Maude's Liquor Bar

A few weeks ago in the last lazy days of long hours of sunlight Lauren and I checked out Maude's Liquor Bar. Located on the long strip of trendy new restaurants on Randolph, the street that's getting buzzed about more than any other street in Chicago right now, Maude's opened a little under two years ago. This place is a gem - the food is incredible, the drinks are outrageously delicious, and the ambiance is great for people wanting to see and be seen. This would be a fantastic choice for just having a few drinks and apps prior to going out with your gal pals.

I began with the Bordelaise Cup, which had Small's Gin (a small batch gin made in Oregon), Lillet Blanc, cucumbers, mint, and ginger beer. I loved it.

This was on special the night we went. Goat cheese to spread on the freshly warm baked bread and marinated tomatoes.

This is the braised lentils, which were amazing. Please excuse the photo - it was very dark. This place is a great date bar - and they serve oysters, so you can get your aphrodisiac on.

A portion of their menu is dedicated to seafood towers of which the combinations are plenty (and pricey).

When I was finished with the Bordelaise Cup, I ordered the 20th Century off the shaken portion of the liquor menu. Martin Miller's gin (from London), Lillet Blanc, Creme de Cacao, and lemon. The Creme de Cacao almost prevented me from ordering this drink because I don't particularly like chocolate, but this was so subtle, it was really a perfect combination of flavors.

Then we ordered the steak tartare, which was on Time Out Chicago's 100 best things we ate in 2011. It was incredible and made me feel like it was the 1960s and we were Joan Holloway and Megan Draper. Gotta love Mad Men! This place is awesome and I can't wait to go back, even if it's just for drinks.

Autumn in one post

Can you believe it's November already? The election is over, Thanksgiving is in a couple of weeks, and time marches on. Time has definitely gotten away from me this season, which happens to be my favorite. Instead of sitting at home blogging about life, I have been out experiencing it but I haven't forgotten about you dear reader! Fret not, I am here to tell you all about how I've been spending my fall. 

October began with a bang in the form of a baby. Julie, one of my best friends, gave birth to her first child, Dane. I got to meet him on his real birth day and he was a snuggly little bug who didn't open an eye the entire time I was holding him.

My friend Brittany had a Sunday funday fall party at her new pad and went all out with decorations. I swear we are kindred spirits when it comes to fashion, decor, and entertaining. I get so much inspiration from her.

Specifically, things like this. So clever!

I got to see my nephew Oliver play a mean game of soccer - or so one might think by looking at this picture, which happened to be the one time during the entire game that he was paying attention to the ball.

I decorated my apartment for Halloween like a fiend. This photo is just a taste. I started at the end of September and I don't think I stopped until the weekend before Halloween!

I got to go to Sonny Acres Farm with these two freaking awesome people who had a fantastic time on the "strawberry."

And I took obligatory pictures of piles of pumpkins.

I had a Halloween party with a fridge stocked full of beer. Ain't no party like a Jacobs party!

And I dressed up as a 70's soul diva a la Foxxy Cleopatra from Austin Powers: Goldmember. That jumpsuit just happened to be in my closet - it was my grandma's!

Then, last weekend, three of my good friends came over for an impromptu brunch. Jessie is not pictured, but that's my pal Becky and her fiance Eric. They're getting married in April and I am officiating their wedding - that is if I don't cry or laugh through the whole ceremony. I can't wait to give them the awesome gift of a personal and meaningful ceremony and I'm seriously just honored to get to be up there with them guiding them into their lives together. More posts on restaurants I've recently visited coming up!

Art on Track

Created 5 years ago by School of the Art Institute of Chicago kids, Art on Track is the largest mobile art gallery in the world. It takes a 6-car CTA train and transforms each car into an art gallery, most of which are interactive. In 2009, one of the cars was entirely plastered in bubble wrap, which had it sounding like a popcorn popper with all the people in it. This year included a car transformed into a life size Lite Brite, a fairly creepy 19th century curiosity exhibit featuring eerily lifelike animals, as well as an improv show.
By the time my friends and I boarded the train, it was 9:00, so we had only an hour to experience everything this train had to offer. At that point in the night it was so crowded there was barely room to get on some of the train cars but we were able to see all of them and some were much more fun than others.

We started by jumping on the car with the giant Lite Brite. People were hogging it but it was more interesting to look at than to actually interact with so we stood in the corner near another exhibit: A woman dressed up as a Girl Scout telling scary stories around a "campfire" with a flashlight turned toward her face.

The 'Cabinets of Wonder' was a bizarre display of disembodied animal heads and other curiosities meant to mimic the cabinet of curiosities of Renaissance Europe, which were collections of objects yet to be defined. These collections were similar to modern day museums.

This car featured a collaboration between the Chicago Design Museum and Architectural Artifacts, taking "local, historical typography from its original context," and turning it into an interactive experience with its audience.

Most of the riders had one-track minds and spelled a lot of dirty words. I, on the other hand, created the word 'mod,' mostly because those were the only letters I had to choose from.

 

The last car on the train featured performances by the improv troupe, The Waltzing Mechanics, and their now 2 years old show, EL Stories. This was my favorite car by far because it put the EL Stories (which can be seen at the Greenhouse Theater in Lincoln Park on Saturdays) into context. Actors from the troupe recount their most hilarious, most sordid, and most memorable experiences while riding the El. I have quite a few stories myself that I could add.

What to do with leftover tomato sauce? Make a soup!

Fall has arrived this week in Chicago and I am stoked about it! Fall is my FAVORITE season. The clothes, the food, decorating for Halloween, it all gets me very excited. Of course, Chicago autumns do not last for very long so I try to maximize all I can get from this oh so romantic season. I had so much leftover tomato sauce from my weekend tomato adventure that I knew I had to make a hearty fall soup to kick off the season. 

My recipes are never exact and I tend to just use what I have in the fridge and make it up as I go. Chop three or four carrots roughly for that "rustic hearty" look, thinly slice a zucchini, mince about a tablespoon of thyme, peel and smash three or four garlic cloves, and chop half an onion. You'll need a can of cannellini beans, rinsed, about a cup of small pasta of your choice, a few ladles of the tomato sauce, and a carton of the lowest sodium chicken broth you can find. If you have a leftover Parmesan rind (once they're used keep the rind in the freezer for this very use) use that and a handful of Parmesan for seasoning. I also like heat so I add red pepper flakes. If you don't have the fresh tomato sauce, no worries, either use bottled sauce or canned tomatoes.

Soften the onion in a drizzle of olive oil over medium low heat.

Toss in the carrots and and saute.

Toss in the garlic, thyme,  and red pepper flakes and saute until fragrant. Sauteing herbs and spices helps the flavors to bloom. Drizzle some balsamic vinegar to scrape up the fond at the bottom of the pan.

Add the carton of chicken broth, tomato sauce, Parmesan rind, and bring to a simmer. 

Add the zucchini, the beans, and the pasta and simmer until pasta is cooked. Once soup is finished remove the Parmesan rind and the garlic cloves, add a handful of grated Parmesan and salt to taste. Drizzle some balsamic vinegar over the soup to brighten the flavors. I find that adding an acid at the end of the cooking process brightens up and deepens to flavors in a way that nothing else can.

 The flavors of this soup actually get better each day but the pasta will end up soaking up some of the broth, so when you reheat it for leftovers be sure to add a little water to your bowl. This will not affect the flavors at all. The best side for this dish is Parmesan crostini: sliced French bread drizzled with olive oil, garlic, and Parmesan and baked at 450 until toasted. This soup is sure to warm your soul and melt away your stresses.

Slurping Turtle

Last weekend, Jessie and I went to Slurping Turtle in River North for dinner, which has been open for less than a year. It's Japanese comfort food and I'd heard recently that they have good ramen. We decided to go early because I had also heard there can be long waits on the weekend, but we arrived at around 5:15, right after work, and the place had basically just opened. However, the service was incredible and our servers gave awesome advice on what to order so we mostly stuck with that and they did not disappoint. In fact, I got to talking to one of our servers about our recent trip to Big Star and he highly recommended Antique Taco in Wicker Park, which just opened this summer, and which I've been dying to try. Hopefully, that will be an upcoming blog post!

Turtles are a symbol of longevity in Japan and slurping is encouraged when eating ramen because you are supposed to get both broth and noodle with each bite.

This drink, whose name fails me, has an egg white in it and grapefruit and rosemary, but the rosemary cannot be detected. It tastes mostly like grapefruit juice, strongly spiked grapefruit juice.

This drink, whose name also escapes me, is much like the aforementioned drink in that it tastes like pure lemon juice, strongly spiked lemon juice. Stick with beer or wine if you eat here.

This is hamachi tuna tartare in taro root taco shells with hamachi roe. These are incredible and I cannot wait to go back to have them again. The crunchiness of the taco shell with the softness of the tuna and the salty soy sauce marinade really works well together.

I'd read that their duck fat fried chicken was a star on the menu and it does not disappoint. It is very rich and, thankfully, a very small dish for that reason.

This is the pork belly snack, which is really tender pork belly on top of a steamed bun with a pickle on top. Texture in Japanese cooking is just as important as flavor and this dish is texturally off. The steamed bun and the soft pork belly just scream for something crisp and the pickle does not deliver.

These Brussels sprouts are so salty and meaty and crispy and the addition of the frizzled shallots is heavenly. This is another dish I will be going back for.

The tonkotsu ramen is a pork broth with braised pork shoulder, mustard greens, wood ear mushrooms, egg noodles, and those oval things, which are fish cakes, and happen to taste more like nothing than like fish. This is another winner. The mushrooms are cut in similar shape to the noodles so they take on the same texture and mouthfeel.

The an mitsu is a Japanese sundae of green tea ice cream, red bean paste, fruit, and agar agar cubes. The agar agar cubes (basically flavorless Jello) overwhelmed the dish. I get that they are there for texture but they detract from the dish for me.

We also split three macaroons: yuzu, which is a citrus fruit, caramel soy, and red bean. The yuzu is by far the best macaroon I've ever tasted. The others just made me long for the yuzu!

Cooking lesson: fresh tomato sauce

I spend the entire year anticipating tomato season; the kind you get at the grocery store, shipped from thousands of miles away, and which end up being watery and mealy, are hardly worth the label tomato, so I rarely get grocery store tomatoes. That means, for spaghetti sauces, I use canned tomatoes, and bide my time until late summer when the juiciest, meatiest, tastiest tomatoes come out from hiding. Because the season is going to be ending soon, I decided to savor it by making off with an abundance of Roma tomatoes from the Lincoln Square farmer's market last week with the intent to turn them into a sauce. So, dear reader, let me bestow upon you my love of cooking by giving you your first ever Chef Shelley lesson.

My tomatoes still had dirt on them so I washed them thoroughly and then set them out to dry.

Set a large pot of water on the stove to boil and then make shallow slits in the form of Xs on the bottom of each tomato.

Once the water is boiling and all the tomatoes have slits in them, drop them a few at a time into the water and let them sit there for approximately 1 minute or until you see the skin starting to peel back.

When all tomatoes are removed and cool enough to handle. Start peeling off the skin. This part is really messy so wear an apron!

Once all the skin is removed and discarded you may give the tomatoes a rough chop. No need to be precise because they're going to break down anyway in the cooking process. Make sure to place the colander over a bowl so you can collect all the flavorful tomato juice!

These are the ingredients I use in my fresh tomato sauce. Anchovies, dear reader, may be scary but once they are minced and melted in the pan, they impart a salty, meaty flavor known as umami and provide greater depth of flavor. Anchovies do not taste "fishy" at all, but if you are too freaked out by them, leave them out!

Mince about 5 or 6 anchovies, half of a carrot, 4 or 5 garlic cloves, and chop half a yellow onion.

Heat olive oil over medium low and toss the onion in the pan.

Once onions are sweated - you don't necessarily want to caramelize them - toss in the anchovies and carrot and turn the heat to low (if you haven't already). Once the anchovies are melted and the carrots are deeper in color, drizzle a little balsamic vinegar in the pan and scrape up the fond (browned bits) on the bottom of the pan.

Add a 10 ounce can of tomato paste and stir it in. Let cook about three or four minutes until it has deepened in color. I add red pepper flakes at this point for heat.

Add the tomato juice that has accumulated in the bowl beneath the chopped tomatoes.


Dump the colander of chopped tomatoes into the pan and squish them with a potato masher.



 Because the tomatoes are so juicy, the sauce can be a bit watery, so simmer the sauce with the lid off for an hour to an hour and a half so that it reduces. Be sure to stir while simmering. And once you're ready to eat it, toss some pasta (linguine is my favorite) into salted boiling water and cook. To the sauce, add some salt, pepper, a handful of parmesan, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Then toss with the pasta and eat!


I like to sprinkle some goat cheese on my spaghetti to add tang and creaminess to the dish.