Our Chicago Dining Choices

Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, Chicago

I took the dining recommendations of my friends, did some internet searches on those choices and even blocked them out on a map, so I could see where they were located in relation to where I was staying. That was a good plan. It helped narrow the field a bit.
My big sister and my newly-turned-21-yr.-old niece met me (they live in Indiana) and I knew that while we might want to walk a little, this trip really was about relaxation.
 

We began with Saturday lunch at The Taste of Chicago, held at Grant Park (at Jackson and Columbus). Some big changes were made for Taste 2012. They cut the festival run time in half, from it's usual ten days to five (lots of debate on both sides about that choice), moved it from the raucous time block of July 4 to the more laid back mid-July (I vote yea on that.) and trimmed the vendor attendance by 20 (I didn't think that was a good idea.). I thought the food was reasonable in price. $8 got you a strip of 12 tickets. At many stands, you could purchase a full portion or a tasting portion. My $16 got me 1 order of potstickers and 1 Pad Thai from Arun's pop-up stand, 1 less-than-ripe-and-delicious bruschetta, 1/2 a Billy Goat Cheeseburger (shared with my niece, no Pepsi! Coke!- I had to!) and a bottle of water. I wasn't impressed with the vendors. I expected less street festival and more real taste of Chi-Town. There was a lot of pizza. A lot. Not regretful that I went, but won't clamber to get back.
 



Fresh fish on display at Santorini, Chicago

For Saturday dinner, my nephew and some friends joined us and we took the party to Greektown. It was a hopping neighborhood and we took a table at the noisy (OPA!) Santorini, where we had a family-style meal. The meat was just a bit overcooked to my rare tastes, but I loved the Spanikotiropita (spinach and feta in phyllo) and Saganaki (flaming cheese), which is tastier than any fried mozzarella could want to be. Best of all was our waiter, George. An older, fun-loving Greek guy. He was the perfect combination of professional and don't-give-me-crap-I'm-not-your-dad.

Sunday breakfast turned into Sunday brunch, not just because of the timing (it's okay to sleep in/gab a lot when you're on holiday with your sister!) but from the sheer amount of food we consumed at The Bongo Room. (We chose the Wicker Park location, there are three.) Nary a bad review in site, this was an ideal spot to enjoy some extraordinary food at affordable prices, albeit in a popular, noisy, slightly crowded place. The wait is long, just like the reviews say and there's little shade to be had while you're waiting, but the wait is worth it. I am a protein eater, so I knew that eggs would be involved somewhere. I chose the BLT Benedict. Two delicious sourdough English muffins were lightly toasted and topped with baby spinach, applewood smoked bacon bits (so much easier to eat than strips, thank you), perfectly poached eggs and tomato-basil pesto hollandaise sauce. That sauce is the real deal. You can watch the cooking line and I found myself fondly reminiscing as I watched a brother-in-arms ladle the sauce from it's warm place above the stove. Pathogens, be damned! A heaping of hash browns mashed themselves up against the entree, but they didn't receive much attention because I had to save room for my dessert...The pancake.

The pancakes come in orders of three. They are 10 inches, each and some incorporate ingredients or combinations of ingredients not normally found in griddle cakes. The trick is to know that orders of these fluffy flap jacks can be brought in a lesser (but not smaller) portion. I had read this AND our friendly server also mentioned it. When I asked the server to help me choose between the Red Velvet Pancake and the Caramel White Chocolate Pretzel Pancake, she gave me an important and very accurate answer. "So many people order Red Velvet because they just loooove Red Velvet, but I think the Pretzel Pancake is just so much more flavorful," she said.

And she was right. I like Red Velvet, but I am always disappointed in the lack of chocolate flavor and my CWCPP was a carnival ride of flavor. I do not like white chocolate, but including it on this pancake was genius. While I am a pretzel lover, I find myself having texture issues when they are included in some dishes (keep those pretzel M&Ms-they're like malted milk balls!) and almost had a problem here, but then I'd crunch into a salty bit and forget my sorrows. The Bongo Room is not to be missed.

My sister and my niece enjoyed a croissant sandwich and a breakfast burrito, respectively.

Subject Matter Expert!! Who? Me?

Yes, me. I was chosen by The National Restaurant Assoc. as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) to review some of the 1175 ServSafe questions posed by the Item Writers.
The first task at hand was to review some online. Lots of back-and-forth ensued between writers and SMEs and after a quickly-moving period of about 4 weeks, all online reviewing ceased. Whatever was left would be reviewed in Chicago.
I took an extra day or two to visit with mid-western friends and enjoy some quiet in ChiTown. SMEs were put up at the J.W.Marriott in the Sloop (South Loop), the financial district, which is nice and quiet on the weekend. The NRA (not to be confused with gun-totin' activists) is only a few streets away.


The National Restaurant Association Offices

My experience as an SME was wonderful. As one of 15 SMEs, I had the opportunity to converse with brilliant people who also spoke the language of pathogens, rubrics and domains and I met some of the most influential individuals in food safety, both past and present.
The NRA certainly made our job easy to accomplish. They provided breakfast and lunch and breaks when we needed them and more experts to debate with. They made sure our needs were met as long as we kept pushing those questions around.
And the job we did is not to be taken lightly. This test affects millions of people, those that take it and those that benefit from food safety education and certification.
It will be interesting to see where this food safety education road leads.

There's a whole lot of Food Safety Goin' On!

And there should be...In every kitchen. Especially kitchens that serve the public, whether that be for hobby/fundraising (as do churches and civic organizations) or for profit (as do restaurants, stores and caterers).
As a foodservice vocational student, I learned to fear trichinosis (a disease caused by eating a parasite from undercooked meat, mainly pork). That fear evolved into the fear of sitting on a toilet because Mr. Rich Vergili assigned the video-watching homework (CIA-Hyde Park has an entire library of films on all sorts of culinary topics) to include the movie of how long a rat can swim through a clear tube (so you can watch) filled with water.
Salmonella became the pathogen of the 80s with the increased consumption of chicken breasts. And then of course, comes E. Coli, which although has been around forever, just becomes the bacteria of the decade because of production methods and the publicizing of outbreaks.
And then I became a ServSafe Instructor/Proctor. ServSafe is a food safety training and certificate program administered by the National Restaurant Association. In most states, each foodservice establishment of certain risk levels have to have members of their staff trained and certified in food safety and sanitation and ServSafe is the national standard. I teach ServSafe at Warren County Community College and also privately. It takes a lot of work to not worry about eating after one know so much about pathogens and cross-contamination.
In March, the National Restaurant Assoc. did a resume search amongst their instructor/proctors for people to write new test questions for the exam. My resume was chosen. Flattering, as I was one of about 130. Item Writing, as the task is called, is difficult. The question and answers have to be correct, first of all (not as easy as you would think) and written in a certain format set forth for us. The answers need to be cited from the references set forth and the domain and knowledge set (what part of food safety does this cover?) need to be named. So, you can't pull a question out of a hat and have it fly.
Each Item Writer was requested to write at least 10 questions. After a while, we'll get any questions back, after they are reviewed, for editing. The reviewers will also be invited to Chicago to review the remaining questions with other Subject Matter Experts before the questions were approved for the exam.
Chicago sounds like an exciting option. I wonder if I'll be chosen as a reviewer...