June 2011
8 posts
Zuckerberg's Sweet Kills
Mark Zuckerberg is a hunter. While Facebook’s 27-year-old billionaire CEO and founder is often portrayed as cutthroat, his latest endeavor brings new meaning to the sentiment: only eating meat that he’s killed himself. Zuckerberg’s walk on the wild side is the latest manifestation of his annual “personal challenge.” Previous challenges have included learning Mandarin and wearing a tie...
GMO's In "Organic" Foods?
Whole Foods in Lincoln Park recently weathered the brunt of a lively activist protest against the sale of genetically modified foods. “No one would guess that there are genetically engineered foods right here in Whole Foods,” said Alexis Baden-Mayer Many, political director of the Organic Consumers Association, who organized the protest. Indeed, many consumers are shocked to hear...
Tester-Hagan Amendment
Outbreaks of food-related illnesses stemming from contaminated eggs, spinach, and peanut butter (which have sickened thousands of people in recent years and lead to countless food recalls), helped to expedite the recent passage of the FDA. Food Safety Modernization Act. This act aims to keep consumers safer by giving the FDA more power to recall tainted foods, conduct increased inspections,...
Food Safety
U.S. consumers have spoken on the issue of food safety and the widespread sentiment is clear: give us safer food. Despite rising food prices a surprising two-thirds of U.S. voters are willing to pay more for safer food in the wake of endless reports of food-borne illness outbreaks. The study was commissioned by the Pew Charitable Trust and challenges conventional wisdom that consumers always...
Brining Food To Chicago's Deserts
A moveable feast is locked, stocked, and ready to take on Chicago’s food deserts. In an ingenious take on one of our favorite trends, food trucks, a refurbished bus was donated by the CTA “to serve as a one-aisle mobile grocery store serving some of the many food desert areas within the city.” The bus, an “elegant answer to the city’s crisis,” is currently on a six-week tour of major...
The Slurping Turtle
Mark August 1st on your calendar, foodies. This may very well be the day that Chicago is at last graced with Takashi Yagihashi’s new noodle bar in River North, the Slurping Turtle. Signs of progress are afoot, with their storefront at 116 W. Hubbard suddenly displaying the restaurant’s logo. [Grub Street]
Food Waste
Here’s a sobering statistic for you: over one-third, or 1.3 billion tons, of the world’s food supply is wasted every year according to the U.N. The mind-boggling figure comes as a result of a study commissioned by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization in the wake of skyrocketing food prices, diminished food production, increasing world hunger, and a growing yet unstable food supply...
An Open Letter to Mayor Emanuel
In the wake of Rahm Emanuel taking the mayoral seat we are definitely concerned about Chicago’s budget crisis but also, as Steve Dolinsky of WBEZ puts it, “How will he impact the burgeoning food scene in Chicago?” Written as an open letter to the Mayor, Dolinsky details, “a few suggestions from a humble food lover.” His three compelling points include a plea to legalize cooking on-site...
The AP Stylebook Food Section
Is it Bloody Mary or blood mary? Barbeque or barbecue? Is an amuse-bouche meant to be free? Oh, and what exactly is the proper format for recipe writing? All of these finicky culinary-isms and more are given a definitive answer in the AP Stylebook’s never-before-included 16-page food section in their 2011 edition. Such a food focused addition to the indomitable AP Stylelook is surely yet...
Summertime BBQ
With summer allegedly right around the corner, our thoughts and taste buds now turn to our favorite summer pastime, barbeque. It’s time to get your tickets to the Green City Market Chef’s BBQ Benefit on July 21st. In the meantime check out our beloved Lillie’s Q which continues to establish itself as one of the nation’s premier barbeque joints. Food & Wine recently named it as one of the...
May 2011
13 posts
Food Movie Must Sees
Fast Food Nation made you squeamish. Food Inc. made you cry. Michael Pollan made you an activist. Now, two compelling new documentaries promise to continue the fight to educate the world on the destructive impact of the industrialized food system and the unhealthy animal products that it yields. Forks Over Knives, which Roger Ebert called “a film that can save your life,” delves into the...
Gourmet Live's 50 Women Game-Changers
Women have greatly influenced the evolution of the food community, maybe even more than men. Writer Kate Sekules details 50 of these great female game-changers in a list which may educate you and will definitely inspire. Here is a sample top five. Check out the full list at Gourmet Live. Julia Child The great Julia needs no introduction. Especially not after the great Meryl played her in the...
Magazine Makeovers!
You may have noticed, food is a big deal these days! In the wake of The Food Network Magazine being named by AdWeek as the most successful and influential magazine of the year, more good news continues to pour in for food periodicals. While the rest of the print industry continues to struggle, food magazines posted an uptick in advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2011. Additionally,...
Bill Kim's New Line Of Specialty Products
Bill Kim, the master behind Urban Belly and Belly Shack, is set to invade your kitchen. Kim and his wife are creating Urban Belly Foods, a line of sauces and condiments that aims to help “demystify Asian food” for the intimidated home cook. First up, a soy balsamic that you may have salivated over already at Urban Belly, of which Kim says, “You can use this as a marinade, a dipping sauce....
Aviary Reservations...Well, Kind Of
Grant Achatz’s wildly popular new gastronomical cocktail lounge, The Aviary, is now taking reservations. Well, sort of. Since opening a few weeks ago thirsty Chicagoans have been eagerly braving long lines for a chance to expereince one of their complex cocktails. To bring some method to the madness, Aviary recently announced on its Facebook page that they would randomly select 8-10 email...
Food Wins!
Food wins again! AdWeek just released their 31st annual Hot List and Food Network Magazine snagged the top spot. The list pays homage to the most successful and influential magazines of the year, so a food magazine coming away with the gold speaks volumes about America’s food frenzy.
Can Pesticides Affect I.Q.?
Eat organic while pregnant and preserve your unborn child’s I.Q.? Three recent studies point to this conclusion by drawing attention to the impact that pesticides can have on an unborn fetus. The studies, financed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, found that babies exposed to high levels of pesticides while in the womb...
Michael Pollan's New Food Rules
Michael Pollan’s updated, illustrated version of his venerable Food Rules: An Eater’s Manifesto will include a few new rules to eat by, but not by his own pen. Pollan solicited contributions from his legions of readers via Slow Food USA and sifted through over 4,000 to induct these three fabulous new rules: Place a bouquet on the table and everything will taste twice as good. – Gisbert P....
Staph Infected Meat
It may just be time to pack up the ol’ steak knives with this latest bit of truly revolting meat industry press. A recent study found that 47% of meat and poultry products purchased at grocery stores in five US cities were contaminated with drug-resistant strains of staph bacteria. Staphylococcus aureus can cause skin infections and a variety of other diseases if left untreated. Perhaps even...
Restaurants That Compost
As restaurants across the country become increasingly eco-conscious (with farm-to-table practically being expected at a certain caliber of restaurant) a new breed of green restaurants is emerging: those that compost. This so-called “table-to-farm” movement is growing as companies specializing in restaurant waste composting are springing up across the country to deal with the mounds of uneaten...
Food Truck Gone To The Dogs
You’ve had your fun with the food trucks, now it’s fido’s turn. The city’s first dog food truck, Fido to Go, hits the pavement May 7th at Bark at the Park. Pampered pooches can enjoy gourmet treats such as apple harvest squares, sweet potato puffs, and a variety of frozen treats (think doggie ice cream.) These treats sound good enough to share?!? [Time Out]
April 2011
20 posts
Pastoral's Artisan Producer Festival
If you like foods made on a small-scale with the utmost care and quality, you must check out Pastoral’s first annual Artisan Producer Festival. This free event takes place Saturday, April 30th, from 11am–3pm at the Chicago French Market and will feature both local and national culinary producers.
Pastoral, “whose mission is to make buying and eating great food and wine a fun,...
A Coffee CSA
There’s a delicious new service for the conscientious coffee fiend, a community supported agriculture project called (so not to confuse you) Coffee CSA. Subscribers receive a monthly delivery of freshly roasted coffee beans directly from small, 100% family-owned farms around the world. Beans come from 140,000 independent farms ranging in size from one to 10 acres in regions famous for...
More CPS Lunch Controversy
When schools start banning homemade lunches you begin to wonder if things have gone too far. Such is the current state of the cafeteria at numerous Chicago Public Schools (CPS), where one West Side principal dubiously reasoned, “Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school.” Really? The decision to ban lunches brought from home is currently not a district-wide ban and is...
Next: The First Review
Someone had to break the ice. The ice being the formidable Next and the icebreaker being Chicagoist, the first publication to publish a review about the new restaurant. The review was published within a mere week of Next’s opening, which would traditionally be considered a faux paus in the restaurant world. Reviewers often allot establishments a few weeks, even a few months, to work out the...
Food Truck Summit
Chicago’s food truck scene has seen some pretty impressive growth over the past year despite our restrictive and dated food truck laws. Now it’s time to come together, discuss, and celebrate.
Chicago’s first food truck summit takes place in the parking lot of Goose Island Brewpub this Tuesday, April 19th, from 7-10pm. Participating food trucks include Flirty Cupcakes, The...
Congrats To The 2011 Eat Out Award Winners!
A big congrats to Time Out Chicago’s Eat Out Award winners Lillie’s Q for Best New Barbecue and Girl & the Goat for Best New Restaurant!
Props extend to Stephanie Izard for the Chef of the Year award and the Boka Group guys, Rob Katz and Kevin Boehm, who received the Restaurateur of the Year award. It’s been a stellar year for all.
Read more about the Eat Out Awards...
Aviary Opens...NOT YET
From The Aviary Facebook page: “We are NOT opening tonight… most likely next week.”
Aviary Opens...
While the alluring elusiveness of Next continues to captivate Chicago, the spotlight shifts today, April 13th, to next door bar Aviary. Originally scheduled to open last week in tandem with Next, the high-concept cocktail bar can accommodate only 200 patrons. Seeing as how reservations are not required as with sold-out Next, you can expect foodies wanting a piece of the action to descend in...
BPA Free
We all know that eating fresh foods offers us a multitude of culinary joys and health benefits, but now you have yet another reason to mosey on over the farmer’s market, dust off your Dutch Oven, and get cooking – protection from BPA. Bishphenol A, the much reviled substance that can be found in food cans, plastic-packaged foods, water bottles, baby bottles, and even store receipts has been...
Wine Doesn't Always Accompany Food (But We Knew...
Though we often like to believe that our penchant for fine wine is simply an efficacious accompaniment to whatever we have on our plates, a recent study of America’s wine drinking habits digresses and instead counters with the sentiment: you’re all a bunch of winos. Wine Opinions, a market research company, unearthed America’s clandestine wine drinking habits with the finding that only 41% of...
Chicago "Rising Star" Chefs
Will the accolades ever cease? We hope not. In the latest round of food honors, Chicago walked away with a healthy infusion of gold. Food & Wine magazine unveiled their list of Best New Chefs and, you guessed it, Stephanie Izard was one of them. Izard also made the cut in popular online culinary magazine StarChef.com’s annual list of “Rising Stars,” which honored 18 local chefs,...
The Artificial Food Dye Debate Continues
CNN reported last week that the Food and Drug Administration decided there is currently insufficient evidence to support a link between artificial food dyes and ADHD in children. However, the FDA did emphasize that more research is needed on the issue and that they believe there is a trend in food dyes and negative side effects in children.
In light of the current uncertainty surrounding the...
Food Recall Database
The Food and Drug Administration is evolving and consumers stand to reap the benefits. The agency recently unveiled a revamped web site that most notably includes a searchable database that aggregates information on the latest food recalls. The database lists each product recall by date, brand name, product description, problem with the food, company conducting the recall, and even includes a...
Fasting For Food Legislation
When Mark Bittman speaks about the massive food issues facing the world, people listen. When Bittman goes on a fast, news outlets across the country stampede to his doorstep. Bittman, a man who eats for a living, is fasting not for a quick detox from his gastronome lifestyle but rather in support of the consumption of food. Sound anomalous? Well, many believe House budget bill H.R.1 is as...
More Next
Next is now. Next opened on schedule Wednesday, April 6 despite a software glitch that delayed the sending of emails containing ticket information until opening morning. Though the emails are out, there are some reporting on Next’s Facebook page that there is still an issue with the software and they are unable to purchase tickets. The bad news is, if you’ve yet to receive an email from the...
The Bitter Blocker
Do your kids refuse to take their cold medicine? Not a fan of the bitter aftertaste of many artificially sweetened diet drinks? Help is on the way in the form of a newly discovered compound that can block the ability of taste buds to register bitter flavors. Once it hits the market the GIV3616 compound could be added to many bitter foods, beverages, and medicines to mask their unpleasant...
Artificial Food Dyes, A Concern?
Ever wonder what exactly that suspiciously eponymous “Yellow 5” ingredient listed on your child’s package of M&M’s was and how it might be impacting their health? You’re not the only one. Artificial food dyes, which have long been considered to be a benign addition to many common foods such as candy, salad dressing, and waffles, are now under scrutiny for their potential link to...
Food Republic
Despite the mass of food web sites, blogs, books, magazines, TV shows, YouTube channels, (and everything in between,) currently engulfing pop culture, one segment of the foodie population remains underserved: men. Enter Food Republic, the brainchild of celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. The site is aimed at both the ambitious bachelor who may, “want to impress a date with budding culinary...
Next
The frenetic build-up to Grant Achatz’s Next, what the NYTimes is calling “the most hotly anticipated opening in the country,” has at long last ended! Achatz recently announced on Twitter “1st 1,000 emails sent from tickets@nextrestaurant.com just now. Be sure 2 check your spam box! As of right now 0 covers 4 tonight. Exciting.” Tickets for Next were expected to go on sale a few...
Foodie In The Huffington Post
Look for Foodie in the Huffington Post article “Tips For Getting Into Chicago’s Most Popular Restaurants”!
March 2011
25 posts
The War Against The Food Movement
Michael Pollan, who many consider to be a founding father of the food movement, has a few choice words for naysayers in the wake of a recent bout of negative press surrounding the movement. High-profile articles in The Economist and The Atlantic claiming that the move towards sustainable agriculture and the “rise of the foodies” are both economically unrealistic and inherently elitist. Pollan,...
The Cookbook: Modernist Cuisine
The prodigious Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking is rocking the food world in historic proportions as many within the food community call it the most important cookbook to be published in years, if not of all time. If nothing else, the galvanizing 6-volume, 2,438-page cookbook declares that the molecular gastronomy style of cooking to be a veritable cultural revolution. The...
2011 Great Neighborhood Restaurants & Resources
LTHForum, a go-to resource for Chicagoans looking to explore the vibrant maze of food options, has spoken. Their 2011 Great Neighborhood Restaurants & Resources list is composed of establishments that members feel most aptly “contribute to their neighborhoods’ and the region’s character by offering outstanding food, an authentic experience of their ethnic culture, and/or a...
Orthorexia
Ever heard of orthorexia? Neither had we, but it may very well be coming to a rehab near you in 2011. Orthorexia nervosa, defined as “an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food” is on the rise as consumers become increasingly bombarded with an overwhelming variety of often conflicting health claims. For many it begins with a fad diet. Then they cut out meat. Then dairy. Then gluten. ...
Making It Work In School Cafeterias
Something miraculous is happening in the most unlikely of places, school cafeterias. Chef Paul Boundas has shocked the nation’s premier health and nutrition experts by providing about 4,500 Chicago private school students with nutrient-packed, made-from-scratch lunches all for under the $2.74 per meal federal reimbursement program. Boundas’s ability to bring school children to actually eat and...
Innovative Food Companies
What do Trader Joe’s, PepsiCo, and McDonald’s all have in common? According to Fast Company, innovation. The publication’s recently released list of “The 10 Most Innovative Companies In Food” includes some interesting choices, such as FoodHub for being “the Match.com for the locavore movement” and Bolthouse Farms because of “its ambitions to double the $1 billion baby-carrot business by using...
Magnolia Bakery Comes To Chicago
We know you’re sick of cupcakes. We are too. But this is different. This is the mother of all cupcake shops. This is - Magnolia Bakery. New York’s legendary cupcake destination is set to open at Block 37 in the Loop this June. Just like that, your summer got a whole lot sweeter. [Chicago Breaking Business]
Coconut Oil
From a reviled “artery-clogging, cholesterol-raising, heart-attack-causing” nutritional deviant to a reluctant health food enjoying double digit sales increases, coconut oil may just be your next cooking oil of choice if it isn’t already. Proponents claim that it possesses antimicrobial, antiviral, and antibacterial properties that could possibly rev up your metabolism, alleviate acne, and...
PepsiCo's Green Bottle
You know things are headed in the right direction when one of the world’s largest distributors of bottled beverages releases a container made entirely of plant-based materials. PepsiCo’s new bottle is made entirely of pine bark, cornhusks, switch grass, and other materials with a goal of eventually using potato scraps, orange peels, and oat hulls left over from their food business. We’re happy...