Magazine gets start with Chicago cuisine front and center
If you've ever wanted to learn the history of the Italian beef sandwich, explore Polish butcher shops or soul food restaurants on the Southwest Side, or picnic in Lincoln Park, pick up Saveur's October issue.
In its debut dedicated to a single city (take that, San Francisco and Paris!), the magazine dives into the city with fork, knife and napkin at the ready.
Writers take us to the markets of New Maxwell Street, into the kitchen at North Pond (where chef Bruce Sherman transforms just-picked beets into something you actually want to eat) and ruminate on the city's cutting-edge history and present.
They introduce foodies around the globe to local bites we love: Frango mints, lobster Thermidor at the Drake's Cape Cod room and deep-dish pizza at Burt's Place in Morton Grove (that's his pie on the cover).
Did your favorite sausage make its pages? Did they out where you head for a foie gras fix? Pick up a copy and find out.
You can help Chicago celebrate this culinary accomplishment and sample delicious eats at a reception at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 10 at the Chopping Block's Merchandise Mart location. A portion of the $60 ticket price goes to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. (312) 644-6360.
Sweet home Chicago: At the same time Saveur hit newsstands, Chicago was playing host to the All Candy Expo.
The trade-only show (sorry, kids), sponsored by the National Confectioners Association, boasted 500 exhibitors from 75 countries who unveiled some 2,000 new products.
According to the folks at the association, here are some trends in sweets:
• Flavor fusions, such as Trident's Splash Summer Spearmint gum or Lindt's Cherry Chili Dark Chocolate.
• Sugar-free treats loaded with flavor. You won't miss the sugar in Wrigley's bold and extremely long-lasting line of gum, simply called 5. Also, look for the sugar-free lines from Life Savers and Peeps.
• Manufacturers are sticking with what they know, sort of, with reinvented classics including Nestle Crunch Crisp Bar and 3 Musketeers Mint Bar.
Farm fresh: This fall, students from the Chicago Botanic Garden's Green Youth Farm program will sell their fresh, organic produce to garden visitors.
The market will be open from noon to 3:30 p.m. Saturdays through Oct. 13 at a stand outside the Visitor Center. The garden is at 1000 Lake-Cook Road in Glencoe.
The Green Youth Farm program is a summer work-training program that offers teens the opportunity to learn all aspects of sustainable urban agriculture --from planting seeds and starts, to managing a hive of bees, to cooking with the food they grow and selling it at farm stands and markets.
The one-acre farm in North Chicago is in the Greenbelt Forest Preserve off Green Bay Road. This summer, 22 students from Waukegan and North Chicago high schools participated. The Green Youth Farm is run by the Chicago Botanic Garden in collaboration with Lake County Forest Preserve District, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, NeighborSpace and Umoja Student Development Corp.
Support for Spam: It's taken seven decades, but Spam is getting some respect in culinary circles.
On a recent episode of Bravo's "Top Chef," contestants were challenged to spend $10 in a single aisle of the grocery store and create a dish. Brian (an executive chef from San Diego) drew the canned fish/meat aisle. He put down a can of fish and picked up Spam. By winning the challenge he proved host judge Tom Colicchio wrong: Good things can come from a can.
If Brian were to head back to the store today, he'd find Spam in a whole new package. To mark its platinum anniversary, Spam rolled out single-serve packets of its signature product.
Spam fans now can get their fix in 3-ounce packets in either Classic or Lite (half the fat, a third fewer calories, a quarter less sodium).
Perhaps more interesting than the food contained in the packets is the campy verbiage on the outside.
"This dotted line is like a freeway," the package of Spam Single Classic reads along the tear-to-open-here line. "The freeway to a delicious explosion in your mouth."
Or this on the Spam Lite Single packet: "It's time to enjoy. Take another bite and throw your head back and think wonderful thoughts of faraway places while you chew. Like a magical Spam Lite castle in the sky …"
Gotta love a product that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Best new chefs dinner: Chef Paul Virant of Vie in Western Springs has invited fellow Food & Wine Best New Chef Steve Corry of Five Fifty-Five in Portland, Maine, to join him in the kitchen Monday evening, and you have the opportunity to taste the fruits (and salads and entrees) of their labors.
Each chef will prepare four courses at this special dinner. The reception starts at 6:30 p.m.; dinner at 7 p.m. The cost for the dinner and wine is $150. (708) 246-2082.
If you can't make this dinner, mark your calendar for Nov. 5 when chef Gavin Haysen of El Bizcocho in San Diego comes to Vie.
Oktoberfest treat: Carlyn Berghoff and Nancy Ross Ryan will talk about the history of and recipes from Chicago's famed Berghoff restaurant and sign copies of their book, "The Berghoff Family Cookbook," at noon Oct. 6 at Anderson's Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville. (630) 355-2665.
-- Deborah Pankey