A Day At the Park (Grill!)

Hey, hey!  The Foodie's back and ready to dish on some dishes.

On the schedule today?  Pablo Picasso at the AIC, and, natch, lunch at the Park Grill next door.

Today was absolutely gorgeous.  The weather was so warm that I could go without a coat, so of course I obliged.  I could've just walked around outside for hours and hours and hours...but I'm only human.  I was getting hungry.

My aunt, sister, and I were planning on hitting the Picasso exhibit at the Art Institute, and the most convenient lunch spot for us was the Park Grill.  Last time we were there, we had Sunday brunch (chilaquiles, chicken and waffles...ringing any bells?).  Today we were in the mood for sandwiches and salads.

Turkey Pastrami Club at the Park Grill

I gravitated toward a Turkey Pastrami Club.  It consisted of turkey pastrami (as in, turkey prepared in the style of a pastrami with lots of assertive and delicious spices and that perfect, slightly chewy, peppery crust around the edges), thick-cut bacon (can I get an amen?), avocado, heirloom tomatoes, aioli, and alfalfa sprouts, all served with fresh-cut fries and a dill pickle spear.

I liked the sandwich, but I didn't love it.  The concept of pastrami-style turkey was genius, and it was very well executed.  The bacon was ah-mazing.  I love me some avocado.  But the heirloom tomato needed salt and there were altogether too many sprouts for my taste.  The fries were tasty though.

My sister had the Grand Burger, which I would choose for my next Park Grill lunch.  A juicy, well-seasoned beef patty is topped with bacon, onion straws, and cheese, plus a barbecue sauce-mayo mashup (PG sauce) that is surprisingly smoky and delicious.

Sometimes the simple choices are the best, and I wish I had gone with something a little less complex (though I hate to admit it).

Even simpler than the Grand Burger was my aunt's steak salad.  The beef was perfectly cooked and tender, served with a simple salad of iceberg lettuce and a few heirloom cherry tomatoes, all dressed in a slightly creamy dressing.

[Here I would like to apologize for my lack of specificity...I didn't take notes on the dishes and the menu online isn't up to date.]

Honey-Lavendar Crème Brûlée

Apple Galette

Dessert consisted of a honey-lavendar crème brûlée (shared between my aunt and myself) and an apple galette.  The brûlée reminded me of lemon-lavendar shortbread.  And by that I mean I loved it.  The galette was warm and flaky and topped with vanilla ice cream(!).  And it was all gorgeous.

I'm sorry if this post seems a little...lacking in pizzazz.  I'm really tired tonight, lovies, but I'll go back through and polish this up when I get a chance.

Peace, Love and Zzzzz....

~af.

The Great Ones Among Us

I've never professed to be any sort of great critic.  That definition would be highly subjective anyway.  But I know there is such thing as a great critic.  Perhaps first and foremost among critics, and especially here in Chicago, there stood only one, the legendary Roger Ebert.

Simply by virtue of my age, I am admittedly no great expert on Ebert and his work.  Through the magic of social networking, though, I've come to appreciate his wit through both Tweets and blog posts.  He was certainly one of a kind.

And it was not until today that I understood just how much I am really going to miss reading his writing.  A screenwriting student in one of my classes very nearly broke down in tears upon hearing of Ebert's passing.  The effect for me was far less immediate, but after reading a slew of touching memorial tweets by his friends, fellow journalists, and moviegoers alike, I find myself a bit choked up at the thought of his Twitter feed and his blog going silent.

He was unabashedly steadfast in his own opinions, something I feel many of us writers (both amateur and professional) find difficult to do in a world that can be so harshly critical.  If he didn't like a movie but you did, you could extol its virtues six ways to Sunday and you still wouldn't be able to budge him from his stance.  He came off as curmudgeonly and frank.  Although at first glance it seemed  a bit brusque and difficult to adjust to, his manner is one I hope to emulate (though certainly not replicate, for that would be impossible).

As a person and a personality, he was not conventional by any means.  On the anniversary of Gene Siskel's death, he posted a link on Twitter to an interview he did with Siskel on Howard Stern's show.  During the interview, he was gruff at times, humorous at others.  It was conducted during the nascent stages of his relationship with the woman he would later marry, and when Stern inquired about Ebert's relationship with someone of a different race, Ebert basically said 'So what?' (In my humble opinion, there was also a bit of a 'Screw you' implied, and if there was, I don't blame him. Because what does it really matter anyway?).  That is the one part of the interview that truly stuck with me.  It wasn't necessarily shocking; I found it respectable because of his refusal to censor himself or hide his own feelings.

That was the way Ebert conducted himself, and that was the way he wrote.  His actions were unapologetic, his opinions required no further explanation, and even though he seemed irascible at times, people still respected him.  I would imagine he loved blogging; no 'bleep' to hold him back, no one to tell him what topics were off limits...

Ebert even wrote about his own death.  An excerpt from his book, posted online after he passed and tweeted out shortly thereafter by British actor Stephen Fry, demonstrates that he approached the end with the same tenacity he exhibited in everything.  He was not afraid of it.  I'll post the link here if you'd care to peruse it.

This weekend I plan to visit his blog and truly read it, perhaps even start to finish.  I want to remember him by his writing, in all of its feisty frankness.

I'm sorry to have only realized my desire to read his writings at the moment of his death.  But someone wrote about that once, didn't they?  Ah, The Band Perry... "funny when you're dead how people start listening..."

I heard bits and pieces before, but I'm listening now.  Rest in peace, Roger.  As many have already tweeted today, The Balcony Is Closed.

Sincerely and Respectfully, A Fellow Writer:

~AF