Okay – I’m just going to say it! FOOD. I. Ate. Too. Much!
A friend asked me to be her VIP guest at the Fulton Market Harvest Festival this weekend. And, not being a lunatic, I said OKAY! It’s the brainchild of Chef Stephanie Izard of Girl and the Goat fame (and Top Chef which, interestingly, I’ve never seen!) – and it’s that Fulton Market restaurant corridor – so you just KNOW there was a squickton of AMAZING food. No Funnel Cake for YOU! Sweatergawd, I don’t think I’ve eaten that much pork belly & duck fat and beef marrow and turkey brined in angel tears and Floyd knows what else foodie-type-food in AGES!
SO. MUCH. FOOD.
And maybe a little too much tipple.
Discussed the merits of my adage “Sleep is the New Sex” with Chef Ming Tsai, he of the plummy James Shigeta voice and yes, I am totally cognizant of the irony therein. That convo was vaguely surreal (and started with him sitting on a sofa). He’s not quite there yet – but he’s also a decade younger than my old-assed self, so we’ll see how he feels in 10 years or so. This was at 9p and he’d been on his feet all day, so that was impressive! I would’ve curled up on that sofa and taken a nap!
Chef Ming Tsai
I don’t yet know what PQM Bacon is. But I want ALL of it. Okay. I just found out what PQM bacon it – Publican Quality Meats – yet another insanely delicious food emporium. We had brunch there and they nearly had to carry us out! Now I really want ALL of it.
Omg. Duck Duck Goat. www.duckduckgoatchicago.com. Lemmetellyouaboutthe Dan Dan Noodles. Heck, I don’t even know what to say, except, wow! This one of those truly olfactory experiences. I love Cheap Chinese, I do. If you’re a decently made Shrimp in Lobster Sauce, GET IN MAH BELLY! But ‘nuanced and intriguing’ said NO ONE EVER! about that food. So. Going in to DDG, I was expecting something ..different..but I didn’t know what, y’know? The short ribs & bone marrow dumplings were astoundingly unctuous and delicious – but I could process the intel. When it came to the DanDan Noodles, though, I was completely lost – and happily so! I wiped out half a bowl just trying to figure out what I was tasting! Fermented mustard greens and mint! It should’ve tasted….weird? Instead it was heaven on a chopstick! This was the one dish that most closely resembled sniffage, where you are loving a perfume and trying to parse the notes.
Dan Dan Noodles, photo stolen: loustejskal.com
More tipple – and you know what? Not really even that much tipple – it was just the combination of Various Liquors in intriguing cocktails, coupled with a squickton of food and 90F heat.
Gus’s Fried Chicken. Best thing to soak up too many iced Champagnes. A lady named Tirondia (sp) makes the greens and mac ‘n cheese so I went out on a limb and figured this food would be home-cooking good. I was right! The chicken was perfectly seasoned and sucked up all of that booze, so I left feeling way less skittery (I’m a cheap drunk and my stomach isn’t all that fond of too much tipple so the soak-up was much appreciated).
Not too many man-buns but a whole lot of young, cute, bearded hipsters who are a bit too serious about food – but you know what? The food was delicious! So. Okay, even if you only source your beef from a butcher who processes by the full moon, chanting ancient Aramaic while using a handcrafted silver knife? You do you – ’cause that’s some damb tasty beef!
No Funnel Cakes. Instead little cinnamon-apple donuts with a twee bottle of caramel sauce stuck in the hole. Oh, c’mon! It was adorbs! Tasty, too!
Oooh! One bit of perfumery. Met a lovely man named Santiago, who smelled DIVINE! Turned out he was wearing Tom Ford’s Black Orchid perfume. It smelled unbelievable on him! on me? Grape jelly. Dang.
But I’m totally coked-out on chow. I had an egg this am because of the wonky glucose – but the idea of putting anything else in mah belly right now is causing me to feel all sorts of queasy!
But I still love chow. So! Tell me a food story. Are you a foodie? What thrills you, chow-wise? No foodie? That’s okay – whatchuliketoeat? I’m no foodie – I just like to eat, so no judgy here! I’ll let The Girl read the comments and she’ll pull a couple of random winners.
I also have WINNAHS from the Autumn in a Day post (ha! you thought I’d forgotten! Newp!)
Kathleen Smith
RoseyPoseyLeo
gmail the evilauntieanita with your details and I will get some fun stuff out to you!
I just rotate madly with the seasons and make mostly veggie meals interrupted by braised meats which just might be my favorite (not only for wondrously complex flavor that isn’t labor-intensive to get but also the deeply nourished feeling I get from eating them!). I always have homemade chicken broth in supply and love to make seasonal veggie soups and risotto, also eat copious amounts of salads year-round. Nothing too ambitious in terms of culinary refinement — actually I’m into getting away with the simplest prep I can, which helps when cooking completely from scratch (I don’t make my own cheese or peanut butter but otherwise, yeah). Thank you for the super yummy and really funny post, your description of butchery made me cackle!!
my family loves food, eats, and eating around the table together. I love sweets, and my son (12) has the nestle tollhouse (of nestlay Toulouse fame) recipe memorized. I made drunken noodles for dinner, but I do not believe there were layers of flavors, but it was good enough for a weeknite dinner. as for scents smelling better on others, I really liked the Narcisco Rodriguez on the SA, but on my it smelled very one-dimensional, even she could tell the difference. and everyone loves that one so much, but it just doesn’t do it for me.
I can talk perfume more than food; however, as with fall/winter perfumes, I’m super excited about fall/winter dishes. I’m quite boring when it comes to food I prepare at home. I eat clean and simple, but I love when it’s time to get the crock pot and instant pot out for warn comfort food. I love going out to eat, and my indulgence is always wine.
Thank you for announcing me a winner! xoxo
LOL! I don’t think ‘clean and simple’ = ‘boring’ – on the contrary, I think it requires a certain amount of skill to not overdo dishes, even in stews, etc. Perhaps especially in stews, etc. I subscribe to the Chanel dictate of taking a look (in this case, taste) and then carefully ‘editing’.
and The Girl says ‘congratulations!’
This eat-a-thon sounds like heaven! I scored some Hatch chiles in Minnesota, so I spent the weekend roasting them and making homemade New Mexico green chile to freeze — but of course had to smother a breakfast burrito in some of it first!
I’m with you on the TF Black Orchid — too gummy-sweet!
OMG! Hatch chile season! Yerp! Love those! My local(ish) Kroger did a roasting event a few years back and I bought a squickton to freeze. Nothing better on eggs!!!
You would’ve fainted at how beautiful Black Orchid smelled on that man – it took on a Middle East vibe (similar to those 3 Guerlains originally debuted in the UAE, I believe). Very Encense Mythique – seriously! Were I to try that, entire colonies of ants would be following me! lol!
I loved reading this and all the comments! Honey, I just plain love to eat. We have a fridge magnet that says “now that food has replaced sex in my life I can’t even get into my own pants” har har. I can remember meals I’ve had waaay back to childhood but for now, suffice to say I’m married to a Texan with a Cajun upbringing – his smoked pork is divine and between the two of us, we make wonderful gumbo, etouffee, jambalaya, boudin, the works! To eat my way from Mobile to Houston (shrimp & grits to TexMex) would be a dream come true.
Holy snakes and cabbage! I would join you on that road trip, A! Truly, I would!
I love ALL THE FOOD. Haven’t met a cuisine I didn’t like. I have only one dish I won’t eat due to painful childhood memory (stuffed green peppers). 29 years ago we had no food scene in Pittsburgh so I learned to cook a lot of different things. These days we have a great scene so we can go out a lot more often (not that we do, but we CAN.). That festival sounded amazing!
isn’t it funny how food scenes evolve? I could say the persack same thing about Chicago – 30 years ago it was steak. And more steak. And a seafood restaurant. And more steak. You had to go to the neighborhoods to get anything other than that. Now? Interesting (and excellent) chow abounds!
Yes I love food as much or even more than perfume-LOL! I enjoy exploring new cuisines all the time…right now I am really into Guatemalan food and there is a tiny hole in the wall place somewhat near my house that makes the very best for dirt cheap prices. I don’t particularly care to cook but my teenage son does so he is always whipping up something good for me to eat 🙂
oh, what a joy to have a son who cooks! I cook every day, out of necessity – and I confess to getting really tired of it sometimes.
Not really a foodie, I’m vegetarian, but I love desserts! Set me loose in a French bakery and I’m in heaven. :-). From past experience though, I can confirm that french fries cooked in duck fat are the best.
Yes. They. Are. 😉
I want to go where you were !!!!
I have lived in several different countries, and toured a few more, and picked up some adventurous taste buds along the way. Learned how to cook in self defence, as living in rural NE Canada pretty much guarantees you mediocrity in eating out opportunities. I now keep things like fresh duck eggs, adzuki beans and Kimchee in my fridge at all times.
Glad you had the chance to enjoy so much great food.
Hon, I wanna be in YOUR fridge!!!!!
I just drooled reading your post. Wow and double wow. Dan dan noodles and everything else. My son-in-law made a meal last week that was out of this world delish: homemade pasta, well, fettuccini but my spelling is probably off, topped by grilled salmon with a butter, wine, caper sauce with additional flavors undisclosed. Unbelievable. Good to have a foodie-who-cooks in the family.
omg! Now I’m drooling, too!!!
I go nuts for Thai food! I’m a pescatarian, so veggies and fish. Thai food is amazing, and while i’m not Thai, and I’ve never been to Thailand, I think of it as my true spiritual homeland. I think it’s the peppers! I like it “way beyond Thai hot.” Sizzle my tongue and make me cry. One dish which is not hot, but a kind of appetizer or dessert is Mee Krob, crunchy, crispy sweet, tang noodles.
Your food extravaganza sounds marvelous–made me drool thinking of all those great cooks and all that lovely food. I’d skip the duck fat or pretend not to know. Ha!
I love hot – but not THAT hot! But, yes! Thai, Thai, baby!
and LOL! You would definitely have to ‘pretend not to know’ – the Fulton Market district definitely embraces Chicago’s stockyards history! 😉