Tag: food

Desserts


Chocolate mousse dessert with berries, nuts, edible flowers, and chocolate ice cream on a dark plate
An elegant chocolate dessert garnished with fresh berries and edible flowers

I love desserts! Who doesn’t? I always look forward to every dessert. Never have I skipped a dessert. I live by the words of Erma Bombeck: “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.”

Desserts are wonderful because they don’t even require that you to eat a meal first. For example, the ice cream truck comes rolling down your block. Do you run into the house and eat a complete meal so you can eat ice cream? Of course not! You skip the meal and run straight for the ice cream. And the ice cream truck has so many varieties.

When I attended Divine Heart Seminary in Donaldson, Indiana, the students ate at assigned tables family style. Each table consisted of students from each grade. We would pass the serving dishes and take our own food. All the students ate the same food. Desserts were very modest. Occasionally, we would get apple pie. But we always had ice cream for dessert! And what variety! We could choose vanilla or chocolate! Each table received two one-gallon cartons of ice cream: one chocolate, one vanilla. I always chose the plain vanilla ice cream. But I chose vanilla creatively. Let me explain.

We were allowed to keep our personal condiments on our assigned table. I kept a container of Nestle’s strawberry powdered mix that I would add to my white milk. I was the only one drinking strawberry flavored milk. Other students would ask where I had gotten the strawberry milk, and I would tell them I had added Nestle’s strawberry powder. They were excited at first sight, but lost interest when I offered them the strawberry powder for them to mix it into their own milk. I enjoyed drinking the strawberry milk.

Later, I brought a jar of orange Tang, the drink of astronauts, to the table. The Tang instructions said to add two tablespoons of Tang to a glass of water, which I did dutifully at first. Then I had the brilliant idea of adding Tang to my white milk! I loved drinking that orange milk! Again, other students asked me where I got the orange milk, and I explained that I mixed orange Tang into my milk. Once I explained how I made my concoction, everyone lost interest. Maybe it was too much work for them. Or maybe they thought I was cuckoo.

For the first few months of my freshman year, I alternated between strawberry milk and orange milk. Aah! But I felt a need to expand my culinary enjoyment. After one supper, as the ice cream was being passed around the table, I had another brilliant idea! Why not eat strawberry ice cream? Or orange sherbert ice cream?

So, I added extra strawberry powder to the remaining strawberry milk in my glass. I then added the strawberry milk to the vanilla ice cream. And, voila! Strawberry ice cream! It tasted like real strawberry ice cream. Students at my table asked where I had gotten the strawberry ice cream. I explained my simple process and offered them my strawberry mix. Again, no one took me up on my offer.

Ditto for the orange sherbert ice cream! Sure, it didn’t taste exactly like orange sherbert ice cream, but I did enjoy the variety of vanilla, strawberry, and orange sherbert ice cream. And my classmates were always surprised that I had a variety of milks and ice creams.

Aah! I have such fond memories of desserts past!

caricature of author at end of post
DDR

Pete’s Market


Pete’s Fresh Market, Chicago, Illinois

Because of its large Mexican community, you can shop for Mexican food at many grocery stores in the Chicagoland area. There are the real supermercados like El Güero or La Internacional in Chicago, but Pete’s Market has been expanding recently. There are several stores on the south side of Chicago, one in Evergreen Park, and one in Calumet City. They’re very successful because they sell authentic Mexican products at low prices, although I’ve heard that they are Greek-owned.

I love their tamales. I used to go the Pete’s Market on 47th and Kedzie early in the morning just to buy tamales because they tasted great and I didn’t have to make them myself. If you love authentic Mexican food, you will certainly find it here.

They also sell Mexican candy and piñatas. Most of the employees speak Spanish. Even in Evergreen Park where you wouldn’t expect to find many Spanish speakers. Actually, I was surprised to see a Mexican grocery store open in Evergreen Park. But then again, Chicago wouldn’t allow a Walmart to open within the city limits, so they opened a store across the street in Evergreen Park, a suburb that always finds new and creative ways to generate tax revenue.

Don’t be surprised if a Pete’s Market opens up near you.

DDR

Harold’s Chicken


Harold’s Chicken, 6843 S. Ashland Avenue, Chicago, Illinois

One of my favorite fried chicken places in Chicago is Harold’s Chicken.

The first time I ate at Harold’s was about twenty years ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t even remember which one I went to the first time. It was somewhere on the south side, perhaps around 71st and State. I ordered the 1/2 chicken dinner. They literally gave me half a chicken. When they asked me if I wanted hot or mild sauce, I asked for the mild sauce because I wasn’t sure how hot the hot sauce would be or if I would even like it. I watched as they prepared my order. I got my half chicken with French fries on a slice of white bread and a small Styrofoam cup of cole slaw that was warmed by the chicken–I’m used to eating my cole slaw cold. Then the cook put the mild sauce on the chicken, the fries, and the bread with a two-inch paintbrush. Yes, the kind you and I use to paint a house. I suppose it’s sanitary if they only use it for putting hot or mild sauce on chicken. I loved how good chicken tasted that I often went back to Harold’s Chicken to eat. I think the paintbrush added that je ne sais quoi.

The first time I ate at Harold’s, I thought the slice of bread was a rather peculiar addition to the meal. I mean, it was underneath the chicken and the fries, so the sauce dripped all over the white bread. But when I ate the slice of white bread, it was delicious! Now, I look forward to the slice of white bread.

Over the years, I have eaten at other Harold’s Chicken restaurants. And I always order the half-chicken dinner with fries, warm cole slaw, and one slice of white bread. When I taught at Columbia College Chicago, I often ate at the Harold’s on Wabash and Balbo. You could actually sit down and eat there, but it was always so crowded and homeless people would always ask for money. After a while, they just ignored me–probably because I just ignored them. My only real complaint about this Harold’s Chicken was that they didn’t put mild or hot sauce on the chicken with a paintbrush.

DDR

Liver and onions


Liver and onions

I think we can all agree that liver and onions is not a very popular dish in America. Otherwise, someone would have opened a fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru specializing in liver and onions by now. This will never happen but imagine the possibilities! For me, this would be great since liver and onions is one of my all-time favorite dishes. Luckily, it’s available at many restaurants. It’s easy to prepare and I’ve even made it myself a few times. 

Even when I was little, I loved liver and onions. My mother prepared it frequently because she loved liver and onions. I inherited her love of liver and onions. Sometimes my mother would make it just for her and me. Beef liver was usually unbelievably cheap. I guess few people liked eating liver back then, but no part of livestock was wasted. As The Jungle famously quoted one of the meatpacking plants, “We package everything except the squeal!” 

Unfortunately, my younger brothers wouldn’t eat liver and onions if they knew exactly what they were about to eat. So, my mother would explain that we were about to eat some exotic dish. As we sat down at the table, my mother would always say something like, “Hoy vamos a comer tigre.” “Today we are eating tiger.” “Hoy les preparé algo muy sabroso. ¡Tiburón!” “I made you something delicious today. Shark!” And my little brothers would eat up the liver and onions that they so detested. 

Once, we all sat down for dinner and my mother announced, “Hoy vamos a comer ballena.” “Today we are eating whale.” And so, we all started eating whale. On this day, I found the whale especially delicious. I was the only one who knew we were eating liver, sans onions to create the effect that we were eating whale. Have you ever eaten something that was especially delicious, and it really hits the spot. Perhaps I was suffering from an iron deficiency that day. Well, on this occasion, the liver tasted especially good despite lacking onions. I asked for seconds and thirds. My brothers continued eating it. Until I blurted, “The liver came out really good today!” My mother gave me a pained stare. And my brothers yelled, “Yuck, I hate liver!’ And they all stopped eating. My mother yelled at me because my brothers would have kept eating if they still believed they were eating whale. 

This reminds me of something that happened recently with my son Alex recently. We were at Old Country Buffet, and he came back to the table with what he thought were chicken fries. He said they were really good! When I went for seconds, I saw where he got the chicken fries. He was actually eating calamari. I love calamari, so I got some for myself. Alex was surprised that I would eat chicken fries. I told him what he really ate was calamari. He insisted on knowing what exactly calamari was. When I told him it was squid, he stopped eating his chicken fries! 

I guess sometimes you’re better off not knowing what you’re eating. 

DDR

Proyectos


Plátanos fritos

One thing I love about teaching Spanish at UIC is the food! Students will use any excuse to bring food to the classroom. Spanish students learned to bring food in high school, and they keep right on bringing it in college. I love it! If I could, I would design a Spanish course dedicated solely to comida de la cocina hispana.

My Spanish 104 class had to do oral presentations last week and some students found a way to prepare a dish that would highlight their proyectos. Of course, I never complain! I usually teach in the morning and most students are very hungry when they come to class. Okay, I’m hungry, too. So, the food is always a very welcome visual aid for the student presenting. I’m looking forward to the next set of proyectos!

DDR