Eat this! Tzimmes, a sweet start to the Jewish New Year

Jews serve tzimmes at Rosh Hashana, a holiday rich in symbolic foods, because custom calls for serving sweet dishes at the High Holidays in hopes of a sweet New Year.

Friday food porn: Beeting it at Gemini Bistro

Tuck into chunks of roasted baby beets, drizzled with white truffle vinaigrette and sprinkled with goat cheese, alongside lamb’s lettuce, $8 at Gemini Bistro in Lincoln Park.
The American restaurant celebrates its first anniversary Sept. 7–12 with a $29.09 three-course prix fixe.

Eat this! Chow chow and piccalilli pickle the Southern harvest

Almost any food can be pickled, and in the South most things are. Chef Paul of Big Jones in Andersonville generously shares his recipes for Southern-style mirliton chow chow, onion pickle, pickled okra, dill refrigerator pickles and piccalilli.

Eat this! Popcorn shoots, the new mellow yellow

These buttery maize shoots arise from the “microgreens” trend that popped up in California in the mid-1990s.

The Green Festival comes to Chicago May 22 and 23

Learn to live and eat greener Saturday and Sunday, May 22 and 23, when Chicago hosts the Green Festival at Navy Pier.

Chicago Chef Week brings more dining discounts

Chicago Chef Week is coming, March 22 through 28. Like last month’s Chicago Restaurant Week, this is a period of prix-fixe dining deals, with $20 lunches and $30 dinners, this time from local chef-driven restaurants.

Eat this! Sformato, an airy, eggy, Italian way to use seasonal vegetables

What it is: A sformato is a molded dish from Italy, typically made with beaten eggs, and falling texturally midway between souffle and flan. It can be sweet or savory.
Sformati are frequently made with seasonal vegetables, but they can contain almost anything, even macaroni or chocolate. At Piccolo Sogno in West Town, Chef [...]

Top 10 Chicago restaurant recipes of 2009

The Dining Chicago blog hasn’t been around a whole year yet, and our weekly “Eat this!” recipe column has been going an even shorter time, but that isn’t going to stop us from giving you a list of our most popular recipes from 2009. The list below contains our most-visited recipes from local restaurants.

Petterino’s, Loop: [...]

Eat this! Black-eyed peas, for a lucky New Year!

What it is: A kind of cowpea, the black-eyed pea or bean (Vigna unguiculata unguiculata), is a mild-tasting, kidney-shaped legume with a black ring at its center, typically used as a dried bean. Southern U.S. legend has it that eating blackeyes at New Year’s Day brings good luck and prosperity in the coming year.
Where it [...]

Eat this! Cranberries, more than a Thanksgiving condiment

What it is: A small, hard, tart, oval, red berry, Vaccinium macrocarpon, a relative of the blueberry.
Where it comes from: Native to North America, cranberries were introduced to the Pilgrims by Native Americans and are thought to have been served at the first Thanksgiving in 1621. Early settlers dubbed them “crane berries” after the [...]