Five ideas for Father’s Day in Chicago

Pondering what to do with Dad on his day? Here are five first-rate ideas for June 20. Reservations required.

Chef Dudley Nieto lands in Wicker Park

Peripatetic Chef Dudley Nieto, who has cooked everywhere from Adobo Grill to Zapatista, has a new Mexican restaurant home, La Fonda del Gusto in Wicker Park.

Asian flavors blooming at Chicago restaurants’ spring classes

Learn about Asian gardening, tofu and spring rolls in April and May classes.

Eat this! Chicago celebrates cheese fondue on April 11

Celebrate National Cheese Fondue Day on April 11 with a warm pot of gooey goodness.

Get a taste of local farming at FamilyFarmed Expo’s Local Food Festival

The FamilyFarmed Expo began today at UIC Forum, bringing together farmers, financiers, locavores and others who share an interest in improving and supporting Midwestern agriculture. While the complete four-day, $350 event may be too intense for most of us, Saturday’s Local Food Festival offers a taste with cooking demonstrations, seminars, tastings, shopping and more.
Tickets are [...]

Chicago Flower & Garden Show offers theatrical preview of spring

Do you need a breath of spring? The snow’s still piled up and we’ve weeks of mudtime ahead before things start turning green, but you can get a preview of the coming season starting tomorrow during the Chicago Flower & Garden Show on Navy Pier through Sunday, March 14.
The 2010 show’s theme, “Cultivating Great [...]

Drink up, Chicago! October wine events offer global flavors

The October harvest of wine events continues.

Osteria Via Stato Autumn Harvest Wine Tasting, River North, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, $20.
Master sommelier and host of “Check Please!” Alpana Singh leads a tasting of 20 autumn harvest wines that pair well with fall ingredients, such as brussels sprouts, apples, pears, squash and pomegranate, exemplified [...]

Chicago marks Sept. 11 with a wine-filled weekend

 

Drink and be merry for tomorrow….
Some people will be spending this weekend wallowing in memorials. If you’d rather drown your sorrows, Chicagoland offers plenty of options for wallowing in wine instead.

Windy City Wine Festival: The fifth annual festival, 4 to 10 p.m. Friday and 3 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11 and 12, [...]

Eat this! Watermelon: More than dessert

 
What it is: The sweet and juicy fruit of a vine, Citrullus lanatus, watermelon is related to cucumbers and squash. Botanically, it’s considered a “pepo,” or false berry.
Traditionally large, green-skinned and red- or pink-fleshed with plentiful black seeds, there are today seedless and white-, yellow- and orange-fleshed watermelons and all kinds of sizes. In [...]

Round, red, ripe, juicy …

 

 
Each August, during La Tomatina in Brunol, Spain, near Valencia, tens of thousands of people from around the world converge to throw tomatoes at each other, splattering 100 metric tons of the fruit over the streets.
What a waste! Here in Chicago, we can do better things with tomatoes … like eat them! There’s no [...]