Gardening is getting trendy! There is nothing fresher than the vegetables and herbs you grow in your own garden. Of course, if you don’t have room for a garden you can try to grow herbs in the sun that reaches your flowerbeds or grow them in pots and keep them on your front porch. Here are three pasta […]
It’s lunchtime in the city, and you need a quick bite to eat. You’re tired of the standard quick-service giants (sometimes, even Panera’s broccoli cheddar soup gets old), but there’s not enough time to sit down at even a casual eatery. What do you do? The solution may be parked right outside of your office: […]
Although great anytime of the year, fried chicken is perhaps best enjoyed outside on a warm night with a cold beer, sitting at a picnic table. Happily, it’s delicious hot or cold. Sure, you’ve got your KFC and Brown’s Chicken, and while they’re consistent—the hallmark of a long-running franchise—they have no personality. These 15 chicken joints […]
Update Feb. 14, 2017: Marigold Maison is now located at 900 N. Milwaukee Ave., Lincolnshire. Bannockburn isn’t exactly on my destination restaurant radar, but now that I’ve been to Marigold Maison, I might just have to adjust my thinking. Suburban restaurants in strip malls aren’t generally my cup of tea, but the warm colors—marigold […]
The smell of a freshly mown lawn and the feel of that grass under your bare feet are summer staples. So are treats we can heat over a fire and those that will cool us back down. Warm weather is the time for desserts so messy that they demand to be eaten outside. S’mores and […]
What do you think chefs—on their feet for 12 to 14 hours a day toiling away in their restaurant kitchens—do when they get home? The surprising truth? They cook. Cooking is one profession where you take your work home with you, and that’s just fine as far as chefs are concerned. We had the delicious […]
Tequila just screams warm weather to me. Maybe it’s from happy beach vacations in Mexico, where we learned that tequila has been around for at least 500 years. Distilled from the blue agave plant and produced in the Mexican state of Jalisco, tequila ranges in depth of flavor from the unaged blanco or silver tequila—perfect […]
Summer is heating up in Chicago, and soon we’ll be desperate for ways to keep cool. Our advice: Keep calm and sh-sh-shake off that heavy mid-summer humidity with the best of Chicago’s creamy, cool desserts — milkshakes! Sip ‘em neatly through a straw or scoop ‘em messily with an oversized spoon; go chocolate-y sweet or […]
When co-founder Sebastián Koziura started FRÍO Gelato in Evanston, he was looking to recreate the gelato experience of his South American childhood in Argentina. Gelato is big there, both as sweet treat and social pastime. FRÍO’s gelato base is made in-house with hormone-free milk and all natural ingredients; the South American influence is obvious in […]
Northbrook is now the primo destination for some of the best ice cream around. Graeter’s, founded in 1870 in Cincinnati, has opened its first Illinois store, and it’s an unqualified success. The fourth generation of the Graeter family has brought in some new ideas—gelato, low-glycemic flavors, fruit smoothies—but their core dedication to the French-pot, small […]
