Today, in honor of one sixtyblue chef Michael McDonald's new 'Dinner with Michael' tasting menu, Daily Candy has written a song:Mike McDonald cooks for you, E-I-E-I-O, New chef at One Sixtyblue, E-I-E-I-O, Taught by Trotter, he got game, E-I-E-I-O,...
GQ food writer Alan Richman's profile of the Schwa chef Michael Carlson reveals what really happened when the restaurant went dark, suddenly and confusingly, the day after playing host to a most extraordinary summit of chefs-as-diners. Party line has always...
After we umasked Pat Bruno for his quasi-anonymous showing on 'Throwdown! With Bobby Flay,' the emails started flying here at MPHQ. The most important of which, of course, came from Pat, a.k.a. Pasquale Bruno, himself: Helen: thanks so much for...
Cosmo is a magazine that I try not to read, because whenever I do read it its mindless ministrations get stuck in my head for days and I find myself wondering What Is His Body Language Telling Me about, like,...
I stared at the headline of Mike Nagrant's article in this week's NewCity for a solid fifteen, twenty seconds before I could parse it. Pop quiz: What does this say? I ’Que If you sat there for a moment...
For those of you who pooh-pooh the trend of cooking every recipe in a fancy cookbook and chronicling it on a blog, have we got an antidote for you! Chicagoist's intrepid food editor, Chuck Sudo, has embarked on a mission...
Not that we mean to imply that print is dead or anything, but there's this one Dining Tidbit from Chicago Mag that sort of explains why long leads aren't always a guarantee of quality. It's a blurb on chef...
Decider's Dinah Grossman attends a — party? lecture? event? — at chef Michael Foley's new food studio, Vegetable Alchemy. The Vegetable Alchemy website is sort of a mystery — the "About Us" page lists three precepts (Fitness and Food are...
Edible Communities, mysterious* publishers of Edible Chicago magazine, has opened the nominations for their Local Heroes awards. The write-in only campaign has five categories: Farm/Farmer, Chef/Restaurant, Food Artisan, Beverage Artisan, and Non-Profit Organization. It's kind of a weird operation: no...
Looks like we are not alone in our frustration with pre-Thanksgiving food journalism.Check it out: food writer (and official Person We Want To Be When We Grow Up) Regina Schrambling lets loose her cannon in Slate: What makes me totally...
Just a few hours ago, our president-elect had lunch with Valerie Jarrett at Manny's: "Asked about a federal bailout for the auto industry, Obama responded: 'I got the corned beef.'" Meanwhile, Tanya Bricking Leach (best. name. ever) of the...
We're feeling kind of reluctant to refer to Mike Sula as "Our Secret Boyfriend" right now. It is mostly because of the fact that he just posted about a very particular cookbook, and we feel a little significantly squirmy. Best...
Two back-to-back entries today on Lockwood chef Philip Foss's FossBlog caught our attention. Here's why: One of these pictures is Lobster Bisque. One of them is Pumpkin Soup, Chanterelle Dumpling, Brown Butter, Sage. Pop Quiz: WHICH IS WHICH? Lobster Bisque...
The big news coming off the Time Out Chicago presses this week is an epic roundtable bringing together the three corners of the current culinary world: critics, chefs, and bloggers. Representing for their respective categories were the Tribune's Phil Vettel...
Mike Gebert over at Sky Full of Bacon has finally finished part one of his documentary on the Reader's Whole Hog Project, in which they track a mulefoot pig from piglethood to plate. It's quite a show. Highlights: - Paul...
What is up with every single employee of Alinea being completely interesting in every way? We are setting aside our epic fascination with all things Achatz and Kokonas for the moment, and turning our watchful gaze on Justin Leone, Alinea's...
Two interviews hitting the blogwaves today — Centerstage lands a sit-down with Chicago's Season 5 candidate, Radhika Desai, while Best of the Best corrals chef-about-town (and Season 4 winner) Stephanie Izard. We've pulled a few quotes from each interview —...
Let's call it morbid curiosity that led us to re-read Lisa Donovan's foray into the world of Extremely Intense Bacon for the Sun-Times from last week. Somehow in our recap, we entirely overlooked the supremely awesome t-shirt being worn...
TOC's Heather Shouse reports that Terrance Brennan, proprietor of New York's Artisanal bistro/cheese temple/pungent-smelling room, is officially shelving his planned Chicago outpost. This is disappointing on many levels. There's the "Argh, the freaking economy" level — Team Brennan's reluctance to...
This weekend's New York Daily News has entirely fabricated a story about three chefs that are in the running to be the White House chef for the newly-elected Obamas. They list off Art Smith (famous as Oprah's cook), Rick...