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Paczki Day is nearly here! This year the celebration takes place on Feb. 21. Why line up at a bakery for these Polish-style pastries when you can make your own?
At 2 p.m. Feb. 19, Pastry Chef Dobra Bielinski of Delightful Pastries leads a class on making the filled doughnuts as well as “angel wings.” Participants will stuff and glaze their own paczki, as Bielinski unveils two new flavors.
Each student will take home 10 paczki and a small box of angel’s wings.
The class takes place at the bakery in Jefferson Park. The cost is $50. Reserve your place by e-mail at student.info@delightfulpastries.com.
 Benny's carrot cake. According to the arbiters of such holidays, today is National Carrot Cake Day. The example shown, redolent with nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, moistened with crushed pineapple and coated with cream-cheese frosting and roasted walnuts, comes from Benny’s Chop House in River North ($8.99).
 LM's milk chocolate soup. What it is: A type of sugar, also called dextrose and grape sugar, glucose is a source of carbohydrates that helps to provide energy to the human body.
Glucose is less sweet than the other common cooking sugars, sucrose and fructose, and less soluble in water. It produces a thinner solution.
 Justin Perdue Where it comes from:Commonly derived from corn or rice, glucose also occurs naturally in many fruits and honey.
What to do with it: Glucose is used in dessert and candy making, where it it prevents crystallization and gives a smoother product than granulated sugar. At LM Restaurant in Lincoln Square, Chef Justin Perdue uses it in his creamy milk chocolate soup, a dessert he enhances with different garnishes, such as banana mousse or vanilla creme and strawberry puree.
LM’s milk chocolate soup
Chef Justin Perdue
5 cups cream
3/4 cup milk
3.5 ounces glucose
14 ounces milk chocolate, chopped
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until all is melted and smooth.
Let cool. Garnish as desired. 6 servings.
More recipes
 Woodstock Willie outside the historic Woodstock Opera House. It’s been two decades since the Bill Murray comedy “Groundhog Day,” filmed in Woodstock, Ill., was released.
Since then, the film has gained a cult following that attracts fans to the picturesque exurb again and again, especially for its annual festivities around Feb. 2.
This year, Woodstock is pulling out all the stops for its 20th anniversary Groundhog Days Celebration:
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Feb. 1: Welcoming the Groundhog, fireworks, movie trivia Game.
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Feb. 2: Groundhog prognostication, official breakfast at Pirro’s Restaurante, movie showing.
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Feb. 3: Shake Off the Winter Blues Dinner-Dance.
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Feb. 4: Movie showing, “Groundhog Tales” storytelling, chili cook-off at Stage Left Cafe, guided walking tour of film sites, movie symposium, and a new event called “Take 17: Lights, Camera, Auction” with dinner, cocktails, music, raffles, live and silent auctions.
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Feb. 5: Movie showing, guided walking tour of film sites.
Many of these events are free, but some require reservations and advance tickets. For details, see the website or call (815) 338-4483.
 Jacquy Pfeiffer Has French haute cuisine become endangered?
It certainly seems so in Chicago, where French fine-dining restaurants can be counted on one hand — with fingers left over.
In 2010, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization declared “The Gastronomic Meal of the French” an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
At 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, the Culinary Historians of Chicago will host Chef Jacquy Pfeiffer of The French Pastry School for a discussion of “The Endangered Art of French Hospitality,” covering how French dining has evolved over the centuries and why it’s come to be labeled “a Cultural Practice in Urgent Need of Safeguarding.”
The event takes place at Kendall College, 900 N. North Branch St. Admission is $5, $3 for students. Reservations are required: e-mail Culinary.Historians@gmail.com.
 Acadia's foie gras. Foie gras torchon coated with malt and garnished with curry-apple butter, lemon and mache, $14 at Acadia in the South Loop.
Sunday, Feb. 5, marks Super Bowl XLVI: the New York Giants vs. the New England Patriots. Here’s a few places where Chicagoland food and football fans can indulge in both.
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Cantina 46 on the Gold Coast goes beyond screening the pigskin plays to roasting a whole pig in a Cuban Caja box. $30 gets you a share, plus chips, salsas, guacamole, jicama and avocado salad, frijoles charros and unlimited select beer, sangria and margaritas, beginning at 5 p.m..
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O’Donovan’s Pub and Restaurant in North Center’s Super Bowl party offers a variety of drink specials; bratwurst; $5 sloppy joes and chips; and the pint of bacon (with choice of dipping sauces), $1.99, served all day. Dinner specials, $9.95, served 4 to 11 p.m., include a 14-ounce cut of prime rib with homemade horseradish sauce and choice of potatoes, baby back ribs with slaw and potatoes, and flatbread of the day. Twenty 54-inch plasma TVs assure unobstructed football viewing.
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Kit Kat Lounge and Supper Club in Northalsted hosts a “Madonna-rama” party in honor of the singer’s highly anticipated, half-time performance. Diva Madam X will star during brunch (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.), along with free-flowing mimosas, sangria and bloody marys, $10 with the purchase of a brunch entree. Once the Super Bowl begins, performer Kinley Preston will continue the “Madonna-rama” celebration while the gridiron action plays on seven state-of-the-art screens. Half-price martinis ($6 each), include the “M.D.N.A Martini” (Effen Cucumber, Hpnotiq, Harmonie, St. Germain with a splash of Sprite). Diners can win Madonna DVDs, CDs and posters all day.
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Timothy O’Toole’s Pub in Gurnee screens the game on
30 televisions . Fans can indulge in $16 Miller/Coors buckets of five bottles, a $15 bottomless bloody mary bar, a $20 bottomless mimosa bar and menus that include $8.99 football specials: New England Patriots specials of fried clam strips with fries and coleslaw or a Boston burger topped with Sam Adams beer cheese, bacon and onion rings with fries and Boston baked beans and New York Giants specials of a NY deli sandwich (warm pastrami with coleslaw, Swiss cheese and mustard or NY patty melt (two burger patties loaded high with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Thousand Island dressing on grilled rye bread served with garlic fries). Reservations for “front row” seats are available.
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Jack’s Bar & Grill in Lakeview and Derby in Lincoln Park will feature hearty $40 packages including a platter of wings, mini burgers, fried pickles, turkey subs, tater tots, French fries, Budweiser and Bud Light drafts and well drinks. Groups of four or more may reserve a table.
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Brunch in River North offers a chance to stoke up pre-game from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. with $10.99 all-you-can-eat buttermilk and red-velvet pancakes. Wear NFL gear to receive a 10 percent off your bill. The biggest super fan of the morning will win a $50 gift certificate.
 Whole Foods’ “Especially Good” sweet potatoes. What it is: A long, tapered, typically orange-fleshed tuber, the naturally sweet sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is actually a closer relative of the morning glory than the regular potato (Solanum tuberosum). Sweet potatoes come in a variety of colors — orange, yellow, beige, white, pink and even purple. Those with orange flesh tend to be sweeter and moister than other types, and are sometimes called “yams,” although they aren’t related to the long, starchy true yams (Dioscorea). High in fiber and rich in potassium, vitamin C and vitamin A (beta-carotene), sweet potatoes are versatile and easy to cook. February is National Sweet Potato Month.
Where it comes from: Sweet potatoes date back into prehistory, and likely originated in South or Central Americas. Sweet potato fossils some 10,000 years old have been discovered in Peruvian caves.
What to do with it: Cook sweet potatoes any way you’d cook regular potatoes — boiled, fried, microwaved or roasted. They’re especially good baked, but some studies suggest that boiling or steaming preserve their nutrients best. They can be served whole in their skins, sliced, chunked or mashed. Add a little fat if you want to take full advantage of the tubers’ fat-soluble beta-carotene. They don’t need extra sweetening, but some cooks like to gild the lily. Whole Foods Market shares this tropical recipe.
Whole Foods’ ‘Especially Good’ sweet potatoes
For extra sweetness, add chopped fresh pineapple or use pineapple juice instead of orange juice.
2-1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut 1/4-inch thick
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup unsweetened flaked or shredded coconut
1-1/2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
3/4 cup unsweetened soymilk
1/2 cup orange juice
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Layer the sweet potatoes, raisins, coconut and nutmeg in a 9-by-13-inch casserole dish and then drizzle all over with the soymilk and juice.
Cover with foil and bake until almost tender, about 30 minutes. Uncover and bake until tender and coconut is golden brown, about 10 minutes more. 8 servings.
 Rio's pisco sour. Saturday, Feb. 4, is Pisco Sour Day, and from 9:30 to 11 p.m., Rio’s D’Sudamerica in Bucktown will be pouring samples of Peru’s frothy national drink, made from its native grape brandy, along with several piscos from different producers. Along with the traditional pisco sour, Rio’s will offer its new passionfruit pisco sour, mixed with fresh lime juice, sugar, egg white and passionfruit pulp (regularly $8).
A strong, clear or pale yellow brandy, Peruvian pisco is produced in copper pot stills. It can be made from a variety of grapes.
The tasting is free, but reservations are required. Call (312) 671-3466 or e-mail DinoL26@aol.com.
“Don’t struggle with trading your pint glass for a can — just think of it as a mini keg and tap up!” says Timothy O’Toole’s Pub in Streeterville and Gurnee.
Canned-beer celebrations continue this week, with National Beer Can Appreciation Day tomorrow. Canned beer first debuted on January 24, 1935, thanks to a process invented in Chicagoland.
Both O’Toole’s locations will be popping the tops on $2 canned brews all day tomorrow, including Miller High Life, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller Lite and Hamm’s, plus Budweiser (River North) and local favorite Pabst Blue Ribbon (Gurnee).
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