Sorry about the long radio silence. Work has hit me hard, and it's not going to let up until I take my Christmas vacation. I thus present an abbreviated version of our last two days in 'my kind of town, Chicago'.It turns out that Andrew didn't ever remember visiting a zoo during his childhood. His whole family loves animals, so I guess they were too busy visiting the animals at wildlife preserves, model farms, parks, and beaches to make it to a zoo. So we visited one of the last free zoos still around in America - Lincoln Park Zoo. It was a small-ish but excellent zoo. The unseasonably warm weather that we had enjoyed the previous days had disappeared (and since I had accidentally left my winter coat in storage) I waddled around wearing two shirts, two sweaters, and two jackets. I was not exactly an icon of style, but I mainly stayed warm.
That night we had dinner a restaurant which was exclusively vegetarian. When travelling, we're often lucky enough to find vegetarian restaurants that cater to the foodie crowd, or high-end restaurants that serve vegetarian prix fixe menus. It seems a bit cruel of fate to give me a decent job so that I can afford to go to restaurants like this but plunk me in a city like Miami that would never support such a restaurant. In any case, Green Zebra served a great meal. We had a panna cotta, which I've never had because I didn't know they could be made without gelatin. The waiter assured me that it was done with agar, so I may be trying that myself one of these days. We also had a lovely potato soup with smoked sunchokes and a pasta in brown butter. These dishes, of course, made me vow to buy a smoker and learn how to make brown butter sauce.
During our final day we squeezed in a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. I love this art museum, and have visited many times. But this time we only had a few hours and Andrew had never seen anything there. So we availed ourselves of the "If you only have an hour, see these twelve paintings" insert in the guidebook. I felt like the epitome of a tourist, checking off the paintings: Edward Hopper's Nighthawks? Check. American Gothic? Check. Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte? Seen it, moving on. But sometimes it just turns out that way.
Then we were off to the airport and to our respective homes. And those were our four days in the town that Billy Sunday couldn't shut down.
2 comments:
I don't remember taking Beth and Andrew to the zoo when they were growing up. We didn't go to a circus either. B had guinea pigs for her ninth birthday (and has never been without pets since) A did have horse riding lessons for a while, but changed to golf lessons when he was still a young teenager. Other than that, I think our contact with animals was through Beth's work experience at Amerton British Wildlife Rescue Centre - a fortnight turned into years as a voluntary helper. Then, of course, when we went on holiday we used to drive through the countryside late at night 'rabbit spotting'! Also, garden birds were fed during the winter. Perhaps that's how A developed an interest in all creatures great and small.
Chicago looks a terrific place to visit.
what a lovely trip! I love how you are totally undaunted by any new kitchen equipment a new technique you want to try requires, or finding room for it in your kitchen.
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