.

“Clear evidence of habitual use of fire, though, comes from caves in Israel dating back between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago, and include the repeated use of a single hearth in Qesem Cave, and indications of roasting meat,” notes Time.

Pumpkin Everywhere All at Once

Posted on September 11, 2023 by admin

A rainy day today, first one in a while, after a pleasantly warm but dry weekend. We can use the rain.

On Sunday I visited a popular grocery store chain, one – and there’s more than one such chain – controlled by shadowy German billionaires. Pumpkin merch is already front and center, including actual pumpkins. A pretty array.

Inside the store, I was inspired to look for pumpkin-adjacent products. They weren’t hard to find.

Does all this mean the pumpkin crop is larger than it used to be, to satisfy the lust for pumpkin-flavored this and that? I decided to look it up when I got home. In the meantime, the pumpkin parade continued. Even though it’s still September.

Pumpkin-flavored sandwich creme cookies.

That sounded pretty good, so I bought a box. They are good. Not great, but sweet and pumpkin flavored all right, though not overwhelmingly so.

As for the pumpkin crop, the USDA tells me that all states produce some pumpkins, but six states produce most of them.

This was a surprise: “In 2021, Illinois maintained its leading position in pumpkin acreage, harvesting more than twice as many pumpkin acres as any of the other top states, at 15,900 acres,” the agency says. “In the same year — California, Indiana, Michigan, Texas, and Virginia — each harvested between 4,500 and 7,400 acres.”

That’s a distinction that I never knew about Illinois, as long as I’ve lived here.

“Annual U.S. per capita availability of fresh pumpkins averaged about 5 pounds over 2019 to 2021, similar to levels during the past two decades,” which might mean the impact of those various products is relatively small. On the other hand, 2021 is at the high end of that average, so maybe all that pumpkin in all that bread, breakfast foods, cookies, alcoholic beverages and personal care products is starting to add up.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Food & Beverage