Nature Grows the Seeds

It's getting late in the season but my tomatoes don't seem to care. One is finally turning red!

And I've got serranoes coming out of my ears.

Now with flag!

My ladyfriend and I ate at El Pollo Rumbero last night with a friend of mine. It makes me happy that she is getting along with my friends.

The roasted chicken there makes me happy too. Now with flag!

The place I love to be around

My ladyfriend and I have been to Chicago a few times in the past couple months or so. It has been wonderful to once again have a companion with whom to explore the city and all it has to offer. Well, some of what it has to offer, anyway. The cool bits.

Back in June we went to see Theater of the Mind. The lady was already in the city spending time with friends who lived on the far north side so I took the bus from Madison to Union Station where we'd meet as she was going to take Metra downtown. It was grey and cloudy as the bus dropped me off on Jackson Blvd. with the iconic Sears Towers just a couple blocks to the east.

The older I get the less I want to drive and so taking the bus was really nice. When I wasn't watching the scenery, I got some reading in and never had to worry about Chicago traffic. Once I found my ladyfriend, our first stop was our usual Loop lunch spot, Elephant & Castle, a chain of English-themed pub & restaurants. There are two in downtown Chicago and we tend to hit the one on Adams which is half a block from La Salle and on this day this is where our ultimate destination was located. Plus going there gives me a chance to walk by The Rookery where my grandfather worked.

Going in we found that there was soccer, er, football on every TV. Shocking, I know.

Being a beer lover, I wonder about the paucity of beer from the British Isles on the menu. Guinness, London Pride, and Speckled Hen was all, methinks. I don't expect any Black Country Ales or any of the other fine brews I sampled in England last year but those Iron Maiden brews are tasty and available here in the States. The Trooper, at least, is fairly common.

A creature of habit, my ladyfriend ordered the meat pie flight just like always.

The joy on her face when it was placed before her made me so happy to be with that woman. Not just at that table in that restaurant but to be her boyfriend. I adore how little things make her ecstatically mirthful. The lineaments of her face seem to have been permanently altered to give her a smile. I love how upbeat and positive she is, how she always stands at the ready to explore and try something new, even if we eat at the same place beforehand.

We crossed the river on La Salle. There's Marina Towers and behind them stands the former IBM building where my parents met. I think that's the Aqua in the middle in blue. Just across the river was our destination, the Reid Murdoch Building, someplace I don't believe I'd ever been previously.

Theater of the Mind is hard to describe. Interactive performance art? Created by David Byrne, he of Talking Heads fame, and his Frau, Mala Gaonkar, it's a journey to the center of your mind guided by your late pal, David. The ad copy notes that the show was inspired by neuroscience and we learn on our journey that our senses are easily fooled and that memory is not as accurate and encompassing as we sometimes believe it to be. With such imperfect tools, maybe our sense of self, our identities, are houses built on sand.

To begin, our group was ushered into a chamber of (not quite 32) doors. In the middle was a miniature house and our guide opened its roof revealing nametags for us. Once we had all assumed an identity, our guide then chose a seemingly random door and we made our way into the next room. It proved to be a viewing parlor at a funeral home where our friend David's casket sat before us atop a bier which was, in fact, a piano.

Ere long the casket is opened...from the inside. David emerges to greet us. Our David was played by Kelli Simpkins whose mild androgyny seemed a perfect fit for such a performance. Clad in a cream colored suit that gave off strong Stop Making Sense vibes, David reminisced a bit before an introductory speech that prepared us for the rest of the show.

Taking a seat at the piano, David introduced us to the tritone and a weird aural illusion whereby two notes are played that some people hear as ascending while others hear as descending. No wonder this deceptive musical combination was called The Devil's Interval. The parlor had a checkered floor and David demonstrated a simple optical illusion with it before ushering us down a red hallway that looked not wholly unlike the airlock in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I felt a bit of the unheimlich at this point as it was a Dave in that scene too.

(All photos are from the show's website. I think.)

I think the red light was chosen not only as a contrast to the white light we were accustomed to but also to stimulate our night vision for the next room which was the inside of David's cranium. Minus the grey matter. Here we learned about afterimages which not only continued the theme of our senses being imperfect but also stood as a metaphor for our lives, our construKtion of memories. The people we meet, the places we go, and the things we do all leave afterimages when they are over or exit our lives and our brains construct memories from them.

But not every demonstration was about fooling our sense of sight or hearing.

At the night club we sampled what we later learned are called miracle berries. Then we are given lemon wedges and, instead of a big burst of mouth-puckering sour, they tasted sweet. These berries mess with your tastebuds something fierce.

The show moves from your senses to how your brain works and the role memories play. We go backstage and David describes, if memory serves, a job he had that involved watching security cameras. And so we watched a scene on a TV of a street. Every several seconds the screen would change to black very briefly and the scene would return. But something within it had changed. Although we witnessed a few dozen changes, I only caught a handful.

When you enter David's childhood home memory takes center stage. We stepped into a kitchen where everything is huge - the chairs are 10 feet tall plus, the counters tower over you. It's all the perspective of a young child. And then we were led to the attic where David talked a bit about his childhood and then we sat down and donned VR glasses. Although I had used them previously, it was genuinely odd to "inhabit" the body of someone else here.

We thoroughly enjoyed Theater of the Mind. Not only was it fun to wander around a large set and have my senses fooled, but it provided a lot of food for thought. The whole thing was quite Phildickian - as if we were replicants discovering that our memories aren't even ours. I was reminded of the Satanic panic of the 1980s & 90s when thousands of people "remembered" and made claims of ritual abuse (and even blood sacrifice) that were wholly without merit. On a more personal level, I thought of instances when my childhood memories were contradicted by friends and also the many, many times I failed to remember events that my ex-wife brought up in arguments.

For about a year prior to her filing for divorce and for a couple weeks after she did so, my ex-wife reproached me many, many times about incidents that I could rarely, if ever, recall. After countless accusations and loaded questions, I came to the conclusion that her Torquemada-like behavior was a mixture of lies and confabulation, of spite and misremembering.

My lady and I caught the El to Jefferson Park where we took a rideshare ride back north to her friends' place. As we waited, I glanced at the Gale Street Inn across the street, recalling that it had reopened and that I would like to go there sometime to see what's changed. Would the food match my memories of it?

Back at the northern edge of the city, I got to meet my lady's friends for the first time after hearing about them for months. We were treated to dinner before hitting the road for Madison and I had some extremely tasty beef brisket smoked by our host.

Two or three weeks later my ladyfriend and I returned to Chicago. A cousin of mine from the Bay area was in town to celebrate his recent retirement and so there was a shindig at the home of a couple other cousins of mine. In fact, just about everyone there was a cousin except for the significant others of cousins.

Everyone had a nice time. My family liked my new ladyfriend and she liked them. She got a laugh when one of my cousins complained that another had just spoiled the ending of Death of a Salesman. Ha!

Sadly my mother was unable to attend the soiree and finally meet the new woman in my life. However, this was remedied the following weekend as we went down again. This time she'd meet my mother and we would go on a neighborhood tour of North Lawndale with Dilla Thomas.

We arrived at my mother's place with plenty of time to spare and so we went and ate breakfast in Jefferson Park. We sat around and chatted for a long time after we'd paid the bill which I took as a good sign. My mother and ladyfriend got along well.

However, the time came when we had to give up our table and begin a leisurely drive to the west side. Since we had the time to spare, I drove us through the neighborhood where I lived as a kid and my lady got to see the house I grew up in. Looking at it from the street, I thought about being a young child and pictured the kitchen as I did then with everything being so tall a la Theater of the Mind. Just how reliable were my childhood memories?

North Lawndale is a west side neighborhood and the tour bus was to pick us up at the Douglass Park field house. We arrived a tad early and wandered the magnificent field house which was built in the 20s or 30s. It reminded me a lot of the elementary schools I attended in Chicago except that they weren't adorned with reliefs of mermen.

We discovered that the auditorium, which was more like a ballroom, was extremely well air conditioned. Also, that it was gorgeous, despite my inability to get a decent photo.

Thankfully my ladyfriend is a better photographer than me.

Just look at the detail of the ceiling.

What seemed to be a dining area off of the auditorium continued the nautical relief theme.

Not only did the park have a pond, but also a rather sizeable swimming pool.

The basement is an arts center with a large area for folks to practice their painting skills.

Indeed, many had and, looking around, I discovered the park's namesake as there were many portraits of him adorning the walls such as this one.

His wife Anna also got some love.

Before we knew it, the tour's start time was almost upon us so we went outside and took our seats on the bus. Unfortunately the air conditioning was severely compromised and we were in for a sweaty ride.

Dilla explained that the park was originally named after Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas - not wholly opposed to slavery - but was rechristened in honor of Anna and Frederick Douglass - definitely 100% against slavery. He noted that it was the simplest park renaming in Chicago history as it required only the addition of a single S.

The tour began with Dilla noting the Central European and Jewish character of the neighborhood in its early days as the bus stopped in front of an old Turner Hall.

While I've known that Sears was a Chicago company since I was a kid, I'd never been to the old Sears Roebuck campus in North Lawndale which is now, sadly, boarded up.

Across the street was a disused colonnaded pergola that was part of a large garden that the company  built as a place for employees to relax and take a break from the retail grind.

Dilla explained that the famous Sears catalogue and the company's policy of cash on delivery was a boon for black shoppers who often found themselves excluded from stores.

We also got to see the original Sears Tower - not shown.

I didn't know that Allstate insurance started as a subsidiary of Sears until we were parked outside their abandoned headquarters building. 

As we were leaving the Sears campus, Dilla pointed out a warehouse that had been taken over by the Chicago Police Department. It turned out to be the infamous facility where dozens of people were detained and/or tortured under the aegis of former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. I had heard about this stain on Chicago's history but had never been by the infamous site.

After driving for a bit more we found ourselves outside the Dr. King Legacy Apartments which were on the site of the apartment that Martin Luther King lived at during his time in the city.

It was really neat to see this site where MLK lived in my hometown as it made for a nice bookend to seeing the house he and his family inhabited when they lived in Montgomery, Alabama as well as all of the civil right sites and museums there.

The final stop of the tour was a bit outside of North Lawndale - the Garfield Park Field House with its golden dome.

The façade was stunning.

The place was built in 1928 and was equally gorgeous on the inside. (Though not bigger.)

There were several reliefs on the walls of the entry hall. Not shown are the ones lauding the road building prowess of Illinois. They, perhaps, haven't aged as well as the others considering all of traffic jams and road construction that plague the highways of the Chicago area.

My only gripe about the place was that the air conditioning was down. D'oh. It just wasn't to be a cool tour.

Well, soon enough it was time to jump back on the bus and head back to Douglass Park. It had been another very interesting tour with Dilla full of great architecture as well as enlightening Chicago history whether it be about the park system, commerce, etc. or the darker sides of the city's past such as the torture scandal, redlining, disinvestment, and so on.

We drove back north and I decided that we'd give Gale Street Inn: The Next Generation a try.

The joint seemed a bit more upscale than the version I was used to and I felt a bit underdressed in shorts and a t-shirt. But no one minded. The menu seemed a bit less like a yeoman's steak/ribs/chop house, although those were still options, and it seemed an effort was made to appeal to a more discerning, shall we say, palate with fancy seasonal salad dressings, for example. I do recall that the more workmanlike chopped salad was no longer on the menu. (Or am I misremembering? Damn you David Byrne and your existential uncertainty!) I am not complaining, mind you. I mean, how could I complain with their French onion soup being amongst the best to ever go down my throat?

They did not skimp on the cheese and the broth was quite tasty. I swore I caught a touch of wine in there. Mmm...great stuff!

We dropped my mother off at her place after dinner and hit the Kennedy. I think she and my ladyfriend got along well. I was pleased that their first meeting went smoothly and that we all got to see some sights and get a large dose each of Chicago history.

On the way home we made a quick stop in Schaumburg at Deli 4 You where I grabbed a bag of snacks for my co-workers.

Maple syrup and paprika seemed like an incongruous combination so I went with it. Upon sampling I determined that either they needed less maple flavoring or more paprika or both. Still, I didn't let the unbalanced taste stop me from indulging.

Watch your honey sticks, can't keep away

Last Sunday Lapacek's Orchard had their first batches of apples ready for sale. My ladyfriend and I were sure to make an appearance.

The drive there was lovely. As we drove down a county road lined with farms and full of gentle hills we passed a field with a sedge of sandhill cranes nibbling away. They've gotta build up their strength for the journey south soon. Arriving at the orchard we found many cars already parked out front. As usual, the first treat in store was cats. This grey one greeted us but was not keen on posing for photos and preferred to do some grooming instead.

We wandered out back to see the goats. And they were happy to see us. So happy, in fact, that they licked our palms and those of other visitors mercilessly. The kids were cute as the dickens.

Would you like to live appliciously?

The chickens were all relaxing in the shade provided by the tall grass and thusly were hard to find.

Eventually we wandered back towards the store and ran into moar cats. This orange boy was more amenable to pets.

This tuxedoed feline was all feisty. "Back off, hooman..."

It being opening day for apples, there weren't many varieties available. Nonetheless I consulted the big board.

My ladyfriend knows Kim Lapacek who was behind the counter as she always is when we visit. They hugged and chatted for a bit as I wandered the store. Apples for me. Check. Apples for my friend's daughter. Check. Apple cider doughnuts for her. Check. I nearly bought an apple cookbook. Nearly. Instead I opted for the bounty of recipes on the internet and figured I'd check a cookbook out from the library before committing to purchasing one.

It's hard for me not to want to cook up a million dishes all with apples when I wander Lapacek's. A pie or a crisp would do my friends some good but I also want to learn to include them in more savory dishes.

I love the Up North soap from Suds & Harvest for its wonderful piney scent. It smells so nice that I probably wouldn't notice if the soap had no cleaning properties. I took many whiffs of a bar of it before finding the strength to put it down. Normally I'd buy one (or more) but my lady has kept me stocked with soap so I have 2 bars, including one made by Yoopers, waiting for the one in my shower to be depleted. And the soap I'm using now is one of those mega-bars from Duke Cannon which apparently makes me manly and virile. It is huge. So big, in fact, that it's stretching my soap scrubber pouch to its limit. In my defense, I got it on clearance at Target. Yes, it's the requisite pine scent.

My basket was getting full so it was probably a good thing that there was no fresh cider available. However, there was still room for a few honey sticks.

Last season my ladyfriend and I seemed to go to Lapacek's every week. Every other, at most, and I had apples coming out of my ears. Time to start putting apples into everything I cook. Next up: apple cheddar scones. That's the plan, anyway.

The tastes of Tibet and August

Earlier this week I was looking for restaurants to take the daughter of a friend out for dinner. She's a student at UW and I wanted to buy her a good meal before the semester starts and she's eating almost exclusively on the go fare. Plus, I wanted to give her the apples and apple cider doughnuts I bought for her at Lapacek's Orchard on opening day. I found Tibet Kitchen and thought it'd fit the bill with several vegetarian options and an uncommon cuisine. Well, not that uncommon, it turns out.

My ladyfriend did a search and found that there are, in fact, 4 restaurants in town serving Tibetan food. Not bad for a city of only around 300,000 people.

We began with the vegan momos that had these lamprey mouth-like openings on top. They were scrumptious, laden with cabbage. A tasty sauce burst out with the first bite. The dipping sauce had some nice heat.

The co-ed got one of the stir fries but I cannot recall which. She vacuumed it up in short order. I forgot just how much 20 year-olds eat.

My ladyfriend enjoyed a big bowl of mokthuk, Tibetan dumpling soup. She allowed me a sample and I can testify that it was delicious.

I went a bit overboard, I must admit. First, I got a big plate of cucumber salad which was crisp and cool with a hint of spice. Sorry cucumber fans, no photo. Next was a big ol' plate of sauteed baby bok choy. They did not pull any punches when it came to the garlic.

Finally, I got a big bowl of thenthuk, a noodle soup with plenty of flat noodles.

Also not shown was a swirl of tingmo, Tibetan bread. I know nothing about it but I can tell you that it had a nice grainy taste and proved to be the quicker picker upper as it absorbed the garlic sauce from the bok choy with ease.

Every bite was delicious and portions were generous. The co-ed went home with a full belly.

A return visit is in order.

With a surfeit of apples - Scarlets, I've been thinking about what to do with them. The first thing that came to mind was to cook them with pork. And so I paired the pork chops in my refrigerator with a Scarlet stuffing.

I threw them in the oven smothered in kraut.

I also made corn on the cob with the ears I bought at Lapacek's over the weekend.

My photo:

My ladyfriend's (better) photo:

While the corn wasn't mega-sweet, it was still delicious. And the chops turned out well. More apples next time. Still, a nice meal to welcome in the bounty of the early harvest.