Food

We have made a ton of awesome food at home lately: smoked salmon on eggs benedict with spinach, roasted red pepper, and feta (I made a hollandaise sauce! I did it!) and oven potatoes and bloody marys; steaks on the grill; severalv arities of shrimp; grilled chicken and veggies; bbq portabellas; bacon-egg-potato skillets...

But I haven't managed to take pictures of any of that. Instead, here's tonight's tasty Greek salad.

This bowl is actually like a foot in diameter.

City Birds

The city pigeons are resourceful in the cold. This is from February:




This is a people-heater in a CTA station. The pigeons also cluster around the Eternal Flame (not my photo): http://www.fotothing.com/photos/8a4/8a46d88e35d960752a0f51acfc58e15e.jpg. The pigeons leave their, uh, condolences by the memorial.

Spring in Chicago, part two

Today is cold and rainy. It is slightly above freezing. It was that kind of fine-mist rain that makes you umbrella totally useless. The fine mist gets onto your face and into your clothes, and the cold, gray feeling sticks in your bones for the rest of the day.

To add insult to injury, your umbrella is not only useless, but slightly more damaged from being flipped inside out from the ridiculous, gusty wind.

Our weather has literally jumped 50 degrees in a couple days, and then fallen 40. What have we done to anger the weather gods?

KBS? KBS!

Not that I'd be drinking on a Thursday, but........ KBS is Kentucky Breakfast Stout from Founders Brewery. It's legendary, and legendarily difficult to find.

Binny's Beverage Depot in the South Loop has a tasting room, the tasting room had a Founder's night with KBS.  We liked it, but I liked their "Backwoods B*stard" (sorry, mom) more. The later beer has a caramel aftertaste. It is a dessert beer, if there is such a thing. It's great, and not impossible to find like KBS.



It's not me in the picture, but that IS the Sears Tower in the background! (I can't change. Sorry. Willis just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

Spring in Chicago

It was 80 outside. Really. Actually. It was a shocker for me, too.




Have a haiku.
Hyde Park is the neighborhood where University of Chicago is located. It has a lot of intellectuals and nerdy undergrads.

Ratas need exercise, too

This is Epi.

Another trip to Flat Iron

I always confuse this place with Iron Post, a bar that I never went to in Champaign. So it's mind bizarre that I can never get the name right.

Peter took his engineering licensing exam yesterday, so we went to Revolution brewery to celebrate/commiserate. Revolution is a surprisingly cool place, and they have good house-brewed beers and mixed drinks, too.

Then we went to Flat Iron. And drank PBR. In cans. And woke up with a headache. As is always the case at Flat Iron. And by "always," I mean "the only other time we drank there, when we were drinking with a rockstar."

that is actually what is on the walls.

Oscar's backyard

The hair is Oscar's. It was 55 degrees outside. We walked about 3 miles from the bus stop downtown, through the Loop, to get ice cream and finally to Oscar's. Then we chilled on the porch, drank beers, and ate five cheese garlic dip. Awesome.