Why I Oughta...

Over the years, we grew into some food 'habits' during our repeated trips to Southwest Michigan and Coloma.  These were places we went , food stuffs that we picked up and fell in love with over time.  Now that we're spending more and more time up in Wisconsin, that same pattern is falling into place.  It seems like we're already coalescing around some favorite spots and foodstuffs like the King of Club cheese spread .  On a Saturday this month,  I packed the kids into the minivan and headed up to the Lake Geneva area to pick up some fishing supplies at Walmart.  After we left, I wandered around the the various big box stores and strip malls near the highway and came across the Lake Geneva Pie Company .   It was open early and there was a crew in there baking. Having never picked up a pie from this place, I pleaded my ignorance and asked for help.  She lead me to the Lakeshore pie.   From their site : Lakeshore Berry Crumb.  A customer favorite is our tantalizin

We haven't?  Well...I'm on a major jerky kick.  Nat hates the stuff.  Repulsed by it, actually. But this package of Golden Island Korean Barbecue Pork Jerky from Costco was awfully delicious.  I've been working it into my mix of snacks and don't know how I survived without jerky.  Guessing it was Doritos.

Some friends came over for pizza this weekend and they brought some fruit including these Cotton Candy grapes.  And you know what?  They TOTALLY taste like cotton candy.  I had NEVER heard of these things before I ate a few and I was completely amazed. They're apparently ' taking the world by storm ' and with good reason they're a delight to eat.  They proudly have a 'non-gmo' label on them, but aren't they actually modified food stuffs?  They're grown by cross-cultivating two different grape varieties : They are made by plant breeding, meaning that farmers who cultivate these grapes cross different types of grapes together. David Cain, a horticulturist, and his team at the International Fruit Genetics in Bakersfield, California mixed two types of grapes — a Concord-like grape and seedless Vitis vineferia, which is a grape vine commonly found in the Mediterranean. Sounds modified to me?  And that's just fine thank you.  

Nat picked up a box of Clif Kid Organic Zbars at Costco this week and as I cracked it open to give one to the girls, I found what is best described as a 'fake' Clif Kid bar.  It was a perfectly sealed wrapper of a bar, but just simply filled with air. Check out the video: The girls thought it was awesome.  Me?  Not so much.   I had to dump the whole box out to figure out if we just got this as a 'bonus' or if we were short one bar.  Sure enough...short one bar.  They counted this 'air-filled' wrapper as a bar.   Maybe this is a not-so-subtle message that we're eating too many bars?  Dropping some calories through ingesting air instead of granola? #ThanksObama

Hey....Nat can't complain about me cracking into this delicious bag of Bugles when we're up in Michigan, right?  I mean, it just *flat out* says that being a blogger grants me the right to devour these things. There are certain things that 'remind' me of being in Michigan.  They're usually foodstuffs Bugles lead the pack.

We made a stop at Redamak's in New Buffalo on the way home from the holiday weekend.   There are a few places we like to stop at on the way to Coloma including this place and Steve Dahl's recommendation of Stop 50 in Michiana Shores. I had a VERY tasty double cheeseburger.  I've tried the triple and it is just simply too much for me.  I also ordered my waffle fries 'well done' and they were pretty stinkin' good. Don't take it from me on the quality of Redamak's burgers, just look at A Hamburger Today when they say : "The cheeseburger at Redamak's is among the best on the planet."

I've been on an oatmeal kick in 2015.  Eating it at home.  Even eating it out at restaurants.  The stuff is billed as being great for your health and cholesterol.  So...I'm giving it a shot and I've kind of figured out a way to make it taste good (brown sugar, bananas, vanilla almond milk). So, Nat came home with this box of Quinoa and Oatmeal combined.  It takes a bit longer than normal steel cut oatmeal (20 min for this vs. <10 min for the normal stuff), but it was pretty good.  I don't know if it filled me up any more than normal, but I'm willing to give it even more tries.

Pasted above the paper towels in the bathroom of Aurelio's in LaGrange was this sign advertising a Soppressatta contest - which required contestants to bring two pre-sliced logs to enter. Tickets are $25 in advance and there are trophies and prizes.  I had no idea that there were enough home-made/DIY Soppressatta makers in the western suburbs to warrant a contest. With a simple Google search, it turns out Frank Balestri, the host for the contest calls himself the SodFather.  But...no not *that* SodFather .   Chicagoist has a video of his process .   Turns out, the Soppressatta is called "Sods". Guess I'll have to learn how to make the stuff?  April 17th will be tough, right?

At least that's my goal:  going to try my hand at tempering chocolate , pouring it into this mold (which is about 4 inches tall), letting the mold get coated, pouring the chocolate out, letting the mold set then repeat two or three more times.  Followed by filling the interior of the mold with a peanut butter/powdered sugar combo then sealing off the bottom with even more chocolate. I'd like to make a dozen or so of them.  Ambitious, that's for sure.

Before we got on a plane to come back home this weekend, the entire Moran Clan wandered into In-N-Out Burger for a quick meal.  Of course, I couldn't help myself and geeked out with a series of "Secret Menu" items .  In fact, the only thing that I ordered that is *on* the menu is the Diet Coke. We had 2 Grilled Cheeses, a Double-Double "Animal-Style", our french fries "Well Done", a Diet Coke, and a Root Beer Float.   If you know where the Babe's blog is located, you can head over there to see some photos of her enjoying her first In-N-Out experience!

Although one would think these would be of some aid, but trust me, they failed to live up to their billing. 

I come down squarely on the side of Pat's in the Geno's/Pat's debate.  Isn't even close.

Continuing on the trend of attempting to eat local while we are up in Michigan ( last year, we started to  use local Michigan Pioneer Sugar ), this year, we decided to "Serve the Curve" with Koegel's Michigan All Beef Frankfurters . The company has been making hot dogs and sausages in Flint Michigan since 1916 and their slogan appears to be " Serve the Curve " - because their all beef skinless dogs curve up when cooked.  Although they're not Chicago dogs, I believe these have become a part of my regular rotation up at the Lake from here on out. Here's a video about Koegel's .  Be warned.  There's a tiny view of the Lips and the Assholes.

More bad news for Downtown Elmhurst:  Fontano's - the home of 8 beloved Italian sandwich combinations has closed.  I drove by this morning and saw this big sad 'For Lease' sign in the window. Confirmed, too by the Elmhurst Patch .   Bummer for the sandwich scene in town.  However, I'm hopeful that we'll see something besides a salon move in.  A guy can hope, right?

At what we still call "The Hilltop" even though it is a Harding's Market - and has been for 10 years or so - I ran across these retro Doritos in the chip aisle.  (The store was called "Hilltop Groceries" or something like that prior to being bought by Harding's.  We began going there in 1989, and the change happened sometime in the Aughts, so 20+ year long habits are hard to change!)  You can tell this is Michigan because you can spot the price tags on the Fritos dip below the chips.  More here about price tags in Michigan ) But...back to the retro Doritos.  I didn't buy them, but the bag just about had me convinced that I should!  The new bag is CLEARLY aimed at teenage boys - the same demographic who are buying Monster Energy Drinks - with the edgy, electric graphics.  But the cuddly, retro, 80's logo is aimed squarely at 30-somethings that will be hit with a wave of nostalgia - remembering their childhood of brown-bagging their lunch to grade

*Looking for the recipe?  You can skip the story & find it here:  Tom Thayer's Italian Beef Recipe With the Bears in the NFC Championship game, Chicago is all orange & blue all the time.  Both papers are draping themselves in the Bears flag, the local newscasts seem to be leading with a Bears angle, and there sure are a lot of Bears jerseys at Menards today. But...there's also something else going on:  party planning.  Based - solely on ONE DATA POINT - it seems like everyone MUST be looking for recipes to make for the various parties they are hosting tomorrow.  That one data point is the seemingly random popularity of a recipe I posted almost a year ago:  Tom Thayer's Italian Beef Recipe .  Over there on the sidebar of my blog, Google Analytics displays the top posts - based on traffic - for the past week.  There are a few usual posts that get a bunch of search traffic and a few "current" posts.  But...this particular one has never appeared before. 

I spotted a huge pallet of these in Costco the other day.  You send your kid to school with one of these in his lunch bag, I can guarantee he'll grow up to be a stand-up comedian.

Move Over, Trader Joes.  There's a new Private Label beer on the town.  Did you know that Walgreens has their own private-label beer?  I spotted a big display of Big Flats 1901 Lager in the store in Downtown Elmhurst and was a bit confused.  First...I didn't even know Walgreens sold beer.  But, not just any beer.  Cheap beer. Although they bill it as "Premium Brew" made from the "Choicest Hops", the guys over on BeerAdvocate say that although it isn't the tastiest beer you'll drink, it is passable .  They, do, however recommend that you drink this stuff ice cold to enjoy it.  For me, the cans are pretty cute and the price is right:  a six pack was on sale for $2.99 for a six pack.  The other intriguing part is that this stuff is brewed in New York by "Brewers Choice", but the BeerAdvocate guys say that it is actually brewed by Genesee Brewing and is ONLY sold through Walgreens.  Sounds like a nice beer to have in Coloma at the lake

How to Roast Chestnuts 1.  Score each chestnut's outer shell with an "X". 2.  Place on a baking sheet in a single layer. 3.  Roast at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes. 4.  Place in a towel and rub together.  Then, when cooled, peel off outer shell. 5.  Enjoy! Seems that chestnuts have fallen out of favor as a Christmas delicacy.  We hear plenty about them in songs and books, but in my 32 years, I don't think I've ever seen one served - let alone eaten one - during the holidays.  Trader Joe's is trying to make it easy to bring the chestnut back.  They were selling packages of the nuts and also posted easy to follow instructions adjacent to the nuts (that's where the 5 steps above are from).  Sounds pretty simple.  But...what to do they taste like?

Last night, on a tip from my friend Eric , we went out to Pollo Vagabundo - which according to Google Translate means " Bum Chicken ".   The reviews on Yelp and elsewhere are extraordinarily strong, but I'm withholding judgement.  While the staff were VERY helpful and nice (they gave me samples of EVERY kind of meat they have), they were sold out of Carne Asada by the time we arrived.  This place seems to be a lunch joint - based on both the fact that they were sold out of the top-billed item and when we arrived at 6 pm, the place wass dead. Nat had chicken tacos and said that they were some of the best tacos she's ever had.  We also shared 4-5 salsas from their bar (they have probably a dozen to choose from), and they were all tasty.  Spicy, but tasty.  (thinking now....if they named the place after the chicken, perhaps I should have gone with chicken, too!) The only hangup was the carne asada shortage.  You see, about 10 years ago, I was introduced to La Pasad