last night i tried another new dish - my first time making risotto!
the recipe was similar to this one, wild mushroom risotto, inspired by a dish i had at the water grill in LA. i couldn't quite afford to mirror it exactly, as the water grill used king oyster mushrooms and chantrelles, but i went with dried porcini and fresh baby bellas and shitakes, all from the green city market.
i finally attended the green city market over the weekend. it's held on wednesdays during the market season, but over the holidays, there are two markets held at the lincoln park zoo. next one is a christmas market, on december 20th. my roommate j3s recently became a volunteer / council member, so it was nice to go out and support such a good cause.
the green city market is the ONLY GMO-free, fully organic, locally grown market in the city. i got some great items, including:
- garlic-infused red wine vinegar, perfect for making bean salad, from herbally yours
- white cheddar cheese with dijon, from the sugar river cheese co. - vidalia onion spread + all the organic wild mushrooms from shrooms kitchen
all in all, a great experience! however, it only reinforces the fact i can never hit the market during season - bummer. it's not anywhere close enough to downtown to make it during a lunch break, so it's really benefitting a small group of attendees. i'll just say that i wish it was held on a weekend and leave it at that. maybe they are thinking about this factor, i'll have to ask j3s.
after i finished reading the history of the band, i couldn't wait to pick up some of the cd's (all i have is the DVD and CD for "stop making sense"). i investigated and found the box set was coming out in a few weeks. now it's here and my wish list just got updated in time for the holidays...
thanks to all who contributed to the DIY trunk show - what an awesome turn out!
i'm pleased to know such crafty and motivated people; got some things for the holidays, but overall, i enjoyed seeing so many people come out to support local handmade goodies. with such a great success, it was almost impossible not to think about doing this again sometime.
i missed going out to iowa city to visit the nephew, but it was worth it to support friends and see so many interesting things. thanks to cinnamon and amy for organizing such a great event!
my site is currently being hijacked & i cannot figure out why...
when i go to http://www.smellen.com, it's redirected to some hosting company. i registered the site with dotster, and it's not set to expire until 3/04.
you can still view my site when you visit http://smellen.com - with no "www" in front - but, shouldn't those two addressed work the same?
all the code appears just as i left it, and it was working fine this morning. at some point, this http://www.freeweb-hosting.com/ site started loading.
any ideas? i cannot get in touch with my host - so it may be something he's experiencing on his side. i don't have a hosting company, but a friend with a server....grrrrrr!
lots of birthdays this week: my old roommate sarah orth last sunday; another old roomie, claudia, this thursday. we're hitting up ixcapuzalco after waiting too long to book reservations at frontera. i think we may be better off, though, as ixcapuzalco will be much more accomodating, being a smaller, more casual place than the world-famous frontera grill.
upscale mexican is something chicago is famous for, so i'm happy we're going to try some place new. the chef used to work at frontera and decided to try it on his own. his specialty is different mole sauces, but i'm sure everything is delicious!
speaking of food, my girl sj found a yummy place down in miami for us to try - sublime - world vegetarian cuisine. just what we'll need after lots of drinking on the beach! i'm getting hungry looking at all these lovely menus...
here's a funny shot from our last party - it's the cubs crew watching the game downstairs in my room. i'm the friggin' white-y in the middle with the glasses; i'm at least 3 skin tones lighter than EVERYONE in that room. can we say 'melanoma', kids? skin cancer scares the crap out of me.
that was a fun party; you know, until the cops came over & decided we weren't old enough to host parties. yes, i may look like i'm still 18, but those cops were out of hand. basically, stormed in w/o permission, searched the house to make sure we didn't have 385 16-year olds hiding in the basement, and then left as quickly as the came....so strange. hey, at least there were no major problems stemming from cops storming the casa. it could've been alot worse.
ween this weekend! man, those guys crack me up. should be some interesting shows this weekend. they're filming for a DVD release at all 3 shows in chicago, although they bailed on the in-store performance yesterday....wonder why?
"We originally had a totally different song and different idea for the video that involved a casket," Barber explained. "But we decided we should keep the casket anyway, since the name of the album is The Love Below, which kind of ties in. The album is about a guy searching for love: his love of music, women, his mother, and we wanted to bring the casket in to play up the theme of this guy wondering, 'Is love dead? And can we revive it?' "
November 25, 2003
