Chicago Weekend: Impressions

---Bad economy? Not, apparently, in southwestern Michigan. We visited a favorite winery (Lemon Creek) to discover a sparkling new tasting room and plenty of merchandise for sale. Also we discovered Chocolate Garden, something we shockingly hadn't been aware of. We definitely missed that 'Food Finds' episode. Obscenely priced truffles to match anything you'd see in a big city. Nice showroom and merch, too. Of course we purchased stuff at both places.

---I'm pretty sure I could make truffles equally as good in my own kitchen, and I'm sure I could make a damn good imitation of the bacon caramel toffee at Vosges (laying my hands on Nueske's bacon might be the only snag). The crying shame is that I'm not getting money for selling them.

---Chicago is custom made for tourists. If we can figure out the train routes and easily use them, anybody can. This mass transit concept is a little foreign to a lot of us multi-car households in America, though.

---'Uniform' of choice for women downtown seemed to consist of variations on a black North Face jacket, and Ugg boots. And it seems the scarf trend continues. Must go find one I like...

---Officer J. Anselmo: thanks for being so nice Friday night after we got in that rear-ender chain reaction accident. (Yes, I'm cringing inwardly as I write that. But unlike mom, I don't consider being nice a job requirement in law enforcement) What an idiotic thing to happen. Yet you just gave a big city cop shrug and told us hey, no one was hurt, it was an accident, that's why you have insurance.

---Chicago police and ambulance guys really talk like in the TV shows. The one at the desk at the Jefferson precinct sounded like he could have come straight out of 'Hill Street Blues'.

---Too much food in Chicago, not enough time to go everywhere and try it all. But there may be a round two in December, thanks to a completely unwanted court date downtown...

---So far, so good. All that mass transit and public contact and no sign of having caught any cold or flu viruses as of Monday night.

---I enjoyed steaming up the window at the Cartier store. You just can't believe those rocks are for real. And I love seeing the big beefy security guards standing around inside. Oh, and we got the haughty brush-off by the young salesgirl in the Judith Ripka store. Gimme a break, honey. She thawed a tiny bit when I showed her the Ripka bracelet I was wearing.

---If you could take the beef filling from the Italian beef sandwiches from Al's, and put it in the crusty bread at Portillo's, you would have THE perfect Italian beef sandwich. I've since learned that the more 'authentic' way is to use bread that is high-gluten with a lot of wet strength. But we liked the crustier, baguette style better. Sorry.

---We really did get a lot of enjoyment out of that damned $5.00 bag of Garrett's Caramel Crisp. My lips have never felt so smooth and supple--all that butter makes excellent lip balm. I seriously didn't want to spend that kind of money on caramel corn, which I could probably make at home, but I'm glad we saw that other store on Navy Pier and changed our minds. My own wasn't anywhere near that good. But I can sure try like hell to imitate it. Maybe add some molasses. Or slightly caramelize the white sugar first before making the syrup, and add more salt...

---The world must be shrinking, because everywhere we went, we put food or material goods to the 'can we get that near home?' test. And there were lots of things that did not pass. Having said that, though, we still grabbed things we could conveniently cart home, or that we needed/that were on sale. Cat-puke resistant, washable rugs at the Crate & Barrel outlet, a replacement for a long-ago broken oven-proof handled soup bowl, the big sturdy iron shepherd's hook marked WAY down at the Smith & Hawken store. And plenty of bottles of wine.

---If you walk at least 8 miles each day for 2 days, surely that burns off all the calories you take in those days. Right?