Day 55: Saveur Party at The Chopping Block

The current issue of Saveur magazine is a single-topic issue devoted entirely to CHICAGO! Woo hoo! So the editors jumped on a plane and threw a party for themselves last night at the Chopping Block in the Merchandise Mart, which is this ginormous building across the river from Wacker Drive where a lot of furniture designers have their showrooms. The editor of Saveur is a man named James Oseland, who, small world, was my editor when I did an arts-writing fellowship at American Theatre magazine; he was its managing editor at the time, some nine years ago. Well, amazingly, he still remembered me when I called to congratulate him on pulling off what could have been a big mock-fest for the local foodies, i.e. us mocking them for not knowing beans about this thing they've devoted an entire issue to. Granted, many of the stories were no brainers -- profile of Rich Melman, a story about Italian beef, a story about Alinea, a story about the Polish community -- but nevertheless nicely written and, in some cases, cleverly spun. I say, kudos! The party was pretty fun. Here's what they served:

From top to bottom:
(1) Chocolate-caramel lollipops from Tru, represented by the chef de cuisine, Tim Graham, who is a nice-looking young man. I'm sure those gold flecks -- or are they brown? -- on the top are made of something interesting. I was too busy eating. YUMMY.


(2) White gazpacho with olive oil encircling a grape that was carbonated on the inside, also from Tru. I was standing next to Martha Bayne, one of the Chicago Reader's dining critics, when we both ate the grape; she thought it plausible that it was fermented. I asked Tim; he said, "No, they're carbonated," then reached under the table to produce a stainless-steel flask that looked like a Thermos. "You put the grapes inside, insert the CO2 charger, and in about an hour they've sucked up the carbonation!" Fermented. As if! The gazpacho is made with almonds. Kooky and YUMMY.


(3) Tasmanian salmon with, like, cilantro, avocado, and a bunch of other stuff, from Nacional 27. (Sorry; again, was eating and not paying attention.) The chef's name is Randy Zweiban, I think. He's nice, too. YUMMY. I'll try to remember what the crispy substrate was, because it was super delicious.


(4) The tiniest wedge of key-lime pie from Joe's Stone Crab. It was killer, i.e. YUMMY. I shovelled it into my mouth with my hands, crumbs flying everywhere, as I stood next to Bruce Sherman, the chef of North Pond, who was kibitzing with Steve Dolinsky, a local TV food guy. Aren't I pretty and demure?


(5) A solitary chunk of Alaskan king crab with a cup of drawn butter, also from Joe's Stone Crab. OK, it was YUMMY, so yummy, in fact, that it made me want to push aside the server person and take a whole leg's worth of crab meat and gnaw on it through my hair, like in that scene from "Trading Places" when the drunk and desperate Dan Aykroyd, dressed as Santa Claus, crashes his ex-firm's Christmas party and smuggles a side of salmon into his costume and then eats it on the bus through his disgusting gray tie-on beard. The crab was sweet, firm, not chalky at all, perfectedly cooked, and cold. To die for! Those Joe's people sure as hell know what they're doing when it comes to crab!


(6) Fried chicken from place called Izola's; the son of the owner, a very old South Side black lady, was serving it up. I'll come back and fill in with the whole story, but I have to say that the chicken was YUCKY, owing to the fact that it was sitting in a chafing dish, probably hours since it was deep fried. Had nice flavor and all, but the crust was soggy. It made me sad.


(7) Condiments at the Hot Doug's table. Doug himself was there. I said to him: "How come you're never open?" He said, "We're open plenty!" I said, "Yeah, but every time I go by, you're closed! Don't you want to make money?" He said, "We're open 35 hours a week. How many hours do you work?" Touche, Hot Dog Man. He was serving regular Vienna Beef mini wieners with the repulsive green relish you see here. Sorry, Doug, but it looked YUCKY.


(8) Deep dish pizza from Burt's Place, one of the originators of the form, out in Morton Grove. It was YUMMY; similar to Lou Malnati's but a little bit better. In the photo you can sort of see some pieces with sausage -- it's made with Italian sausage that's flat, instead of in nuggets. I love that!