Stock your holiday pantry on a getaway to DeKalb

During the hectic holiday season, with shopping to coordinate, meals to plan, a tree to select and decorations to string, consider combining shopping and relaxation with a nearby getaway.

Close-in DeKalb, less than a 90-minute drive west of Chicago's Loop, is a convenient pre-holiday getaway destination. Visit this vital campus town -- home of Northern Illinois University -- and enjoy uncrowded local museums and galleries as you get a jump on holiday shopping at a clutch of distinctive boutiques.

DeKalb's revitalized downtown is studded with one-of-a-kind shops with unusual gifts. You'll also find entertainment at a historic theater and, yes, a chance to join Ebenezer Scrooge and the Cratchit family at a spirited community theater.

The county has a wide range of hotels, including Sycamore's historic Stratford Inn, a comfortable, 39-room hostelry that quirkily incorporates within its walls the mansion of Sycamore's first mayor, Reuben Ellwood. Sycamore, the county seat, has a century-old limestone courthouse and a Carnegie Library completed in 1905, constructed of red limestone with a clay tile roof.

Shoppers looking to stock holiday pantries will find a remarkable assortment of markets and food-specialty shops ready with such seasonal treats as stollen, gingerbread, pumpkin bread and cranberry foccacia.

Expecting special company? Stop at Inboden's Meats, regarded by foodies as the best quality meat market in DeKalb County. Delicious ready-to-cook products include beef brajchole, tenderized rolled flank steak stuffed with Italian sausage and a Florentine three-cheese mixture featuring Italian herbs and spinach.

Once inside this market it might be tough to leave. It also is a gourmet food store with 80 types of artisanal cheeses, 450 wines and 150 microcraft and imported beers. Shop, too, for oysters, lutefisk and pickled herring made to Inboden's own recipe.

Because DeKalb is a university town, Inboden's receives requests for ethnic foodstuffs. It stocks butter from New Zealand and Ireland, English-style scones and Devonshire cream, Russian caviar, French foie gras, Scandinavian baked goods such as potato lefsa and limpa bread and tapenades from an Israeli-Palestinian cooperative. Inboden's also brings in "real deal" regional foodstuffs, such as andouille sausage from Louisiana and perogi from Hamtramck, Michigan's famous Polish enclave.

Be sure to sample Inboden's own bratwurst, which won the Grand Championship for Illinois. Serve them grilled with pretzel rolls and coarse-ground mustard.

In essence, Inboden's offers such an extensive selection that it is easy to mistake it for a transplant of a Manhattan gourmet food market. However, it is strictly a homegrown, family-run business begun in 1962 with cash capital of $21 (plus notes and guarantees).

Another local business is Sweet Dreams, offering a wide range of Christmas cookies as well as pumpkin and apple cider versions of its acclaimed cupcakes. "But this is not just a cupcake joint," insists Sycamore native Deanna Watkins, the self-styled "Cake Lady" who opens the doors at 7 a.m. to serve a continental-style breakfast that includes scones ("right out of a London cafe," she says). Meanwhile, chef Phil, Deanna's husband, prepares homemade soups and deli-style sandwiches for lunch.

Chocoholics will want to visit The Confectionary, launched in 1982 by retired news writer Tom Smith and wife Sharon, who started this retail candy business without previous experience. Today, they own a store in downtown DeKalb and another in Sycamore, and also offer a candy school with one-on-one instruction.

They produce a full line of chocolates, including creams and clusters, toffee and caramels, plus such specialty items as marzipan centers and hand-dipped ginger and Spanish orange peel (with dark or milk chocolate). Delicious truffles include such flavors as Amaretto, Gran Marnier, Kirsch, Raspberry Rum, Bourbon and Kahlua. The Smiths' version of chocolate-dipped pecan-and-caramel clusters are called "Sea Monsters."

Joan and Joel Barczak also have reaped what they have sown -- literally. The backyard garden they planted in 1989 has grown into Blumen Gardens, a retail garden and shop that employs a staff of more than two dozen, including three landscape designers. It has become a lush urban oasis sprawled over two city blocks tucked into the heart of downtown Sycamore.

Shop for a unique centerpiece and other decorative greenery. Look for the unusual and hard-to-find annuals, perennials, vines, plants, trees and shrubs that are their specialty. Stroll winding paths past two ponds and a children's garden. Take a class, attend a workshop, shop for unusual urns and statuary and other items from classical to whimsical to dress up your garden.

Christmas arrived early for DeKalb's historic Egyptian Theatre. The American Institute of Architects selected the renovated theater as one of "150 Great Places in Illinois."

The Egyptian opened in 1929, a combination motion picture and vaudeville theater. A few years earlier, the discovery of King Tut's tomb had set off a nationwide interest in all things Egyptian.

Over the years, its stage has hosted celebrity performers ranging from Lawrence Welk, B.B. King and Jay Leno to Ray Charles, Wynton Marsalis and Gaelic Storm. It was the site of a speech by John F. Kennedy while he was still a senator.

Today, the theater hosts a variety of community events as well and foreign, indie and classic films. Upcoming performances include a Holiday Pops Concert produced by the Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra (Dec. 15, 7:30 p.m.) and a screening of the holiday classic movie "White Christmas" (Dec. 16, 2 p.m.).

If you go

Information: DeKalb Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, (815) 756-1336, (877) 335-2521, www.dekalbareacvb.com; Illinois Tourism, (800) 226-6632.

Mileage: DeKalb is about 65 miles west of Chicago.