Thursday Grab Bag

Posted on April 7, 2022 by admin

Sluggish progress toward spring here. But some progress. Plants in a nearby park.

The croci in my own yard have been very slow this year — no blooms even now. I don’t keep an exact track every year, but that seems a couple of weeks late. Some years, I remember seeing their very first green sprouts at the end of February. And of course, croci don’t mind a little snow.

On a bench in the same park. What is that thing?

A Soofa sign. The company web site says it makes electronics for advertising or as part of “smart city” communications. This doesn’t look like that, and it also looks inactive. Since I’d never noticed it before, it could be that it isn’t operational yet.

Or is it? According to a park district web site I couldn’t access fully — but could see a bit of, from my Google search — you can charge devices there. Solar-powered, and the top does resemble a solar panel. Wonder how much juice it has these many cloudy days.

The latest snack food to enter the house: Calbee brand Takoyaki Ball-flavored corn snacks. Though Calbee is Japanese, not a product of Japan, but rather Thailand, where ingredients and labor are no doubt cheaper.

No octopus, which is the main ingredient of actual takoyaki, is listed among the ingredients. Still, it’s flavored to taste like takoyaki, which it does, though the simulation isn’t quite spot-on. A little too sweet, Yuriko said, and I agree. Sweetened for North American tastes? Just how many North Americans are going to buy takoyaki-flavored snacks? But not bad.

Calbee, incidentally, began as a candy company in postwar Japan (1949) and acquired its name in the mid-50s, a portmanteau of “Calcium” and “Vitamin B1.” Soon the company found its way into crispy snack foods, especially wheat crackers. I suppose that was something of a novelty in Japan at the time, compared with rice crackers, which go way back. Calbee’s early confections caught on, and so the food technologists there have been working hard to make new varieties of snacks since then.

I see that the fifth season of Better Call Saul has appeared on Netflix. That’s good. I’ll watch it. Once a week or so, that is. That’s how new TV should be, according to Leviticus, I think, though it doesn’t apply to shows that might have been watched every day after school.

Chicago Avenue Stroll: Buildings & Murals

Posted on March 31, 2022 by admin

No chance to see the aurora borealis here in northern Illinois last night, even if it was there to be seen. Yesterday was overcast all day, producing light but steady rain late in the evening and throughout the night, as far as I could tell.

Today was overcast as well, with light snow in the morning and again in the evening. So much for March going out like a lamb.

On Sunday, which was chilly but sunny, I took a stroll down Chicago Avenue for a few blocks. Chicago is a major east-west street, crossing the city and into the suburbs and running more than 12 miles, according to a Google Maps estimate. The eastern terminus is at Lake Shore Drive, but not before you pass such notable places as Michigan Avenue, the Chicago Water Tower and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Where I walked, roughly 2300 W. to 2000 W. Chicago — about four miles west of Lake Michigan — the street is the commercial hub of Ukrainian Village, though not everything on the street has anything to do with Ukraine or its diaspora. Such as Fatso’s Last Stand. That’s very Chicago; it could be just about anywhere in the city.

One of two locations of this name in Chicago, owned by an entity that has other restaurants and bars in the city, but also in New York and Charleston. I ought to try it sometime. I like a hot dog stand that has its own mural.

It’s on the wall facing Oakley Blvd., which crosses Chicago Avenue at that point. The artist, one Felipe Solorzano, has some images on Instagram. It didn’t occur to me until I looked at them that people pose in front of the wings. I’ve seen that before, but not in Chicago.

The wings form the center panel in a triptych of paintings, if that term is correct for murals. Anyway, there are three distinct paintings on the Fatso’s wall. I didn’t take a picture of all of them, but Google did.

The new mural is dated 2019. That synchs with the always-useful Street View, which tells me that the current mural appeared between June 2018 and August 2019. Before that, there was a different mural.

How to describe that? A Ukrainian-Custer-hot dog stand vibe. Perhaps the owners felt obliged to cancel Custer, though I doubt most passersby gave it much thought. In any case, the earlier mural appeared some time after October 2015. Before that, just a red wall.

Across Chicago Avenue from Fatso’s is another mural. I don’t have any information about its creator, but he or she has some talent.

This one appeared between August 2019 and July 2021. I believe the mural vogue that seems to be under way in Chicago is a good thing. Spices up the city.

Elsewhere on the street, I took a look at some smaller commercial buildings, which are sinews of an urban neighborhood like Ukrainian Village: a shop on the first floor, an apartment or two or more above, perhaps where a shopkeeper used to live, and might still live in some cases. These buildings usually don’t command much attention, and maybe they don’t need to, but they can actually be fairly aesthetic.

I like that small one, tucked in the middle.

Another mural. Little information on this one either, but that’s hardy necessary to enjoy it.

I see on Street View that the mural appeared between August 2019 and August 2021, the same span when the first floor of the building went from being occupied by a hair salon — knocked off by the pandemic, probably — to being a vintage clothing store called the Stoop.

Not on Chicago Avenue, but a block to the north on Rice St. I wandered by it as well.

This is home to St. Nicholas School of the Arts, which is affiliated with the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral. A cornerstone gives the building date as 1935, but that’s all I know. Handsome structure, though.

Ukrainian Village Walkabout

Posted on March 28, 2022 by admin

On Sunday, I drove into the city with Yuriko, who attended her cake class in the Humboldt Park neighborhood and made some delightful orange pastries.

While she did that, I had a few hours to kick around. Temps were only a little above freezing, but the sun was out and there wasn’t much wind, so it turned out to be a good day for a walk. So I went to the Ukrainian Village neighborhood to see, and document, signs of solidarity with the beleaguered people of that nation. There were flags.

Many flags.

Banners and signs.

Ribbons and bows.

And more.

The neighborhood is reportedly the home of 15,000 or so Ukrainians and the outpouring is highly visible. I could have spent all day taking pictures of blue-yellow bicolor displays.

Heaven on Seven No More

Posted on March 27, 2022 by admin

I learned over the weekend that the restaurant Heaven on Seven, closed since early 2020, has closed permanently. I will miss it. Before the pandemic, I went there once a year or so, even after I quit working downtown.

The joint had much to recommend it, but especially its first-rate Louisiana cuisine. Over the years I had the jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, gumbo, red beans and rice, fried oysters, crab cakes, various po’ boys and pies, and more. The New Orleans decor charmed without being overwhelming, and its seventh floor location at 111 N. Wabash in Chicago’s Loop (the storied Garland Building) had little signage to guide you there. You either knew where it was or you didn’t, especially in the days before the Internet. I can’t remember who introduced me to it, but it was sometime in the late ’80s.

Also, and I can’t stress this enough, the dishes at Heaven on Seven weren’t the creation of some big-deal chef who “curated” some “artisanal” cuisine using “local” ingredients “cooked to perfection” to reach some height of “authenticity.” All of that adds up to an overpriced place that people praise because a restaurant can’t really be good if you pay modest prices, can it?

No. At Heaven on Seven, talented cooks created wonderful dishes to remind you of those days and nights in New Orleans or even Lafayette, without inflicting high prices on its patrons.

Just as important, it was never a place to go alone.

Pictured are old friends Kevin and Wendy, whom I met there a number of times for enjoyable lunches. That time was in 2013.

Tybee Island Seafood, Gators & Birds

Posted on March 20, 2022 by admin

The seaside town and island called Tybee Island isn’t far from Savannah, connected to the city by U.S. 80. In the city, that route is the palm-lined Victory Drive. Outside town, the road passes the entrance to Fort Pulaski NM along the South Channel of the Savannah River and eventually takes you to Tybee Island, with its beaches and accommodations and shops for beachgoers.

On the way, the drive takes you within sight of Captain Derek’s Dolphin Adventure and Amick’s Deep Sea Fishing (tour operators), Seaside Sisters Gift Shop, Gerald’s Pig & Shrimp, Tybee Island Wedding Chapel & Grand Ballroom and lots of other enterprises longing for sweet visitor dollars. I expect it’s been a hard few years lately, but to judge by traffic to and in Tybee Island, things have picked up.

Not visible from U.S. 80, but evident on Google Maps, is The Crab Shack, about a minute’s drive off the main road on the outskirts of town, down a street that’s otherwise residential. We went there for lunch after visiting Fort Pulaski.

The restaurant isn’t affiliated with Joe’s Crab Shack or any other chain, as far as I can tell. The place apparently evolved from a mid-century fishing camp on Chimney Creek — a place where boats docked and fishing enthusiasts bought bait and beer — into a multi-building restaurant and tourist attraction over the last four decades or so. Organic, mostly unplanned growth, and looks like it.

Try as they might, neither restaurant consultants, nor algorithms nor AI-generated consumer-facing gastrolocus experience programs, can put all the elements of a place like The Crab Shack together in as pleasing a way as individual human effort can, bit by bit over years. Good thing, too.

The tables sprawl out on a wooden deck overlooking the creek, with trees towering overhead and forming a much-needed canopy where there’s no roof (though bird droppings were a worry). The Crab Shack could easily been a tourist trap, especially if the food wasn’t up to par. But it was very good.

This is Captain Crab’s Sampler Platter (for two), featuring boiled shrimp, snow crab, mussels, crawfish, corn, potatoes and sausage. We ate a lot of it, though some mussels, shrimp and crawdads ended up in the refrigerator at the Isetta Inn for later consumption. Ann sent a picture of the platter to Lilly, to inspire envy. The platter happened to be a lot like what Lilly and I ate in New Orleans.

The pie slices we shared for dessert — coconut cream and Key lime — were much better than very good. So good I persuaded myself to eat very them slowly, bite by savored bite, something I don’t often do.

As you’d expect, eating is only part of The Crab Shack experience.

After our meal, we spent a few moments at the Gator Deck, which overlooks a pond.

A pond stocked with alligators. Quite a few, actually. Real and otherwise.

A Crab Shack employee told me the pond alligators were all juveniles, born in captivity and destined for alligator farms. Destined to be wallets and purses, she didn’t say, but I expect that’s what often happens. As far as I could see, alligator wasn’t on the menu at the restaurant, but I don’t see why not.

Elsewhere in the compound is the Bird Shack, stocked with various birds.

Damned if the two multicolored birds weren’t loud. Loud — KAHHHH! without warning. The white bird, less noisy, danced and said a few words when he was so inspired.

Kombu Tsuyu No Moto

Posted on February 22, 2022 by admin

Rain from early to late morning today, on 2/22/22, leaving large spring-like puddles, plus much mud, on my land. But now much colder air has moved in, pushing temps below freezing. Those puddles will be solid in the morning, but at least so will the mud.

Another bottle of Ninben brand concentrated soup base (kombu tsuyu no moto) has been emptied in this house. The last of went into the bowls from which we ate the fish and noodles and tofu and vegetables boiled in our nabe (鍋) pot this evening.

If that sounds like a good wintertime dinner, it is.
As for the soup base, it is the product of the Ninben Co. of Tokyo, whose roots go back to a salted and dried fish merchant in Old Edo ca. 1700.

Unusually detailed — if a little repetitive — verbiage on the label (not visible in the picture) says:

This is a concentrated soup base made from Japanese Hokkaido kelp, dried shiitake mushroom and authentically brewed soy sauce.

You can taste the rich soy flavor and umami of kelp and dried shiitake mushroom.

We do not use any high fructose corn syrup, artificial colorings or preservatives.

We do not use ingredients derived from animals.

A serving size is two tablespoons (30mL), including very little except carbohydrates and salt. Indeed, one serving provides 1200 mg of sodium.

ToreOre Chicken & Joy

Posted on February 16, 2022 by admin

“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.”

Ann at Nineteen

Posted on January 30, 2022 by admin

Ann was home for the weekend, getting a ride up on Friday with someone she knows at school, returning with me on Sunday. That’s an advantage of school being only about two hours away. The occasion, her birthday.

On Saturday, we took her to a delightful Korean barbecue restaurant called Koreana. The sort of place where you cook your meat at your table.

Later at home — a few hours later, since a place like Koreana fills you right up — we had dark chocolate birthday pie.

Nineteen times around the Sun for Ann.

Deep-Freeze Thursday Melange

Posted on January 27, 2022 by admin

Today wasn’t actually that cold. About 30 degrees F. for an afternoon high, 20 degrees warmer than the day before, a brief interlude before a dive back down. A seamount in the trench of winter.

Actually, I don’t think seamounts rise in trenches, but that doesn’t have to be literally the case for the metaphor, rudimentary as it is, to work. Then again, maybe they do rise in trenches. My oceanographic knowledge itself is fairly rudimentary, though I am fascinated by those maps of the oceans that show the mountain ranges, abyssal plains and trenches.

“Seamounts — undersea mountains formed by volcanic activity — were once thought to be little more than hazards to submarine navigation. Today, scientists recognize these structures as biological hotspots that support a dazzling array of marine life,” NOAA says.

“New estimates suggest that, taken together, seamounts encompass about 28.8 million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface. That’s larger than deserts, tundra, or any other single land-based global habitat on the planet.”

Guess that’s the thing I learned today. Unless, of course, NOAA is part of the conspiracy to keep knowledge of the merfolks’ vast underwater kingdoms a secret from the general public, and its facts are actually “facts.” Because that’s just the sort of thing that generally governments do.

Better create some memes tout suite to warm people about NOAA.

Pyramid tea.

I don’t actually remember the brand, since I took the picture a while ago. But I remember it being good tea.

An example of information-free travel writing can be found at a site I ran across recently that purports to offer information for family vacations, in this case its page about the “Best Things to Do in Rochester, Minn.” (I’m not going to link to it.)

The top “best thing” on the list is the Rochester Art Center, which might be a reasonable suggestion. But the site describes it this way: “This enchanting place is home to some of the most fascinating and creative contemporary art you will ever see today. Plus, it encourages people to understand and value art for what it is, making it a great place to visit if you have a soft spot for art.

“The art center boasts a gallery where you can stroll around and admire their lovely contemporary art.”

Gee, if you’re going to publish this kind of vacuousness, at least you can shorten it:
The Rochester Art Center’s got a lot of swell art. Like art? Go see it.

Manhattan Decked Out for Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2021 by admin

Regards for Christmas and New Year’s Day and all the days around them and in between. Back to posting around January 3.

One reason to go to New York City in December is to admire the seasonal lights and decorations, and that’s what I did. Starting with the impressive Christmas tree on the street in front of the New York Stock Exchange.

Fearless Girl is there now, and she still has her admirers.

On Broadway just up from Bowling Green, the Charging Bull bronze still stands, and there’s a sizable tree nearby as well. For some reason, there was also an Kazakhstan flag flying.

I saw the giant Rockefeller Center tree, though the madding and maddening crowd put me out of the mood to take pictures. For the record, the 2021 tree is a 79-foot Norway Spruce, 46 feet wide and weighing 12 tons, according to the center, with about 50,000 LED lights and a 900-lb. Swarovski star with 70 spikes on top.

You might call the tree shape at Radio City Music Hall a bit of deco decoration.

No Christmas show inside.

Another gorgeous light display in the area was on the wall of Saks, facing Fifth Avenue. The crowds were quite attentive as it shifted and blinked.

Back downtown, Zuccotti Park.

The lights of Trinity Center, overlooking Zuccotti.

From there, I went to the World Trade Center complex. Not especially decked out for the holidays, but I caught the buildings at a good time in terms of lighting.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, still under construction.

It’s a replacement structure, designed by Santiago Calatrava, for a church of the same name and denomination on the site that was destroyed by the Twin Towers collapse. The new church will also be a memorial honoring those who died in the attack.

The Oculus‘ interior is blue for the holidays. At least it was when I stepped in for a few moments. A lot of other people were taking a look as well.

Wandering the streets of Manhattan, I saw a lot of smaller decorations, such as this restaurant annex on 51st.

Fire house lights, same street.

Bongs in the window.

Not Christmasy, but colorful all the same. This head shop near the Oculus — are they even called that any more? — is no doubt taking advantage of the legalization of cannabis in New York State this year, though retail sales haven’t started yet. For what it’s worth, I noticed the smell of cannabis on the streets of the city a lot more this time than ever before. And for that matter, less urine smell, which I suppose is a function of the hypergentrification of Manhattan.

Over in the Meatpacking District, angular snowfolk occupy a small plaza.

The angular building facing that little plaza.

After visiting Little Island, Geof and I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the first floor of the building.

I had the Mexican French toast.

I’d never heard of that before. Created for the table of Maximilian I? Man, it was good.

Not far away, on 14th Street, is Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe en San Bernardo, a parish church formed by the merger of two congregations in the early 2000s.

An 1870s building designed by the amazingly prolific Patrick C. Keely. Wonderfully colorful interior, hardly shown in my picture.

A good place to spend a few Christmastime minutes.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Food & Beverage