thanksgiving in the windy city

On Sunday Steve and I braved twelve hours of post-Thanksgiving traffic from the flat plaints through Indiana to the snow-dusted mountains of Western Maryland to return home, after a delightful Thanksgiving weekend in Chicago, Steve’s native place.

Chicago was great. Steve’s family (Mom, Dad, and sister Jordin) were great, and super hospitable, and super happy to see Steve as evidenced by the fact that they took him (and me!) out for deep dish the moment we arrived.

Steve’s family is also really SPORTY (as you’ll read about our bowling adventures later) and really good VISUALLY, as evidenced by his Master’s-in-photography-and-also-basically-Martha-Stewart mother’s Thanksgiving decor, pictured below:

   

Those are two of the THREE tables, as there were thirty people there.

I break out in a sweat just thinking about it, but everything went smoothly and it was a lovely Turkey Day. I swore up and down that I didn’t feel like it was Thanksgiving without cooking and truly wanted to help, so when I padded down to the kitchen Thursday morning in my tee and boxers, Steve’s mom put me to work. When Steve rolled out of bed considerably later, he emerged to his mother and I rubbing absurd amounts of butter under turkey skins in the kitchen. He was “touched” (seriously).

I really wanted to be helpful, out-of-the-way, and inconspicuous, so I didn’t treat Thanksgiving as a Food Blogging Event (though what I have I treated as such, lately?).

I got a few shots of a few fun things, such as the EXCEEDINGLY tasty cheese mold, and the stuffed shells that his half-Italian mother makes every year, based on her own mother’s recipe.

This being my first wholesome Midwestern Thanksgiving (actually, my first Thanksgiving away from home ever!) I tried a number of dishes for the first time:
- Green bean casserole with Funyuns atop (so tasty!)
- Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows (so confusing! Your first bite is dessert, and then you go… vegetables? I prefer them straight up :) As does Steve!)
- Jello for dinner

Most visually noteworthy was the largest quantity of gravy I have ever beheld (and this was after all three tables had gotten a boat).

The thought of arriving to Thanksgiving without something I had baked was unbearable to me, so I opted for simple, easy-to-transport bars.

I totally winged it on this but to give you a rough idea…

Crust: walnuts, oats, a bit of coconut, brown sugar, oil. Enough to put a thin layer on the pan of your choosing (I used an 8 by 8). Whirr in the food processor til crusty looking. Pre-bake at 350 til golden.
Topper: a super ripe banana, 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk, 1/3 cup yogurt, 1/2 tsp custard powder (basically cornstarch and vanilla) whirred in the food processor. Bake atop crust at 350 til set.

Transported semi-successfully in a shoebox (ooh yay alliteration!)

I REALLY liked them. But Steve’s family does not seem very into dessert whaaaaaaaa?! That’s no way to live. 

Thanksgiving was oodles of fun! It felt so nice to be included.

The next day was meant to be a stroll around Chicago day. But since it was, oh, 33 and EXCEEDINGLY windy, even Steve the native son thought it was too miserable outside.

So brunch was followed by bowling.

Sexxxay…

Fun story: Steve’s family is REALLY GOOD AT EVERYTHING. As we chat during the bowling game, Steve’s mom casually mentions all the gymnastics competitions Steve won in high school… when Jordin filled in as goalie once during a soccer game and was the best they’d ever had… Steve’s parents pulled out their own PERSONAL BOWLING BALLS, which they used to play in their WEEKLY BOWLING LEAGUES.

The family racked up strike up on strike! Perhaps the occasional spare. Lots of high fiving, and discussion of technique.

And I… bowled a 26. Eesh.

Let’s move on.

After bowling we got dinner with Jordin and her super-nice boyfriend Bryan at the ridiculously tasty Wok 'n Fire, which had a ridiculously good happy hour with reduced drink prices AND half priced sushi and appetizers.

Then we went into Chicago proper, to hang out with Steve’s buddy Hector, who he’s known since high fschool.

It was meant to be a party involving blind wine tasting (thus our tasteful use of duct tape covering up our $3.99 Trader Joe’s purchase)…

… but it ended up being a low key crowd of Steve and I, Hector, and Hector’s brother Saul and his girlfriend Maki (sp?).

(that Hahn Grenchache blend was duh-licious, incidentally).

So there was just a lot of wine. And cheese. And Jenga!

Fortunately for hydration purposes, Saul and Maki (sp?!) have just started their own small business (!!!!!!!)- Tea Gallerie Chicago (website pending- worth checking out Chicagoans- they’ve got yummy tea!)

I had oodles of fun playing gourmande and describing the various flavors.

  

Saul knew a RIDICULOUS amount about tea and gave us a whole presentation. Who actually knows what polyphenols are? You just know they are “good”. Well, HE KNOWS.

The coconut chai was my favorite :)

I stayed up later than I had in quite some time (plus an hour for the time change) and then collapsed into Hector’s desk-that-turns-into-a-bed WOW SO COOL.

Sunday morning I took a MUCH overdue shower and marveled at yet another feature of Hector’s fairly old apartment- a radiator in the bathroom! I seriously HATE winter showers because I’m always so cold when I get out. This would be a game changer in my own home. I’d probably bathe more!

Coffee, after a whole lotta wine and not a whole lotta sleep, sounded REAL nice.

So we went to the thoroughly rad Star Lounge Coffee. It was decorated in orange, which I love.

And had crazy and cool coffee varieties (which excited me) and bacon donuts (which excited Steve).

 

I opted for the Wake & Bake.

  

YUM! No, it is not the most conventional combination. Just believe me when I say it smelled like Thanksgiving and tasted like heaven.

Then we went to Tre Kronor, a Swedish breakfast place (anyone reading this blog who’s actually met Steve in person immediately understands why this place was chosen) for brunch with Steve’s cousin Melissa and her wife, also Melissa (a blog fan! Hi Melissa!). Steve is SUPER tight with his cousin Melissa and I’d spent the past two years hearing stories about her, so it was a delight to meet her, as well as her baby GENIUS. Seriously, Melissas, baby A. is basically already smarter than I am.

More rich food. Lawd.

Hector and I went halfsies on two of the quiche selections, being unable to decide on our own: witness tomato basil and spinach and mushroom.

  

Steve, who throughout the decadent trip kept vowing he was going to start eating only kale, ordered smoked salmon eggs benedict :)

Then we get to my faaaaaaaaaaavorite part of Chicago, thus far (with my admittedly limited knowledge): Lakeshore Drive!

I told Lydia, my also-dating-a-Chicagoan bestie this, and she went “Oh, LSD!” Apparently I will understand Chicago humor a lot more in the future with my knowledge of this acronym. Noted.

LSD is beautiful.

Our muscles rejoiced at actually walking (whoa) and garsh the city is vair pretty.

I love the idea of this artery leading through the city being accessible by car (and the drive along Lakeshore Drive is an excessively pleasant one) but also on foot and by bike. I was fantastiing about living in Chicago and biking to work downtown, actually. Yknow, me, the girl who hates the cold.

 

But on a sunny day, even in November, Chicago was liveable. Love this picture.

As we got closer to downtown we saw this completely adorable, completely I-wanna-steal-you-except-I-lack-the-energy-to-care-for-you springer spaniel just FLYING along the water. Legs were basically a blur.

Taking pictures of him resulted in generally good pictures.

 

Can you still spot the dog?

And, doesn’t this make you want to go to Chicago?

Being tourists, we stopped at the Bean.

There was no time for ice skating (thank goodness, based on how I’d comported myself at the other athletic event of the trip).

We headed for dinner in Greek Town. I will not discuss this… you’ll see why later.

We strolled around the German Market (presh! And good smells… this is before I started hating all smells… you’ll see, you’ll see…)

We strolled around the Macy’s- nee Marshall Fields- and looked at the window displays. Adorable.

Went up many escalators to admire Giant Tree.

Then we went to Jordin’s Nordstroms! Steve’s sister is a fashion school graduate whose very cool job is now to basically make everything at Nordstroms look awesome so you buy it (yes, I have no doubt there is an actual title for this but I’m failing to articulate it properly). Not only is she an incredibly hard worker; not only did she roll into the house at 7:30 am on Thanksgiving (!) because she’d spent 13 hours (!!!) doing ALL of the holiday decorations in one day (!!!!); she’s REALLY GOOD AT IT. We looked at some of the displays she did (my favorite being a wonderfully geometric look at Kate Spade accessories) and there is so much thought and creativity involved. Lighting, heights, textures, shapes- all go into making the final product look awesome. So cool.

And thennnn… we got back in the car. Got back in the car with the leftovers from the we’ll-leave-it-unnamed Greek place. And WOW, SMELLS. I got queasier and queasier and quieter and quieter throughout the ride- by the end I was basically just nonverbal, hoping no one would notice.

Steve’s parents dropped us off at his car, which was still by Hector’s place. I got out, gulped in fresh air, and firmly told Steve, “I have food poisoning”.

Thus followed a delightful trip back to the ‘burbs with the windows wiiiiiiiiide open while Steve kindly tried to distract me with a thought-provoking discussion of Chicago’s crack epidemic. I thought it all might work out, but a mere two blocks from home… suffice it to say thank God Steve had a spare Trader Joe’s bag in his car.

I wish it hadn’t been paper.

I really wish Steve hadn’t been in the car with me.

However, since life will inevitably consist of ups and downs, if the down of getting violently ill in front of my cute boyfriend was required to cancel out the millions of ups I experienced on my wonderful trip to Chicago, it’s a price I was willing to pay.

president’s day beach trip

Dear Presidents Washington and Lincoln- thank you for being born!

Dear Kathy and Tom- THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for letting us use the beach house!

Dear ocean- thank you for soothing my soul.

Dear Steve- thank you for taking that picture. I’m digging the composition!

Beach essentials:

The only intellectual stimulation of the weekend (well unless you count watching Overboard, which is indeed a brilliant film.)

We left Friday. Gruesome traffic, even leaving long after rush hour should’ve ended. Got to beach at 1:30am. Yuck.

Next morning, revitalization!

Dear Jolly Roger- thanks for being open during the winter.

The Jolly Roger is a landmark sort of restaurant in the Outer Banks (which is where we went. Obviously). It is decorated with pirates. The waitresses wear pirate costumes. There are Christmas ornaments on the ceiling. It is a DELIGHT.

  

The off season is great. Minimal waits for table.

Opportunities for important photographs.

 

Coffee is simply an assumption (Steve ordered it! That’s the fifth time he’s had coffee this year, and he’s now thoroughly convinced he’s a caffeine addict).

Dear International Delight- I admit defeat. I am powerless to resist you.

Dear Jolly Roger- that homemade bread is the greatest thing everrrrrrr.

 

Studded with sunflower seeds, it’s the best (of many delicious others) component of the Jolly Roger Special.

I opted for grits, scrambled eggs, and that toast! That toast!

 

Then Steve and I got plate envy of people around us receiving plate-sized pancakes, so we split one. Excellent choice.

 

Dear Steve- God bless the nerve endings in your feet.

The beach was sooooooooooooo lovely. Uncrowded. Just us and the always serene whooshing of the waves, flying of the gulls, churning of the sea foam.

Lonnnnnnnnnnnnng walk.

Followed by need for bathroom.

Dear  Biscuits n’ Porn…

… seriously, that is the name.

… Dear Biscuits n’ porn, thank you for having a bathroom.

Biscuits n’ porn is in a Citgo gas station. It is exactly what it sounds like.

Kathy (my aunt, the wonderful human being who let Steve and I use her beach house free of charge) said we had to get a biscuit, that they were the best.

Steve totally didn’t even see the smutty stuff while I was in the bathroom (yeah, sure), as he was buying a cheddar cheese biscuit.

  

I had a bite or two. It was exquisite.

Dear Ocean- thank you for providing me with a beautiful seashell. Thank you for letting me discover it by it washing up ahead of me… rather than it whacking me in the shin the way a large conch shell did one time, leaving me with a scar.

I turned it into a lovely hairdo, which Steve photographed.

Then another beautiful shell! I attempted to double them up.

 

Tricky.

Victory!

We strolled along and saw cute dogs and cute children and other cute things. Awww:

Dear walking on the beach- thanks for being exercise in disguise!

Dear Steve- God bless the nerve endings all over you.

Yep, Steve did a polar bear swim. In FEBRUARY. Later we learned the ocean was 53 degrees.

Invigorating.

Dear mini golf course- Thanks for not locking your gates during the off season. Fun photoshoot!

A place tragically closed. I wish I could go and see what they were all about…

 

Lunch didn’t really happen, and I decided I needed frozen yogurt.

Dear Steve- thanks for putting up with my need to get frozen yogurt. And also emotionally coping with the styrofoam.

I got this creation!

Whipped cream (this is vacation), berries (the first fruit of the day!)…

  

… cake batter, peanut butter (!) and pistachio (the green one).

Steve got all the cake flavored ones with a buncha candy on top.

Place I’ve been to previously and wish I could go to again:

Instead, went to one of my faaaaaaaaaaaaaaves. Mama Kwan’s!

I knew Steve would love this place because it starts with ti and ends in ki. Steve turned his bedroom into a Tiki hut with paper bags and hours of labor (have I ever posted about this? Remind me.)

Dear Mama Kwan’s adorable bartender- thanks for the tasty margarita!

 

Salt. Always.

Dear Kathy- thanks for introducing us to the seared tuna when we went here before. It is now non-negotiable.

(though perhaps even better than the immaculately fresh, rare-in-the-center fish is the subtly sweet, sesame oil enriched cucumber salad on the side. Nom!)

Ostensibly we were sharing both of these items but we basically dominated our respective categories.

For him, the Special Occasion Pasta.

I knew Steve would love this because it combined carbs, soy sauce, and copious amounts of butter.

I don’t know how they make this- it’s penne with roasted red peppers, mushrooms, and snow peas in the most wonderfully flavorful and rich creamy sauce that’s tangy with soy- but it’s great.

A single entree managed to fill up Steve. Insane. (Though most normal people eat about a third of this pasta and admit defeat).

For me, what I’ve stated in prior blog posts would be my last meal:

MAMA KWAN’S FISH TACOS!

 

Perfectly sauteed mahi mahi, rice, cabbage, green onion, cheese (you wouldn’t think it goes with fish but oh it does), and wonderfully rich and unhealthy lime sour cream.

So. GOOD!

 

Feast!

  

Dear change of scenery- I love you.

It’s amazing, sometimes, the things you end up talking about just by virtue of talking somewhere you haven’t talked before.

And yknow, that margarita and a strawberry daiquiri that also somehow appeared in front of me didn’t hurt.

The next morning- HOT BATH!

Dear bathtub at the beach house- thanks for being deep enough that I had water up to my EARS!

Next- surprise, surprise, return to Jolly Roger.

Sunday brunch= marginally longer wait for table= photoshoot!

Steve is a scary pirate. I am a happy pirate who didn’t comb my hair after that nice hot bath.

Steve is on the case for me to put Christmas ornaments on my ceiling. (He can’t put them on his because of the aforementioned Tiki hut).

Dear Jolly Roger- you are awesomely affordable. If I lived near you, it’d be trouble.

Steve decided that since the Jolly Roger Special was only $3 (!!!!), he’d go ahead and order two.

 

Thus enjoying toast (four pieces- he just snatched one off the plate before I took a picture), hashbrowns, grits, and both scrambled and fried eggs.

I had a breakfast sandwich the size of my head.

 

Dear Jolly Roger- thanks for being so cool and including the omelet veggies so I’d get at least one serving of produce on this vacation.

This was SOOOOO delicious.

We looked dreamily out the window at the rain for a bit- fortunately we knew and expected this rainy day and relished the sunshine the day before. We had rainy day plans, oh yes.

 

Called… AQUARIUM!

Guys.

I LOVE AQUARIUMS SO MUCH DID YOU KNOW THIS ABOUT ME?

(I assure you that now my boyfriend and anyone within earshot of us at the aforementioned aquarium for sure, no doubt, knows this).

I, the girl with no knowledge of photography whatsoever, love how when you take pictures of fish one of them always pops out into focus.

I like turtles.

(I said that to be HILARIOUS and reference Youtube but the truth, of course is that I LOVE turtles. There was a sea turtle rescue simulation involving plastic terrapins that was designed for children but that I did… with gusto).

My favorite fish at the whole place was this awesomely peculiar looking dude, who evaded my camera’s focus at every turn.

 

Dear Steve- thanks for spending so long at the aquarium.

 

Dear North Carolina aquarium- thanks for being AWESOME and letting us pet rays!

 

After the aquarium, nothing seemed better than having a hot beverage somewhere cute.

We went to the Frontporch cafe, which indeed had an adorable, if waterlogged, front porch.

 

Steve fueled his growing caffeine addiction (sarcasm) with a ridiculously sugared-up heat bar coffee creation that featured chocolate whipped cream (!). I had soy au lait. And forced Steve to eat some of my biscotti.

Once again having skipped lunch, we headed to the FISH MARKET to buy dinner!

Loved the whole vibe:

Loved the local:

Could not resist the smell of hush puppies.

Dear Steve- kind of thank you and kind of not for buying hush puppies.

 

Steve is a master mixologist… of dipping sauces. That ketchup- mayo- Texas Pete’s- malt vinegar combo was grand.

More would-be-cool-to-sit-outside places. If you squint, it’s a dock.

Then we had to go home and watch Overboard.

Dear readers- if you have seen Overboard (actually, if you haven’t seen Overboard, go see Overboard, then come back to answer this), what is your favorite line?

Mine is: You shot a chicken?

Soon enough it was time to eat again. These things happen.

Dear Kathy- the beach house is awesomely well stocked. And now I want a grill pan!

Swordfish marinated in lime juice (lots), honey and oil (a bit; only had olive oil and I feared burning).

Per. FECT!

Three minutes a side.

(Dear Steve- thanks for documenting!)

Also: oven yuca fries.

Dear Cooking Light- thanks for giving that tip about soaking starchy vegetables in water before turning them into oven fries. They did cook up better.

On vacation I GARNISH! Ooh la la.

 

Steve brought veggies, what a guy.

Zukes and chayote sauteed with oregano:

 

Spinach sauteed in olive oil with lotsa garlic, red pepper flakes, and lemon.

 

Dinner by candlelight with Carmeniere.

 

Final night. Dramatic storm. Crazy wind.

Cozy beach house. (Mostly. Except when Steve got up and went to see if there was a burglar. There wasn’t).

Packing up to leave the beach, felt crazy sick. Nauseous. Dizzy.

Simply my body not wanting to return to the everyday? Perhaps.

Dear oatmeal (and yes, Jolly Roger will make that for you too, and blissfully)- thanks for always being there.

Dear epic traffic driving back north- way to remind me that I refuse to live in the DC metro area for the rest of my life.

Dear carefree, unwhiny, blissfully-in-love President’s day weekend me- I miss you already. Let’s repeat this feeling soon.