Eating with Rob

[omnomwithrob]

Threenage wasteland.

On December 20, 2020, our Rosie turned three!

You may recall from my last post that we were in Kansas City for the holidays, and I loved that we could spend Rosie’s birthday with so much of my family. Even if she hated hearing everyone sing “happy birthday.” 

Thankfully she stuck around to make a wish. 

I wasn’t feeling up for making another birthday cake after the project we took on for her Chicago celebration, so I asked my mom to order one from our favorite luncheonette and bakery in Kansas City, Andre’s Confiserie Suisse. Rose loves “bobbies” (berries), so we thought the raspberry chocolate would be perfect. I think we all expected to love it, but it actually wasn’t very flavorful! 

The dark horse was the birthday cake Aunt Janie brought, which was a good old-fashioned homemade chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, and a big sparkly “3!” Maybe she felt we would need a backup, given the history of dry chocolate cakes for poor Rosie’s birthday. Anyway, her homemade cake was so much better than the Andre’s cake! I felt ashamed when the Andre’s cake was completely eaten with only a bit taken out of Janie’s - we should have trusted that her heartfelt efforts would prevail with big chocolate flavor. The only bright side to our initial preference for the Andre’s cake was that we had Aunt Janie’s to snack on for the rest of the week. 

While I ate my humble pie (and more of Janie’s cake), Rose festooned herself with stickers featuring her new age! 

Evening comes early on those shorty short days of the year, and after opening presents, it was time for dinner. 

Pizza is the quintessential birthday party food for me, so I asked my parents where we could get a good pie nearby their place on the Plaza. They recommended Pizza 51, which is just across Volker on the UMKC campus. 

We ordered two gigantic pizzas for our crowd - the first was the “Highway Special.” It’s essentially a supreme pizza, topped with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green bell peppers, onions, and black olives. We are eaters of supreme pizza in my family, and I thought this one edged out the other one we ordered, the “Cowtown Lovers.” More of less a meat-lovers, this combo of pepperoni, sausage, beef, and Canadian bacon did have lovely texture, especially with the crispy sausage on time. 

The birthday girl couldn’t wait to get her hands on some!

What a lovely, chaotic birthday celebration we had for Rosebud’s third! As much as I loved that Rose had a birthday cake from a place so special to us as Andre’s, I think they are better at other things (like rumballs and mocha roulades). What was really special was our homemade cake from Aunt Janie, sugar-fueled toddlers running around with big slices of pizza, and the grownups who made it all possible. Thank you to Mom and Dad for hosting and to everyone who always makes our girl feel so loved on her big day!

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

It’s the hug plane, and it’s coming in for landing.

On Saturday December 19th of 2020, my little family and I loaded up and made the long drive to Kansas City for the holidays. We’ve been making better time as Rosebud has gotten older, and we managed to make it to KC right around dinner time. As we approached downtown, we couldn’t help but realize it was the perfect opportunity to veer off to the West Bottoms and try The Tree Hugger Truck! 

Rob’s best friend from high school/best man at our wedding, Phil, and his beautiful wife Mandy, started the Tree Hugger Truck after falling in love with running a Tropical Sno truck in Los Angeles. You can read the whole story here, but they ended up back in KC selling their homemade vegan food that we couldn’t wait to try. I ordered the frisco melt, which was AWESOME. It was physically difficult to eat in the car because it was so messy, but it was the messy things that made it so delicious - those saucy, oniony, pickly puddles were pure deliciousness. And you’d never know she was vegan. Work that angle, girl. 

Rob ordered the barbecue sandwich, which used jackfruit rather than pulled pork, which was marinated in the taste of my childhood, KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce. It was topped with coleslaw, jalapeños, and fried onions and was as lovely as a summer day in Kansas City (which was nice to think about in December). 

Since that chilly evening when we first tried the Tree Hugger, Phil and Mandy have opened a BRICK AND MORTAR! I don’t think I know anyone else personally who owns a restaurant, and I am so proud of them. KC friends, go see them at what is now called Tree Hugger: Plant-Based Kitchen in Riverside - not just for a wonderful vegan meal (also full of gluten-free, nut-free, and soy-free options), but to feel the love from a couple of amazing, goofy people we are proud to call our friends. 

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.

As a birthday gift for Rob in 2020, I booked us a little staycation at Longman and Eagle, which is both a restaurant and a cutie boutique hotel in Logan Square. Though we’d eaten there several times (a few written about here), we hadn’t stayed at the hotel, and I thought it would be a perfect neighborhood getaway during COVID. But then, we got COVID over Rob’s birthday and had to move our booking to mid-December. 

When our long-awaited trip across the neighborhood finally arrived, we stayed in beautiful Room #76. It was small for the three of us, but so nice! Rose tested out the bed for jumping while Rob and I ogled the well-stocked minibar.

We didn’t really need the minibar though - we brought our own! Even though I was pregnant and couldn’t partake, we picked up some cocktails for Rob from our beloved Lost Lake. Though they have since permanently closed, we will always have such a fondness for the memories we made there, especially during their Jingle Bell Square pop-ups during the holidays. That World’s Best Coffee you see on the righthand side was one of my favorite drinks of all time. 

Alongside the tried and true Lost Lake beverages, we had anticipated that we would order food from the Longman and Eagle restaurant downstairs - but they were still closed because of COVID. So we tried something new - sandwiches from Big Kids, just a few blocks from Longman. Big Kids had only just come on the scene not long before, having originally been a CBD drinks bar called Young American that switched to outrageous and gluttonous sandwich-making during COVID. 

Because a lot of the sandwiches on their small menu involved lunchmeat (an unfortunate no-no for preggers), I felt like I needed to err on the side of vegetarian and ordered the collard green melt. It was one of the sauciest, messiest sandwiches I had ever attempted to eat, but it was so good! The combination of collards, swiss cheese, and thousand island dressing was so addictive, I couldn’t stop eating it even past the point of being too full. My only complaint was the large, burned slab of seitan in the middle that I ended up removing because it was honestly too hard to bite through and certainly didn’t bring the texture you’re looking for in something called a “melt.” Otherwise, delicious!

Rob ordered the fried bologna sandwich, which I actually ordered for myself several months later after the baby was born, and oh my gosh. It is one of the best sandwiches money can buy. The bread is perfectly toasted, has a thick layer of crispy, fried bologna (the meat is from Paulina Meat Market!) and comes with mustard, Duke’s mayo, “shreddy letty,” and American cheese. It doesn’t look or sound like much, but trust me on this one, it is incredible - the variety of crispy textures between the bread, bologna, and lettuce, the creamy mayo, and the punchy mustard made it become my go-to order at Big Kids until recently actually, when it came off of their menu for some ungodly reason. 

Speaking of things that have come off the menu, behold: the “sketti eggroll.” This little heart attack is exactly what it sounds like, an egg roll stuffed with spaghetti and served with a side of ranch dressing. It tasted like a bowling alley, and I loved every bite. It’s such a shame that none of these items are on the menu any longer, but I want to have faith that the creative minds that invented them are probably serving other great menu items as well. 

Even after an incredibly indulgent dinner, we couldn’t help but think about breakfast. We had a very sleepless night (because toddler) and were ready for our morning coffee - to her credit, the toddler thing actually came in handy when the only utensil we had available to stir it was one of her spoons. 

Rob decided he wanted Lula, one of the most iconic restaurants in the area - they were doing farm-to-table before farm-to-table was cool. We had been there once before not long after we moved to Chicago, and Rob was excited for the opportunity to try their classic breakfast burrito, full of soft scrambled eggs, avocado, tomatoes, potatoes, cheddar cheese, and green chile sofrito. He loved it!

I was really craving a bagel with all of the usual salmon lox-related trimmings - you know, tomatoes, capers, red onions, cucumbers, etc...

But because preggers aren’t actually supposed to eat smoked salmon (it isn’t technically cooked, as far as doctors are concerned, ugh), I had to leave it off!!! This was hard to do, but at least I knew that ol’ Rosebud would be getting plenty of omega-3s that morning. And the rest of the bagel (though it was a tough bagel to chew through), did a reasonably good job fooling my tastebuds into thinking salmon must be in there among these usual suspects somewhere. 

All we really really did in this hotel room from check-in to check-out was eat. Thanks to Rose, we didn’t even sleep! But even that was a welcome change of pace from staring at the walls of our condo for the previous 9 months. Though I would have gotten the larger room if we could do it again, we still loved good ol’ Room #76 and the whole staycation experience. I’d recommend this hotel to anyone looking for a cute neighborhood hotel in Chicago.

We left the hotel with very full tummies, and perhaps the biggest gift that kept on giving was our new awareness of the delicious sandwiches at Big Kids. As I alluded to earlier, it has become a restaurant we order from with some regularity, and we love that they have recently opened a new location near us at the Time Out Market here in Chicago. Though some of the first flavor bombs that piqued our interest two years ago are no longer available, we can’t wait to get in there and try some new things. I would highly recommend their absolutely obscene sandwiches, their Instagram for a silly follow, and Rob for a reason to eat a lot of birthday celebration food. 

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Now we are joined in a cobweb of rainbows.

When December 2020 rolled around, I was so excited to start planning for Rosie’s third birthday. We were going to celebrate it a few times (which you’ve probably come to expect by now for most members of my family), once with Rob’s mom here in Chicago and again over the holidays with my family. For our Chicago celebration, I decided to put in a big effort and make Molly Yeh’s rainbow birthday cake.

This cake recipe was a no-brainer for Rosie. By that point in her life, she was far more interested in watching Elmo than cooking shows with her old lady, BUT she would always concede to watching the “Bernie’s First Birthday” episode of Girl Meets Farm, the one that features this cake. 

We started a few days in advance, because that’s the only way I get things done anymore. Rosebud helped me make the batter and bake the cakes, which took a long time because a) toddler, and b) the set of cake pans I have only has one pan in each size, so each layer had to wait its turn while the 8′’ pan was being used. Then after she’d gone to bed, Rob and I got to work on the decorating. 

Because I also do not have letter-shaped cookie cutters, this took a lot longer than I anticipated. Like, three hours. But thankfully I had my trusty graphic designer to come in with the assist and patiently cut little letters out of the marshmallow fondant I’d made in Rosie’s favorite colors at the time (”beet red, moss green, and dijon yellow”). He even employed Rosie’s tiny rolling pin that she uses for play doh. 

Labor that it was, there are worse ways to spend an evening than toiling over fondant with your sweetheart. 

But the big payoff came the next day, when we revealed the cake to Rosie.

This cake was so delicious! Moist, creamy, and extra decadent with the three layers, my only regret was that because it was such a big cake, we didn’t stand a chance of eating it all before we left town a few days later. The friends who received our leftover cake did not share my regret. Rosie loved it too!

Especially after the big reveal of the colorful layers! 

Served aside a Pequod’s pizza and one of those irrationally good Caesar salad kits from Target, this cake was worth every minute of effort. Maybe next time I’ll actually equip myself with the proper tools, so it will take fewer minutes of effort. But this wasn’t the first time I’d gone to great lengths for a special birthday cake (eeeee, errrmm, hiiiii), and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Thank you to my dear Rob for staying up late with me to make sure this one was three year-old approved.

Caroline

P.S. Make this for Pride!!!!!

[omnomwithrob]

K-Town Quarantine

While we slowly recovered during our COVID quarantine in early December 2020, we did a lot of cooking out of a gift I’d gotten Rob for his birthday, Koreatown: A Cookbook. We fell in love with Korean food when Rob tended bar at Sujeo back in Madison (RIP!), and we knew that If kimchi and fish sauce couldn’t wake up our recovering tastebuds, nothing could. 

We started by making japchae, which means “mixed vegetables” and didn’t actually involve the glassy, sweet potato starch noodles we associate with it now back it when it was first invented. The Koreatown Cookbook keeps theirs vegetarian but nice and meaty with this lovely little mushroom selection we picked up from our fave Asian market in Chicago, Joong Boo.

The finished product was delicious and nutritious (see the cookbook for the complete recipe, but you can find an ingredients list here). Japchae is a great entry drug to Korean food because the sweet and savory flavors of the sauce (involving sesame, soy, and oyster sauce) are not unrecognizable to the American palate. I must admit that I tend to prefer glutinous noodles to the ones made from sweet potato starch in terms of mouthfeel, but japchae is a lovely and flavorful way to eat your veggies. 

I’ll also note that we made doenjang jjigae (fermented bean paste stew) from the same cookbook a few days later - I forgot to take pictures, but I wanted you to know that I loved it even more than the japchae. Fermented bean paste is an absolute flavor bomb and an outstanding foundation for any dish. The tofu was a highlight, as were the short ribs that we pressure cooked for a little while to get them even more tender. Like many stews, it got better and richer with time, and I’d happily recommend that you go to your nearest Asian market and stock up on Korean pantry ingredients so you can eat some! It’s not only delicious but would be a wonderful way to support your local Asian community during these last few days of Asian American and Pacific Islander Month :)

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

The Mackinaw peaches, Jerry. The Mackinaw peaches!

By the time Rob’s actual birthday rolled around in 2020, COVID had abducted his sense of taste, and mine was only just starting to return. It didn’t seem to make sense to splurge on an expensive dinner that we could only barely taste, and we agreed that homemade pizza that was more about the process than the finished product would be a fitting alternative. 

I used Jim Lahey’s no-knead pizza crust recipe, which I like to use because I am a weird baker and do not like to get my hands dirty. I also made the pizza sauce by J. Kenji López-Alt that I’ve been making since the early days of our marriage. Because we’d been quarantined, I tried to capitalize on what I already had on hand in my pantry, which looked mostly like sausage, onion, and bell peppers. To bake homemade pizza, I usually just crank my oven as high as it will go and bake on a baking sheet, eyeballing for doneness for about 10-15 minutes. 

The only cheese I had in the fridge was colby jack - which mattered, unfortunately, It completely changed the pizza experience from an Italian-American wonderland to a bizarre nacho, pizza hybrid that didn’t really work. My pandemic-crazed, mustachioed, and newly-minted 32 year-old did not care. No doubt because he had no taste (as his wife, it feels like a rare opportunity to say this). 

This post is less about sharing a recipe and more about preserving a memory (and cautioning against colby jack on a supreme pizza). While I’m not convinced that pandemic birthdays are behind us, I do hope this is the last one we ever have where the plague is actually in our house.

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

I’ve eaten nine birthday cakes, and I still feel empty.

If you’ve been wondering why I was especially thankful for our little pre-Thanksgiving meal of 2020, it’s because...I had no sense of taste by the time the actual Thanksgiving rolled around. Yep, COVID caught up with us - I figure we must have picked it up while househunting, since we left home for little else back then. While I know I can’t complain because we had the privilege to take care of ourselves and emerge healthily on the other side, it was still a bummer to get it right before the biggest food holiday of the year. And losing your sense of taste with no idea when it will come back is really depressing. 

My symptoms emerged first, among the three of us, and when I lost my sense of taste a few days before Thanksgiving, I realized the clock was ticking for Rob. I didn’t want his birthday on the 30th to be ruined any more than it already was, so rather than waiting until his actual birthday, I decided to serve his birthday cake on Thanksgiving day. Which was a real twist, since usually it’s Thanksgiving plans that can sometimes overshadow his birthday, not the other way around. 

Back when we lived in Madison, Rob worked at a lovely Spanish restaurant called Estrellon, and it had the most AMAZING basque cake. It was like a super rich pound cake with a thick, golden crust that had no business being as good as it was. I actually explored ordering one from Estrellon (which sadly didn’t survive the pandemic), but I was on my own with this Basque Cake recipe from Spanish Sabores.

I had never made a cake with a method like this - you make two different mixes, a cake mix and a pastry cream. Then you pipe a layer of cake mix into the pan, then a layer of pastry cream, and then another layer of cake mix - all before you bake it!

This was kind of a comedy of errors for me. Piping a stodgy batter on top of a loose puddle pastry cream did not go smoothly, and I had to use my hands to do damage control. I was not optimistic. 

But it was so pretty when it came out! And the slices we had for a little snack on Thanksgiving afternoon were beautiful.  

I must admit, I have no idea what this cake tasted like, but I’m happy to report on the texture. Unfortunately, I think I overcooked it  - it was pretty dry on the edges, but you could still find some moist texture closer to the middle. Baked pastry cream is also kind of an odd, gummy little guy, and overall the cake was dense and heavy and reminded me more of a cookie dough than like the basque cake I could remember from Estrellon. But Rob (who could still taste!) loved it, and I do love a cake that I can put together with ingredients I readily have available in my pantry. I can also vouch for the helpfulness of jam on later servings of this cake for disguising the dryness. 

Rob was now adequately sugared-up to assist me in making Thanksgiving dinner, which I insisted on doing for some reason, even though I was sick and wouldn’t be able to taste it. Something about not making Thanksgiving dinner just seemed really sad to me, and in hindsight, I do think there was something important psychologically about going through those motions during a time when so little could be normal. Anyway, here’s Rob carving the turkey, which is that part that’s in focus like God intended. 

I held each and every bite of this meal in my mouth and willed my nose and tongue to make sense of it. Alas, I have nothing to report about this meal because I could not taste it. Hope it was good. 

It was fun trying a new cake recipe, even though I don’t think it came out very well. Being up against the clock for losing one’s sense of taste made it a particularly unique challenge (and sure enough, Rob’s taste was gone by the time of his actual birthday). I’m sure I’ll try making basque cake again - in fact, there’s a recipe for it I’d like to try in Dessert Person, which Rob gifted me for my birthday this year. Till then, basque cake will be preserved in my memory as the cake we ate on what was probably the strangest birthday Rob’s ever had.

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

I would kiss Thanksgiving, Louise.

It’s Thanksgiving on the blog! Well, Thanksgiving #1 of 2020, and between how much I love Thanksgiving and being at that deep stage of the pandemic, there was no reason not to have multiple Thanksgiving dinners at home that year. So on Sunday, November 8th, I started the day the pumpkin pie way. 

Nothing too special about this pumpkin pie aside from the fact that I made it myself. My family has historically tended to buy frozen pumpkin pies (shhh), but I wanted an excuse to use my little leaf pie-crust cutters, so I broke out the pumpkin pie recipe on the back of the Libby can. I don’t need much from my pumpkin pie except for it to always be the same, so this did the job.

I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen, which was pleasant departure from the couch, where I’d spent much of the first 12 weeks of my pregnancy. I was beginning to turn a corner from my nausea which would only fully subside a few weeks later, but with my curly blonde assistant, it felt good to be back in action. 

For this little Thanksgiving trial, I didn’t do a whole bird but instead made roasted turkey thighs - my favorite part! I dry-brined and roasted them using a scaled-down version of my favorite recipe for Crispy-Skinned Herb Roasted Turkey by Jeff Mauro that you’ve seen me make over the years. 

This year’s experimental recipe was a Sweet Potato Salad with Orange-Maple Dressing that I saw in my Food Network magazine. I don’t often include sweet potatoes on my Thanksgiving table, but I was enticed by the sweet/savory, non-marshmallow quality of this side. 

I really liked this dish - it was a real who’s who of textures, with soft, crunchy, chewy, and fresh elements. And the ambiflavored sweet potatoes were the perfect medium for the marriage of friends from opposite ends of the spectrum, like scallions with orange and maple. I thought this side was a refreshing departure and yet a wonderful addition to some of my usual suspects, like Stove Top stuffing and green bean casserole. Rose, whose first ever solid food was sweet potato, was a fan of it too!

This iteration of Thanksgiving, without making a whole bird and embracing a new side dish, was an argument for mini-Thanksgivings all-year round. I’m especially glad we had this meal ahead of the real Thanksgiving in 2020...you’ll see why in my next post :)

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

What’s this?

Happy Halloween, 2020! In those days, many restaurants around here were doing meal kits rather than meal service, so we were able to put together some of our favorite local bites at home. We were especially excited to try the cute kit from Logan Square’s Bang Bang Pie and Biscuits.

So we placed an order online , and at the end of the week, we and all the other fans of Bang Bang came by to fetch our little kit. The one we chose from the weekly selection included two of their famed biscuits, raw ginger sage sausage patties, pimiento cheese, and pepper jelly. 

These thick, craggy biscuits look like cherubs under the light of the stove!

Once the biscuits were warmed in the oven and the sausage was fried on the stovetop, it was time to assemble. The biscuits were so rich and little more bready than flaky, but in no way to the detriment of the buttery flavor. The ginger sage sausage patties were super, though I wish I would have smashed them a bit more when cooking to get some more surface area and crispy texture. You can’t go wrong with pimiento cheese, and the pepper jelly was amaaaaazing. Sweet and a little spicy, it brought much needed moisture and zip to such a rich dish. Put an egg on it!

Having now had Bang Bang in kit, dining room, and baking mix form, I feel like I can safely say that this was my favorite iteration of flavors. I so appreciated the creativity of places like Bang Bang that found safe and fun ways to feed their fans during such a challenging time for restaurants. I’d definitely recommend them for your pandemic hunger. Though, I’m afraid that the only thing scary about this Halloween breakfast was that they were scary easy...and scary good.

(sorry that was scary cheesy)

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

The circle of life.

We all mourned the end of summer a little in 2020, as we faced down another long, cold season of COVID. One glimmer of hope emerged for our little family in September, when we learned that we were expecting our next baby! Following a miscarriage earlier this summer, we were especially grateful for all those little pink lines. 

Just a few weeks later, our joy was tempered when Rob’s beloved grandfather passed away from complications due to COVID. Missing the funeral was simply not an option for Rob, but we were worried about how traveling to attend a large gathering in another state could put the baby and me at risk. So following the funeral, Rob quarantined away from us for two weeks, just to be extra safe. 

It was tough being apart from Rob and caring for our two year-old all alone for two weeks, during a pandemic, while first-trimester-sick. Unfortunately, he also had to miss my birthday. But ol’ Rosebud was by my side to put together my favorite super chocolately box cake mix to help it feel at least a little bit festive.

This turned out to be one of the few things I made for myself during this whole unfortunate situation. Our friend Taylor brought me tamales and homemade chicken tinga that I could easily reheat for dinner, which were a welcome supplement to my first trimester diet that could otherwise only handle pizza Lunchables. 

Plus, my friend Mirka and our neighbor Rose both dropped off even more birthday treats. and my sister-in-law sent me cupcakes! 

This kind of generosity warmed my heart and made life easier during this strange time of sorrow, sickness, and anticipation. Never doubt the difference that a food gift makes for a loved one who is going through a hard time!

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Democracy is not unlike a cake. It's layered, delicious, chocolate, and I want some.

One of the best parts about Rose getting older is how helpful she becomes in the kitchen! I suspect this will reverse its trajectory during her teenage years. But on this non-special-occasion of an August afternoon, she was by my side making Molly Yeh’s chocolate cake recipe. Because the greatest realization of adulthood is that you don’t need a special occasion for cake. 

If you’ve been reading my posts lately, you know I’m a fan of Molly Yeh. Her recipes are so creative and often quite tasty.  

The creative twist to this recipe is the rosemary-infused buttercream; my little rosemary plant was looking pretty sad, so I followed her recipe but omitted the rosemary. 

I did add a little of my own creativity though; I decided to add some instant coffee to the batter as a way to enhance the chocolate flavor. I think this technically makes it “my” recipe, but just in case, here is a link to the cookbook that contains this recipe, Molly on the Range! I use it all the time (Exhibit A, Exhibit B), so I think it’s worth the purchase. 

This was such a beautiful cake, and as it turns out, probably the most successful homemade cake I’ve ever made. The dark, dark chocolate sponge was SO moist and flavorful with just the perfect texture and bold chocolate flavor. I think some difference-makers include using high quality cocoa powder (one of the few non-Aldi ingredients worth splurging on in my kitchen) and being careful not to overmix the batter. I also like how much salt and vanilla are included in the batter recipe.

If I HAD to pick something to be critical of, I might say that I don’t think the buttercream needed such a high ratio of butter to sugar. It made for a little bit of a heavy, greasy mouthfeel for me and was missing the fluffy buttercream texture. I’ve since moved on to using this Swiss buttercream recipe from Food Network Kitchen and feel good about that decision.

Still, Rob and I both absolutely raved about this cake. It’s now my go-to chocolate cake recipe and has been largely foolproof every time I’ve made it since. Rose still loves to help me make it, and we all still love to eat it! If you are in need of a chocolate cake recipe that will kick your box mix in the face with both feet, this is the one for you!

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Sandwich day.

I know it’s November, but I’ve gotta tell you about one of the best summertime meals money can buy. It comes from a place that looks like JUST a liquor store. But its unassuming sandwich bar is home to my favorite Italian sandwich in Chicago. It is Humboldt Haus.

This jammer right here doesn’t look like much, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that you start by eating with your eyes. It’s the nose that gets you first...the smell of vinegar and sliced tubular meats will draw you in. Oh yes, it will draw you in. 

Then it’s a sensory double whammy of taste and mouthfeel. The combination of salami, pastrami, and capicola is a salty, smoky meatbomb coated in provolone and bedazzled with crisp and fresh onion, tomato, and shredded iceberg lettuce. The tangy vinegar and creamy mayo are added in perfect proportion for optimal moisture, and the bread is not too hard, which I find to be the usual crime among Italian sandwiches around here. Speaking of proportion, I love that there isn’t a huge pile of meat; everything is added in relatively even layers that facilitate each flavor playing together in a balanced way. Ugh. Just look at the side-eye on this incredible sandwich.  

I’ve eaten this bad boy so many times, and it’s amazing every time. With a glass of rosé, it’s summer on a picnic blanket. Because I tend to miss it dearly while pregnant, I can vouch for an aggressive approach to eating as many as possible prior to and immediately after gestation. So get one! Or seven. 

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Truffle shuffle.

Rob and I were looking to try something new on the night of Saturday August 7th, and our interest had been piqued by a new restaurant in Logan Square called Flat and Point. Since the name of the restaurant referenced the ends of a brisket, we were hoping to have brisket. But they did not have brisket on the menu that night, which may have been due to COVID supply issues, but that still lowered my expectations. 

The barbecue-related item they did have were “ribs like wings,” served with a white barbecue sauce. They were small without a huge amount of meat on them and eat like wings - I thought they were overcooked, and I’ll admit, I struggle to understand white barbecue sauce because it wasn’t part of Kansas City’s barbecue culture. (Is it hot ranch dressing?) In this application, the sauce along with the grassy scallions helped to forgive the overcooked meat. Too bad there was no forgiving the elote, which was a piece of terrible quality corn with some kind of tapenade and a cheese topping. This sounds harsh, but honestly, we paid $6 for that one piece of corn, and I still regret it. 

This meal was fully redeemed by some unsuspecting characters - the potato wedges were double fried just like God intended, and I loved the seasoning that was reminiscent of curly fries. The giardiniera aioli they were served with was the best giard application I’ve ever had - it kind of reminded me of egg salad flavors, but a little brinier and mustardy. Better still was the pasta. I know, the pasta? At a non-pasta restaurant with only one past dish on the menu? Believe it. These soft linguine were coated in a velvety combination of truffle and roasted corn, and while its pulled pork topping made no sense to me with the other flavors, it was actually moist and fatty and good.

This meal may have given me whiplash with its high and low points, but the pasta in particular was worth the roller coaster. We went back once to get some brisket when they did have it on the menu, but unfortunately it was really dry and didn’t have great flavor. Can they just change the name from Flat and Point? It really doesn’t make sense when I look at the selection on the menu. Speaking of the menu, it looks completely different now (including two briskety items but also things like lasagna, mussels, and schnitzel), and they have won a Michelin Bib Gourmand accolade, suggesting that perhaps things have improved since I’ve last eaten there. I‘d go back to try their Alpine prix fixe menu, which is wildly reasonably priced, and probably to order whatever pasta they happen to have in hopes that it would be just as good as we had that night in August of last year. It was a flavor combination worth chasing. 

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Lucky 7.

On August 3rd, 2020, Rob and I celebrated seven years of marriage! To me, steak is the ultimate celebration food, so we deliberated among many restaurants well-known for their steaks. The problem was, we were waist-deep in pandemic-times and needed to rely on takeout - suddenly, a big ol’ steak from Gibson’s or RPM seemed like a big investment that would just get ruined in transit. So, we thought closer to home and landed on Saba, an Italian restaurant not far from us in own Logan Square.

The steak I had been jonesing for was a little bit of a let down, unfortunately. It seemed like it was sliced before cooking, so it barely resembled the medium rare that we ordered. The ends also tasted strangely gamey. It was fine overall, but definitely not what I was hoping for. 

In addition to the steak, we also shared some lobster ravioli, a favorite dish of mine to order at Italian restaurants. They were served in spicy tomato sauce, which was a bold choice to serve with such a delicate flavor as lobster. I wanted to believe that the two might possibly complement each other, but the lobster got overpowered and the combination didn’t really work for me. 

I love a Caesar salad these days, and the version Saba had on their menu at the time was a “whole” Caesar, using whole chunks of romaine lettuce and whole anchovies. The flavor was good, but not great. 

I can’t say it redeemed this meal, but the tiramisu was definitely the highlight. It was a classic slice, and the balance was just like I like it - heavy on the espresso-soak and a thick layer of super fluffy marscarpone cream. SO delicious. 

Honestly, this less-than-stellar meal didn’t really bother either of us. After months of living in COVID, it was meaningful for us to just talk with each other over a bottle of wine (the other bottle is water...we are far too lightweight in our old age to drink two bottles of wine haha) after Rosie had gone to sleep. Would I have loved a better steak? Sure. But could I have had a better life with anyone else for the last seven years? I doubt it. It may seem inauspicious to have our lucky seven anniversary during a pandemic, but I couldn’t be luckier. (*barf*)

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Fry-fry chicky-chick.

After a busy workday on July 7th 2020, I was feeling too beat to cook dinner, so we made a takeout run. Harold’s Fried Chicken happened to be having a pop-up nearby; we really enjoyed when we first had it at Taste of Chicago almost exactly three years before.

Just like we remembered, the fried chicken was amazing! We ordered some dark meat, and both the leg and the thigh were SO juicy and tender. For someone who seldom deviates from Honey Butter Fried Chicken, I was pleased to be so pleased.

We had similarly high hopes for the chicken tenders, but unfortunately I thought they were pretty dry and far less appetizing overall. I also didn’t find myself loving the fries, which I tend to like a little more crispy. 

Luckily for us, there was plenty more delicious food to be had. I am a sucker for fried okra, and Harold’s manages to make this deep-fried delicacy actually taste...delicate! That must be some kind of spot-on dredge. 

And lastly, we rounded out the meal with some vegetables...drenched in mayo! I love coleslaw with fried chicken, and this did not disappoint. The coleslaw was finely chopped, quite wet, and nice and sweet, just like I like it. 

The story goes that the founder of Harold’s Fried Chicken, Harold Pierce, started the restaurant because other fried chicken restaurants avoided setting up shop in the Black neighborhoods in Chicago. Over 60 years later, this city has been blessed with multiple Harold’s locations, and it still stands up against more modern takes on fried chicken. If you are looking for amazing, traditional, southern-style fried chicken and a Black-owned business to support, you will love Harold’s.

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Young, scrappy, and hungry.

We planned to celebrate the 4th of July 2020 with a grillout at my mother-in-law’s house in the Chicago suburbs. I took up the task of bringing dessert, and in an ironic twist, I landed on a Canadian dessert called nanaimo bars.

I had never had nor heard of a nanaimo bar before, but I saw a recipe for them in my Food Network magazine, and they seemed like a tasty, chocolately, layered treat. Plus, they gave me a reason to buy boxed pudding mix, which I hoped would add that nostalgic artificial vanilla flavor.

The pudding mix was for the “buttercream” that goes in the creamy middle layer, atop a layer of chocolate/graham crackers/coconut/walnuts and beneath a layer of straight chocolate and butter. By now, you see the appeal. 

I made these bars the night before and kept them in the fridge. When the holiday dawned and we ventured to Mt. Prospect, where Rosie christened the inflatable pool in honor of America. 

After our dinner of grilled burgers and hot dogs, we were ready for dessert. I don’t think the recipe actually calls for sprinkles, and I didn’t even have any patriotic ones, but I felt these needed festooning for the occasion. 

The actual recipe I used from my Food Network magazine isn’t available online, so rather than risk copyright infringement, I’ll share the nanaimo bar recipe that they do have posted. I did notice in my search that not a lot of other nanaimo bar recipes include the vanilla pudding mix, so take that for what you will - I’m not sure what is most authentic. 

We really enjoyed these bars! Unfortunately, the vanilla pudding mix added to the buttercream layer really wasn’t as good as vanilla extract probably would have been, but still. These were probably the closest thing to a candy bar I’ve ever made, with very craveable flavors and textures. And they were very easy to make - I appreciated that they were no-bake both for ease and for not heating up my kitchen in the summer. Nanaimo bars may not be an American dessert (and are actually used to celebrate Canada Day...oops), but a fat slice of a chocolately layered dessert snuggled up with some vanilla ice cream on a summer night felt like a similarly Midwestern way to celebrate the holiday. 

Caroline

[omnomwithrob]

Who’s your daddy?

Like I mentioned in my previous post, we had sneaky plans for Father’s Day in 2020 - we were going to drive to Kansas City to surprise my dad! We hadn’t seen any family since before the pandemic of course, and we felt that as long as we stayed masked, socially distanced, and outdoors, we should take advantage of the opportunity to see them. We even stayed in Air BnBs while we were in town so we would remain undetected until our Father’s Day barbecue at my brother and sister-in-law’s. Some of these Air BnBs had better equipped kitchens than others. 

It was a no-brainer to do a little take-out, and Rob loves to support his friend Chris over at The Campground in the West Bottoms. This was around the time when only a few restaurants were open and working really hard to creatively serve food, and we were excited to see what they were doing for takeout. 

Since Rob loves this restaurant so much (as evidenced by his birthday dinner there in 2019) that I let him go wild ordering whatever he wanted. So I wasn’t surprised to see this very “Rob” type of dish appear - a combo of mushrooms and kimchi. They were super savory and delicious, but they overall read as more of a condiment than a dish for me. 

Rob nicely considered my taste when making his selections and ordered a very “Caroline” type of dish - the crab rangoons. These had an asparagus filling, which I must admit didn’t feel like it quite worked from a texture perspective. The creamy dipping sauce also didn’t add much contrast to the cream cheese inside, unfortunately. 

The elote had a lovely seasoning, but I couldn’t get a good read on the flavor because Rose had already started chomping on it by the time I tried it. Even if it had been totally brilliant, I’m not sure I’d order it again - I seem to recall it was something like $6 for that tiny bit of corn, which hurts me in my frugal heart of hearts.

What the money WAS worth was the smashburger. Probably the highlight of the meal, this burger looked very perfect and tasted pretty darn good too, with its two four-ounce smashed beef patties, good ol’ American cheese, pickles, red onions, and aioli. I have to say that I prefer a little bit of a saucier burger, but the aioli was delicious - I just wanted more of it!

You can’t have a burger without fries, and these were a great accompaniment to the burger. These were really nicely seasoned and so delicious dipped in mayo. 

Many times, we tend to stick to our nostalgic favorites when in Kansas City, but it’s been fun to develop a new favorite in The Campground. I’m also glad we could support them during the pandemic and that they could keep us fueled up in anticipation of the surprise reason for our trip. I’m delighted that The Campground continues to be open and seemingly developing quite a fan base, despite the tumultuous past year. We hope to keep going back!

Caroline