Chicago

ParkWhiz

/ Shane / Leave a comment

The last final hurrah for jury duty is a site I want to recommend, ParkWhiz.

The site is simple: type in where you want to park and when, and they’ll show you a map of different options and prices. You select the one you want, pay online, and print out your confirmation / receipt. When you show up at the garage, your spot is reserved. Instead of paying, you just give them your receipt and that’s that.

I was veeeery skeptical of this. It just seemed too neat and tidy to actually work. However, I used the service a total of I believe seven times at two different garages over the course of jury duty, and I never had any trouble. Not only that, but I also saved a ton of money! I never paid more than $13 to park in the heart of downtown Chicago, despite a lot of the other jurors paying $25 and even $35 for a day. So if we assume I saved an average of $17 a day, that’s $119 saved!!

If you’re coming to Chicago for the day (I’m looking at you Wisconsin relatives), there’s no reason not to use this site (this is a totally unsolicited endorsement, and I am not receiving anything from ParkWhiz for it. I really just think it’s that good). Get your parking taken care of ahead of time, and not only save money but also the stress of trying to find parking. The confirmation comes with explicit instructions on how to get to the garage, instructions on what to do when you get to the garage (i.e. “Tell them you’ve pre-paid with ParkWhiz”), and even a photograph of what the entrance to the garage looks like.

It looks like they are in a lot of other cities besides Chicago as well. Use them without hesitation!

Food Swap #2

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Sara attended her 2nd Chicago Food Swap (you can read about the first one here). This was about a week and a half ago, but I’m just getting around to posting it now!

In exchange for:

  • Sweet and sour pickled red onions (4 pints and 5 half-pints)
  • Pomegranate molasses (5 4 oz jars)
  • Balsamic raspberry jam (1 half-pint and 1 4 oz jar)

She received:

2012_12_02_9372

In case you can’t see everything in the picture, the full list is:

  • Amaretti ginger bars
  • Spicy chai concentrate
  • Jamaican sorrel
  • Coffee liqueur
  • Chocolate liqueur
  • Fig’n tipsy jam
  • Peaches N scream jam
  • Strawberry applesauce
  • Vegan banana bread
  • Brown soda bread
  • Pumpkin butter
  • Mint-chip cookies (x2)
  • Polish farmers cheese (twarog)
  • Hot fudge sauce
  • Quince paste
  • Spicy honey mustard

I think that we have tried most of the stuff (although we haven’t tried the sorrel yet, which I am particularly looking forward to, but we plan to try that and the chai tonight). Nothing has been bad, but the Amaretti-ginger bars in particular were mind-bogglingly good. O.M.G. good.

Just like last time I am struck by the sheer amount of interesting things to try we got in exchange for things that we already have a lot of. I’m telling you, this is the best deal in town.

Also, coming up with interesting and attractive things to bring has been more fun that I would have anticipated, and has been pushing us to make more interesting things than we otherwise might. As soon as Sara gets home from the food swap, she already starts coming up with ideas for the next one.

And I just get to sit back and enjoy. 🙂

(For other recaps of the December Food Swap, see here and here)

Hot Doug’s

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Over the weekend, we checked out Chicago institution Hot Doug’s, the Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium. I have to say that I never really felt like I needed to go to a hot dog restaurant, famous or not, but Hot Doug’s totally exceeded my expectations.

For out of towners a “Chicago-style” hotdog typically consists of a hot dog (obviously) topped with mustard, onions, neon green relish, tomatoes, a full sized pickle spear, and celery salt on a poppy seed bun.

I’ve never actually partaken of a Chicago-style dog, and I’m always interested in trying the food-of-that-place, so knew I had to try that out. Additionally, we got a brat with sauerkraut, a specialty dog that was Smoked Crayfish and Pork Sausage with Cajun Remoulade and Goat Cheese, and some duck fat fries to top us off.

The hardest part about Hot Doug’s was the line to get in. It wasn’t as bad as we’ve heard it could be, but two hungry kids don’t want to stand around and wait when the food is just right there. If I had to do it over again, I would go earlier in the day, so the kids weren’t so hungry to begin with.

Usually going out to eat with Evie is a complete waste of time. She likes the idea of going out to eat, but it turns out she actually hates food so there’s pretty much no chance she’s going to like any of the options. However, you can’t get more up her alley than a hot dog and french fry restaurant, so there you go.

Ollie, as usual, is just happy to have food. Any food. Our waiter was extremely skeptical about Ollie’s “with everything”, and Ollie proved him wrong by eating the whole thing, followed by a quarter of the crayfish and goat cheese dog. He loved both.

I have to say, I was impressed with Chicago-style hot dogs. The dog itself was good, but all of the crazy toppings do combine into something new and delicious in my mouth. I thought the plain old “with everything” dog was the best of all the different kinds we tried. Although the other ones were good, I would probably just stick with that next time.

I would certainly go here again, especially to take someone from out of town (although it’s pretty far from our place to get there).

And hey, Evie said it was the best restaurant she’s ever been to, what other recommendation do you need?

Two Thumbs Up

Chicago Food Swap

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Sara participated in the Chicago Food Swap. You can read a recap here. The basic idea is, you show up with homemade food, everyone else shows up with homemade food, and you swap. You can basically bring anything, but the more desirable your trade is, the more you can dictate what you are going to get in return. So there is some incentive to come up with something interesting, or unique.

For her swap, Sara brought:

  • 6 half-pints of honey apple butter
  • 4 half-pints homemade ketchup
  • 2 pints of tomatoes from the garden

And in return she received this:

For those of you who can’t make out the labels, that is:

  • full sized Spinach Gruyere quiche
  • ~2 cups hot nuts
  • half-pint pickled fennel
  • half-pint cranberry sauce
  • half-pint tomato jalapeno peach jam
  • half-pint pear ginger jam
  • half-pint autumn apple-cran jam
  • half-pint whole cranberry jam
  • half-pint ginger spice syrup
  • pint sweet potato bisque w/ brown butter croutons
  • s’mores kit w/ homemade marshmallows and homemade graham crackers
  • small loaf of savory monkey bread w/ bacon, caramelized onions  & Gruyere

In other words, a pretty good haul!

The apple butter was a big hit (a whole quiche for a half-pint of apple butter??), which was kind of nice to hear. It’s fantastic to take something we have a lot of already, and trade it for a lot of interesting things that we can try. I think Sara is already making plans for what she wants to bring to the next one.

So far I can vouch for the quiche, soup, monkey bread, hot nuts, cranberry sauce, and the s’mores kit. You can guess which one the kids were most excited about.

I was actually surprised at how excited Evie was about the whole thing. She was dancing around excited, unable to wait as Sara pulled each new treasure from the box. This is a girl who does *not* like to try new things!

(I suppose I should say, she does not like to try new non-dessert things.)

Two wrongs make a right

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Today I interrupted two people stealing the refrigerator and stove that someone illegally dumped in the alley next to our condo.

They looked guilty, I wanted to help them get it up on their truck.