Lemon Orzo

I've been looking for a tasty spring time side to serve with fish, shellfish, etc. that wasn't as heavy as risotto or potatoes, but had more heft to it than green beans or asparagus.  And here I found the perfect solution.  Thanks much Cooking Light!  This lemon orzo is super easy!  For this meal, I served it with served scallops and steamed asparagus.

Ingredients

Cooking spray
1/2  cup  prechopped onion
1  cup  uncooked orzo (rice-shaped pasta)
1  cup  fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/2  cup  dry white wine
1/4  teaspoon  dried thyme
2  tablespoons  chopped fresh chives
2  tablespoons  fresh lemon juice
2  teaspoons  olive oil

Instructions
Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion to pan; sauté 3 minutes. Stir in pasta, broth, wine, and thyme; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and pasta is al dente. Stir in chopped chives and lemon juice.

Little Shop of Horrors!

As promised in a previous post, I owe a review of Little Shop of Horrors and Ford's Theater. 

Survey says, "What a fun show!"  And I agree.  We saw one of the first preview performances, and overall it was a great, fun, springtime show.  Built on the backs of a small ensemble, Little Shop delivered some great voices, with special nods to the husband and wife duo, Christopher Kale Jones and Jenna Coker-Jones that brought Seymour and Audrey to life; some great laugh-out-loud moments not least of which was the belting of "Dentist!"; and some morbid hilarity in the form of the giant "Audrey II" plant manned by two separate puppeteers!  All in all, it was a cute, funny (if not a little morose) production of an old favorite.

 (The pic that adorned our programs and tickets)

The theater itself reveals little of what it was in Lincoln's days, having been renovated many times over the years.  But the Presidential box remains, roped off and vacant, paying homage to our fallen leader.  As one of the few historical sites in DC I had never visited, this place appealed to me and I'm glad to have seen it. 

Go west, old man, go west

Saturday of our Michigan visit was devoted entirely to Operation Surprise Party.  My job, whether I'd chosen to accept it or not, was to get my dad out of the house for long enough that my mom and Ben could get everything ready for the 40 odd guests who would descend on them at 7PM.  My plan? Lie through my teeth and get him to go to the west side of the state with me.

I have some friends, Scott who I've known since high school and his wife Shannon, who live just south of Grand Rapids, MI with their five kids.  The house was purchased semi-recently (READ: I still hadn't seen it even though they've lived there quite a while) and I've been meaning to get up there every time I'm in town. Especially since their twin boys were born last August and I've only seen them once, when they were 8 weeks old.  This made for a perfect way to see people I care about and oblige my mother by getting my dad far, far away from the house.  We told him that Ben had to go to his Dad's in Kalamazoo and couldn't go with me. In truth, Ben stayed behind to help my mom. But after that it was easy to convince my traditional Greek father not to let his only daughter drive two hours alone on the big bad Michigan freeways.  Also, did I mention it isn't totally weird that I'd bring my dad along on this excursion since he too has known Scott for almost 15 years and loves kids?  Oh yeah, and they were in on the surprise.

We left Brighton at about 1 for the two hour drive west.  Made it there without incident, save the moment we realized we'd just missed our exit and I closed my eyes while my dad may or may not have used an "authorized vehicle only" emergency turn around.

We spent just over two hours visiting with Scott, Shannon and their whole family! While I know they made a point of having all the kids nap and eat before we arrived, which makes for happier munchkins in general, I still give them a lot of credit.  They really do make five kids look easy.  And I'm sure it's not. I can't imagine the amount of work it must be and the patience it must require, but they make parenting their big family look like the simplest thing in the world.  We had a great visit and I really wish I could have spent more time with them.  Sadly, we had to strictly adhere to our planned departure time (which we really didn't do a very good job of) in order to be home in time for what my dad believed to be a dinner reservation and I knew to be his party.

Back in the car, now headed east and bound for home, we started talking and somehow ended up going west on I-96 instead of east.  This could have been quickly rectified had my father believed me when I pointed this out.  That was the point at which I got out the GPS and he told me he didn't need a GPS, that he was his own GPS.  I asked how that was going for him since home was east and we were going west.  Insert five minutes of father-daughter snarkiness here.  Finally, the GPS lady made him believe it and we turned around, now nearly 20 minutes late (on top of our later than planned departure).  The rest of our drive home was without incident, save some rain. 

We rolled into the apparently quiet house at about 8:15, forty-five minutes later than my mother would have liked, but still within reason.  He took his own sweet time in the garage, cleaning trash out of the car.  By some miracle I managed not to rush him into the house and give anything away.  Finally he starts toward the door waiting for me to go ahead of him.  Feigning forgetfulness, I head back toward the car to "get something" and he gets impatient and goes to the door.  All 40 people were stacked up in the kitchen to shout surprise when he walked in!  And he really, really was surprised!  The funniest part I think, was when he turned around and said to me, "Did you know about this?" "No Dad, obviously dragging you with me to the other side of the state was just a coincidence." (add liberal doses of sarcasm here).

Times gone by

My dad turned 60 on March 12th!  Ben and I made the trek back to Michigan to celebrate with him on Friday and to help my mom get everything together for his surprise party on Saturday (unknown to him of course!).

Friday night my mom, dad, Ben and I went to Greektown for dinner to celebrate.  We've been going to Pegasus in Greektown for as long as I can remember and I can't recall an occasion when my dad didn't run into someone he knew from the Greek community.  So as soon as we walked in for his birthday dinner I started laying odds with Ben on how long it would take before he was absorbed in conversation with some guys he's known for a million years.  I didn't have to wait long.  Before we were even seated my father runs into some guy he used to go to Red Wings games with when he was 19. 

We get seated at a booth on the far side of the restaurant and commence with deciding on which of the many mezedes we want to order for the table.  Settling on kefalotiri, octopodaki (baby octopus), saganaki, a mixed olive plate, and tiropita we then decide on whether or not we should even both ordering meals or if we should just gorge ourselves on the appetizer selections.  In the end we each decide on something small, soup or salad, as our mains since the first course is so large.  And here's the funny part.  The food arrives.  It's a solid "B".  Yet I can't stop smiling.  And then I figure it out.  It's not the tasty treats I'm smiling over.  It's the fact that I've been coming to this place with my dad for almost thirty years, sometimes with the whole family, sometimes just the two of us.  This place is so tightly wrapped into my childhood conscious that even now, when I can objectively say the food is only pretty good, not great, I want to keep coming back.

The irony is that I tease my dad brutally about his recollections of Red Wings games past, yet here I am taking my very own trip down memory lane.  And it gets worse.  We leave the restaurant to head over to the MGM casino and I start having more flashbacks.  Not the horrible, acid-induced kind.  But the kind where you see, hear or smell something and you're right back in the moment you first encountered it.  We're walking down the street from the restaurant to the car, noticing how much the area has grown up since I was young and something triggers the memory.  I'm 6 or 7 and we're on the way from the restaurant to our car in the same place we've been parking for years and I'm clinging onto my dad's hand for dear life.  Nothing scary has happened, yet I've grown up listening to my parents talk about Detroit and I'm scared and holding onto my dad like he's bullet proof, because as long as he's with me I'm safe.  In the here and now I can't believe how afraid I was of Greektown with its well lit streets and secure parking structures, but then again, it was a rougher neighborhood when I was a kid.  Now I also have the benefit of an adult's understanding of cities, crime, poverty, all the factors that fed into the fear I didn't understand at 6 or 7.  Yet there's still something to be said for the childish innocence that allowed me to really believe that as long as I held my father's hand, everything would be okay.

Back in the present we motor over to the MGM and park.  Once we're in the casino we split up, my parents looking for a roulette table and Ben and I heading to the craps pit.  Fast forward and hour and half, Ben and I have lost all we're willing to lose and can't decide who at the table we'd rather have "on our team" (for those of you familiar with the game, "That's on Your Team"), the guy at the end of the table with more gold teeth than chips or the guy to our right with a handle-bar mustache and an NRA jacket.  We quickly decide that while the MGM-Detroit may be themed after a Vegas casino, it lacks the fun you find there because the smell of desperation is too thick to even smell the smoke through.  While this isn't a surprise considering the current economic climate, it's still sad. My parents, who both like to gamble from time to time as well, have come to the same conclusion and we book to the parking lot without a second thought.

Ladies who lounge

My last night in Chicago brought with it a fabulous girls night out.  After taking my final exam and getting in a little bit of office work, my friend Erin picked me up and we headed north to Belmont to meet her sister, Lisa. I was fortunate to meet these fantastic ladies through Teresa in the last six months or so I was living in Chicago.  Although we only see each other every couple years, every time I get to spend time with these two I'm sorry to have to leave, they're so much fun!  (Fingers crossed that Erin's travels bring her to the DC area sometime soon!)

We started our evening at Lisa and her husband Clark's AMAZING apartment.  I think it took me less than two minutes after greeting Lisa to ask if perhaps she wanted to adopt me so I could live there forever.  They're on the top floor of a building near Belmont and Racine, walking distance to the Southport Corridor and not far from the popular locales offered near the Belmont red line stop.  The picture below is the view of the skyline from their apartment.  Again, it's a little fuzzy since it's a cell phone shot, and it doesn't really do the view justice, but when seen live, it's captivating.

After spending about an hour at Lisa's warming up with wine and meeting her friend, Laura, who joined us for the evening, we walked over to a tasty spot on Southport, Coobah, where Lisa had scored a reservation earlier in the week.  This is a latin fusion restaurant that takes a lot of its inspiration from the Caribbean.  I ordered a tasty zazuela, essentially the latin version of cioppino served with a tomato-based broth and lots of toasty baguette.  The dish was filling and quite tasty.

But the highlight of the night, by far, was the company.  It is always a pleasure to sit at a table with three  smart women and just chat.  We're all in slightly different places in our lives with jobs and relationships and everyone had a unique perspective to offer the conversation.  I knew we'd be there for a while when the subject came around to the notions of marriage as a social construction and whether we'd raise different children than our mothers did due to the change in times and attitudes about a woman's role.

When we finally decided that if we didn't get up soon, since three hours had passed, the server might actually throw us out, we chose a close-by watering hole, Mystic Celt, to move on to.  One drink later we were back on street headed for SoPo, a happening little lounge situated unsurprisingly on Southport Ave, having realized we were a wee bit "mature" for the crowd gathered at Mystic Celt.  Just after arriving at SoPo we lucked into a table by the windows after a gaggle of very drunk girls departed (but not before stopping in to make friends with us).  We spent the rest of the evening if another flurry of chatter, talking about jobs and parents and more.  I finally had to call it quits at almost 1AM, so that I could catch enough sleep to make my train out to the 'burbs to meet up with Teresa and Nick in the morning.  Thanks, Erin, Lisa and Laura for a great night out.  I really wish we didn't live to far away from each other!

The Atwood at last and an Iberian adventure

When I was in grad school, my friend Jill and I stopped into the Atwood Cafe for a drink on more than one occasion, but that's all we ever got because, being graduate students, even that was more than we could afford.  So when Teresa and I were deciding on a location between her office and my hotel for dinner, the Atwood was my first thought, followed closely by, "and now I can actually eat there (at least this once!)."

I was able to make a reservation online the night before and when we walked in for our early dinner, we were escorted to a great table, the seating for which was composed of blue velvet settees rather than chairs.  The Atwood has a simple menu that, while fairly small, offers lots of flavors nonetheless. This is great for me, as I easily fall prey to menu overload. Of course Teresa and I launched right into chatting and annoyed the server no end since she had to keep coming back to our table to see if we wanted to order.  Finally, we shelved the chatter and perused the menu.  Every possible selection looked delicious.  In the end, Teresa chose a beef brisket and goat cheese ravioli while I selected a port wine braised short rib.  Both meals were fantastic!  I attempted some photo taking, however, I only had my cell phone on me so the quality is pretty poor.

Beef Brisket and Goat Cheese Ravioli

Port Wine Braised Short Rib

While I was waiting in the lobby for Teresa to arrive, I had talked with my friend Nicole, who had worked at the Atwood Cafe when she was in college at Loyola Chicago.  As soon as she heard we were at the Atwood, she immediately blurted out, "get the bread pudding!"  With that gleeful a recommendation, Teresa and I decided we couldn't ignore it and ordered that to share for dessert.  Sadly, it's not banana season and some of the bananas in the dish, which is actually called warm-roasted banana, white chocolate bread pudding, were a little bit hard, but in general, the flavors were great and I see why Nicole holds a place in her heart for this treat.

Warm-Roasted Banana, White Chocolate Bread Pudding (I know, the picture is terrible!)

Since Teresa lives in the Chicago suburbs, she needed to catch the 7:40 train back home, so we parted on State Street, her for Union Station and me for the giant Filene's Basement to kill a half hour before meeting up with my friend and former Chicago roommate, Emily.

After perusing Filene's and a quick cab ride from downtown to River North, I was seated in the bar at Cafe Iberico with Emily, who had been Ben's and my roommate in Lincoln Park in 2004.  Since we'd both already eaten dinner, we opted for drinks in the form of the Cafe's well known red sangria.  The interest thing here is that I've had better sangria, even better sangria in Chicago.  But I have a soft spot in my heart for this happy tapas location (and if you decide to eat, they do have fantastic tapas), having spent a new years celebration here and several office happy hours, one of which ended with a stunning tale of a good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) falling off a bar stool, a story still makes us both laugh.  The bottom line, while I could pay more for better sangria elsewhere, sitting in the bar at Iberico makes me smile.

Even better than the fun memories this locale evokes, was the chance to catch up with another old friend.  Over a half pitcher, we caught up on jobs, friends, men, you name it.  It was wonderful to see her again and I'm hopeful that it won't be years between visits this time. And now I'm trying to lure her to DC for a visit. (Come on, Em, you know you want to!)

Opa! in my mouth

Today was my first day of project management class on scheduling and cost control.  In addition to a few new cost estimating techniques (I know - boring!), I also learned that most Canadians, including my instructor, say, proh-cess, proh-ject and rezources (thought you'd like this Alyce!).  After adjusting my listening skills so as not to focus on the different pronunciations and to actually pay attention to the subject matter, class sped by quickly with me counting down the hours until I could meet an old friend and his fiance in Greektown for dinner.

We decided on Greek Islands and at 8:20 I hopped into a cab to meet them there.  Ten minutes later Ben, Lindsay and I were standing in front of a case of fresh octopus waiting for our table.  Once seated we must have driven the waiter crazy, we took more than twenty minutes to make up our minds, but the meze menu is lengthy and nearly everything is good.  For Ben and Lindsay, who had never been there before, the trick was deciding on what items looked best.  For me, having frequented this restaurant during my Chicago dwelling days AND on nearly every visit, it was deciding which of my many favorites dishes I could live without and which I absolutely had to have.  To add another complicating factor, we'd opted to meet for a late dinner to give Ben time to play dodge ball (Chicago has leagues) and me time to catch up on all the office work that had accumulated during my in class hours.  That meant none of us wanted to weigh ourselves down too much with food, but wow, the choices.

We finally settled on splitting a few mezedes among us and then each choosing something for ourselves.  We shared tzatziki that was almost as good as the stuff my aunts and now I make, bread, kefalotiri and kalamata olives.  Kefalotiri is a personal favorite of mine.  I believe in the sharper and stinkier the better for most cheese (with some exceptions) and this one NEVER disappoints.  Hard and tangy, it's typically made from sheep or goat's milk and is nearly always imported direct from Greece.   For my "meal", I ordered an old favorite, something I make at home but that Greek Islands does well too, Horiatiki Salata (Greek village salad).  Light and tasty, it made for an authentic greek meal and happy Greektown dining experience without being too heavy for a later dinner.

Ben chose loukaniko, which is a greek pork sausage that is typically flavored with fennel and orange.

He also chose a cold octopus salad which is basically just grilled and chopped baby octopus, chilled and dressed in a light vinaigrette.  As anyone who's ever made a wrong turn with a clam, octopus or squid dish knows, it's very easy to cook these wrong and end up with what tastes like a plate of rubber bands rather a delicious delicacy.  Thankfully, this dish is something of a house specialty at Greek Islands, underscored by the fresh, not-yet-cooked octopus in the entry way case, and they do it well every time.  Lindsay opted for a more traditional Greek salad as her light entree and was pleased with it too.

All in all, a very successful meal filled with good food and great company.  It was great to catch up with Ben and get to know Lindsay a little better.  Ben has always been a great guy, and it appears he's snagged a great girl.  They'll be married in May and I wish them all the best.  Moreover, I wish for more trips back to Chicago to spend time with them and all our other wonderful Chicago friends.

"My Kind of Town, Chicago"

Mr. Sinatra had it right when he said, "My kind of town, Chicago/My kind of people, too/People who smile at you/And each time I roam, Chicago/Is calling me home."  In fact, I couldn't have said it better myself.

I was fortunate to get sent here by work to take the last required class for my Master's certificate in Project Management and I'm loving every minute!  I just arrived today, dropped my bags at the hotel (Marriott Downtown Mag Mile!) and headed off to drink in the city I love and dearly, dearly miss!  For the first hour I just strolled the streets around downtown with my hot beverage, because it is, after all, colder here than at home.  In fact, it's always like this in the winter here.  While it might be 40 degrees there is a biting wind that doesn't quit.  It's the kind of cold that chills you through and takes quite a while and more than one cup of coffee to warm up from.  But that really is the only downside to a place where strangers smile when you pass (and they're not crazy like in DC), you can still score dinner for $10 bucks even downtown and that can, just by sharing in the city's understated but omnipresent mid-western hospitality, make you wish with everything that you are that you could still call this place home. In short, Chicago is calling me home.  And if weren't for the wonderful man and the great job I have back in DC, I'd find myself a nice little Lakeview apartment and stay forever.

But enough waxing poetic about how this city touches my heart, even though it does, instead lets move on to the heart of this blog - food!  First stop tonight was FoodLife.  If you've never been, you're missing out!  FoodLife is a food court for the wealthy, the tourist, the student, you name it and you're sharing a dining room with them.  Walk into FoodLife and get your reusable card.  Once you've been assigned a table you can walk up to any kitchen (of which there are 14!) and order from their simple, tasty menus.  Julie's and my favorite during our tenure in residence here was SoupLife, where for $5.99 (then anyway, it's $6.99 now) you could get a bottomless bowl of soup that would allow you to eat your way through all 8 of their selections should your heart desire.  But my fancy tonight was the $10 special.  For $10 I snagged a cup of soup or small salad, an entree, a beverage and a dessert.  How can you go wrong with that? $10 for dinner in downtown Chicago!!  It took me no time at all to decide on seafood gumbo, nachos made fresh in front of me and a tasty chocolate brownie.  An eclectic collection, I know, but why not sample all my old favorites for such a small price?!?

Happy and full after my not-so-fancy, but oh-so-yummy meal, I meandered back out onto Michigan Avenue and window shopped my way back to the hotel, stopping in Borders just to stand in the top floor window and look out on the Magnificent Mile, all lit up.  At certain moments I'm just another tourist, enjoying all the pretty sights and happy moments Chicago has to offer while at others I'm just a displaced Chicagoan, looking for a way to come home!