gnat says OPA!

chicago is a huge center of greek diaspora. (according to wikipedia so are new hampshire and florida, who knew?) i'm 1/4 greek, so it's a little bit unacceptable that i've lived here for eight months and haven't been over to greektown to visit my people.

instead, because the end of the quarter was looming and i had papers due left and right, (and because you can only cook tacos so many tuesdays in a row before it gets really boring) i decided to throw a GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! on monday.

before you can throw a greek dinner party you need greek ingredients, some of which are basically impossible to find in your average run-of-the-mill grocery store. aleck (a fellow greek and chicago native) was kind enough to poll his relatives about their preferred food shopping location, and the overwhelming consensus was:

fresh farms market! way out in the northwest suburbs of chicago. lucky for me, taylor was as excited about the prospect of a grocery-related field trip as i was, so on saturday we embarked on a mini road trip to niles, IL to get all of the goodies on my list.

so, fresh farms market is my new favorite place. i'll spare you a detailed description of our time there, because odds are we will be going back and it will get its own post. despite my giddiness throughout the shopping experience somehow i managed to exhibit a tremendous amount of restraint and only left with things on my list.

...it was a long list.

my menu was pretty ambitious, so i began to prep little by little on saturday and sunday.

by the time guests began to arrive on monday, i was greeksuited up and in the last stages of cooking.

there was a veritable smorgasbord of all my favorite foods to cook and eat: dolmas, moussaka, tsatziki, greek salad, lemon chicken, spanakopita, shaareya and tabbouleh, the last two of which are actually egyptian but shhhhh.

side note: smorgasbord is a swedish word for a buffet type food situation. unfortunately, extensive google searching (and mother phone calling) has failed to turn up a greek equivalent.

the most exciting food item by far was the saganaki. saganaki is a hunk of kefalotyri cheese that's been floured, egg washed, floured again, pan fried, soaked in booze, then lit on fire. that's right - cheese on fire. saganaki isn't actually traditonally greek, but originated in a restaurant right here in chicago's greektown.

a lovely little greek lady at fresh farms market told us to use sherry, but after several failed attempts to light the cheese we resorted to vodka. even so, the cheese was not as on fire as i had hoped it would be.

next time we'll use bacardi 151.

also notable, although probably to nobody but me, my first truly successful baklava making attempt. it turns out the secret is to use a loooooot of butter. i won't tell you how much.

we wore laurels and togas, we listened to greek music, we wined and dined. we GREEKSTRAVAGANZA!d, that truly is the only word for it.

once the guests had gone i promptly passed out on the couch.

throwing a GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! is hard work.

the next day, because it was tuesday and there was a downright disgusting amount of leftover food, (and because i was in the midst of far less fun than GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! excessive procrastination induced paperwritingstravaganza) i had greek tacos for dinner.

don't be fooled, they may look cool but there is a reason that greek tacos are not a real thing.

one of these days i will make it to actual greektown. in the meantime, i am up to my ears in enough leftover dolmas and tsatziki to keep me fed through the remainder of paperwritingstravaganza.

OPA!

gnat is reunited with an old friend

that's right everybody - my girl guy is back.

he's been on hiatus since december, so when i felt the little tug that told me he was out there (a little bit like the spidey sense, except it goes off for imminent loud redundant singing instead of danger) i thought i must be wrong. still, i peeked out the window and sure enough, there he was.

now i've had the winter blues all week, so i perked right up when i saw him. i snatched up my scarf and coat and ran downstairs to introduce myself. unfortunately my excitement faded quickly and was gone by the time i made it over to his corner.

i think the following photo, taken by a passer-by, speaks to the emotions i was experiencing as he continued right on singing about his girl throughout our encounter:

that, my friends, is an unsuccessfully suppressed grimace.

i have no idea whether the groundhog saw his shadow last week or not (or even what it would mean either way... groundhog day isn't really something we pay attention to in california). what i DO know is that it's starting to get warm enough out there that my girl guy can comfortably stand outside and sing for hours on end, and for that i am definitely grateful.

gnat reflects on her URL

it's snowing, again. usually snow makes me feel giddy and child-like, today it's only making me frustrated and homesick.

some days i get this gut feeling that i am in the wrong place. it's as if the magnetic dipoles in my sinuses are misaligned... my body senses my longitude and latitude and for some reason thinks that they are incorrect (and tells me so, with a sense of urgency).

actually, i think that only happens in birds, but you get my point.

maybe i'm just tired of winter. after all, by my standards it should be just about over... at the moment it's not looking like that's going to happen any time soon.

i'm going outside to eat some snowflakes and see if i can get excited about them again.

gnat survives the snowpocalypse

let me preface this by saying that of all the chicago adventures i have had thus far, snowpocalypse has been without doubt my absolute favorite.

it all started on monday morning when i had the following conversation with my mother:

ma: tomorrow and the next few day there will be a blizzard storm you need to go get food to store

gnat: i went today

ma: candles there might be power outage

gnat: but the store is very close

gnat: a blizzard?

ma: i am telling you whats on the news

gnat: in chicago?

ma: yeah all over and they said chicago. the next few days worse on tuesday and wednesday

ma: just check it

ma: go to walgreen get a couple of flash lights and a lot of batteries

ma: you dont want to find yourself alone at home pitch black

ma: your stove is gas?

a quick google search turned up a story from the chicago sun-times with the headline "'life-threatening' blizzard on its way to chicago area."

naturally i did what any scared californian who had never lived through a blizzard before (and who had a fear mongering parent sending doomsday messages from the other side of the country) would do - i prepared for the worst. over the course of monday and tuesday i amassed a respectable collection of candles, flashlights, snacks, and water in anticipation of the impending snowmageddon.

what i forgot to get (and what would later prove essential) was wine. by the time cara and i realized the omission, the winds had picked up and the "falling" snow was flying horizontally. we suited up in our snowpocalypse survival gear and trudged through the abandoned streets to the nearest trader joe's.

our provisions:

we dined and caroused with our taco tuesday guests (because i wasn't about to let the end of the world get in the way of taco tuesday, and neither were they, although we ate slightly more blizzard appropriate foods) and then somewhat foolhardily headed out to experience the storm.

it was chaotic. frenzied. helter skelter. really the only word for it is apocalyptic.

the next morning (my first snow day!) we examined the aftermath of the storm. things i found buried in the snow included my street,

a fire hydrant,

and (probably) a bicycle.

we snowball fought - well, i attempted rather pathetically to snowball fight and the andrews pummeled each other with continent shaped chunks of snow,

and i made my first snow angel, which is truly as satisfying as all those little kids frolicking in the snow on tv make it look.

snowpocalypse is, sadly, over, and it's sunny and beautiful (albeit really, really cold) outside, but the streets and the sidewalks are still piled high with snow. i'm not sure how long it will stick around, the snow plows have been at it outside my window since about six o'clock this morning. thanks, assholes.

(side note: perhaps due to the sun coming in through the windows and the garbage-truck like beeping of the snow plows i woke up thinking i was on kelton, that it was wednesday, and that i was late for work. i even strained to hear if patty had beaten me to the shower.)

there's a small part of me that wishes it could be snowpocalypse every day.

well, not every day.

gnat revisits al's (and gets it right, this time)

it's the end of the month and as of yesterday i had only completed one item out of five on my january chicago wishlist. totally unacceptable! not wanting to close the month with a dismal 20% success rate i crammed two more items from the list in at the last possible moment.

first, my triumphant return to al's beef:

i first visited al's with jalees and nicole back in august. i didn't find out until months later (thanks, man vs. food!) that REAL chicagoans get their al's beef "dipped" - the sandwich gets dunked into the vat of juice the beef was cooked in, because it just isn't messy enough to be worth eating otherwise.

so of course, i went back. i asked the guy behind the counter twice to make sure he actually dunked my sandwich this time, because it didn't look quite mushy enough to my untrained eye.

it was dunked, all right. as soon as i picked the thing up to get a picture it unleashed a greasy stream of liquid and i narrowly avoided a lap full of beef juice. the following is an actual look of shock and dismay captured by cara:

if you should ever find yourself at al's #1 beef, do yourself a favor and get your sandwich dunked.

this morning i walked down to navy pier to check out the snow sculpture competition at "snow days chicago." (see? i DON'T just write about food.) because i was feeling exceptionally touristy, i walked the scenic route along the lake. last time i was at this "beach" it was 95 degrees out... not so much, right now.

the snow sculptures were, predictably, completely awesome. i took a moment to discuss the ones i liked best with comedian bob newhart, a chicago native.

(just did some research. evidently this is his character dr. bob hartley's psychoanalyst couch from the bob newhart show.. for the purposes of this discussion i would like to pretend instead that i am on some sort of bob newhart talk show discussing snow sculpture ratings and how painful sitting on frozen metal couches can be.)

this wasn't one of my favorites but the others weren't quite as imitable as cranky captain america.

except maybe the medusa, but nobody was standing around to get a picture of my interpretation. it won first place!

my favorite was the second place winner. it's called "hommage a duchamp no. 2" and it's based on a marcel duchamp painting called nude descending a staircase no2.

i also liked this one, "that's a moray." yeah, it's actually called that.

an exhibition piece done by the team that won last year's competition. zoom in and look at the wrinkles in his face... that's all made of snow.

i'm not even certain i'm capable of putting together a half decent snowman. i haven't tried yet, but we're supposed to get a blizzard this week so there should be some prime snow frolicking days coming up.

the last two items on my list were a visit to the field museum and to go to a blackhawks game. both have been postponed (one due to a total fail on my part, the other completely zain's fault, or really zain's knee's fault) but by no means forgotten!

gnat goes to white castle

i went down to my old hood (south loop) last night with taylor and friends to see a concert at reggie's music club, which happens to be about an inch and a half from a real life honest to god white castle.

the band that opened was excellent, but the "headliner," ekoostic hookah, was underwhelming at best. we slipped out in the middle of their set for some sliders.

taylor insists that this was the worst white castle she had ever been to and that we have to try a different one before i can pass judgement - i'm going to write about it anyway.

we got tiny little cheeseburgers and crinkly fries (and chicken rings, whatever those are...), which we ate while huddled around a trash can because there were no tables and it was 11 degrees outside. i don't really have anything else earth shattering to say about the experience, so without further ado here's an incredibly awkward photo of my tentative first bite:

the verdict: white castle isn't half bad. i wouldn't go on a zany late night misadventure in pursuit of it (unless neil patrick harris is involved, then i'm definitely down), but it wasn't bad at all.

on second thought, i have been known to instigate spontaneous outings in search of strange foods at ungodly hours on a pretty regular basis, so yeah, i guess i probably would go on a zany late night misadventure in pursuit of it.

i had a katy perry induced moment of intense homesickness on the train this morning. my pod was on shuffle and "california girls" came on, and i looked out the window at the snow, and i counted all the items of clothing i was wearing (leggings, jeans, two pairs of wool socks, undershirt, sweater, scarf, sleepingbagcoat), and i got a little choked up because all i really wanted from life at that moment was to be driving up PCH in santa monica with the windows down. and maybe a cheeseburger animal style with fries and a diet coke from in-n-out.

oh yeah.

gnat girds her loins

according to the weather channel, when i wake up in a few hours it will be 8 degrees outside. with the wind chill, it will feel like -22 degrees.

i am officially terrified.

gnat gets her recommended daily dose of vitamins A, B, C, E, and K

mom has told me horror stories about the year we lived in illinois. for example, she claims that during winter months grocery stores included bunches of free parsley with every purchase in a lackluster attempt to mask the absence of other fresh green things. understandably this caused me some concern as, despite what previous blog entries may have led you to believe about my eating habits, vegetables are a very important part of my daily life. in fact since moving here i have been anticipating with considerable apprehension the possibility of being forced to prepare meals using exclusively root vegetables and kale.

luckily just half an hour and one bus transfer away from my apartment there exists a veritable tropical paradise of cheap fresh fruits and vegetables:

stanley's produce market!

cara and i made the trip on monday and came home with a cornucopia of beautiful things, including the single most important food for the maintenance of my happiness - tomatoes.

if you look closely, you'll notice that root vegetables and kale made the cut. i'm just glad they aren't the only things i have to eat.

gnat devours four unlikely animals (in one fell swoop)

i knocked one and a half items off my january wish list today.

i know what you're thinking, "how do you knock half an item off a wish list, gnat?"

well, hockey is maybe a big deal in chicago, which to be fair i think i knew. the blackhawks won the stanley cup a few weeks before i moved here, and there were banners and lights and stuff all over the place, so i figured people must like them and they must be kinda good. still, somehow it didn't occur to me that i might not be able to find tickets to a game. as it turns out they still exist, but the games are in march and the tickets cost $400. not going to happen.

instead, i am going to watch a game at a blackhawks bar. this promises to be warmer and infinitely more terrifying (exhilarating?) than actually attending a game. there you go. half.

i also knocked a full item off the list - today andrew and i took a field trip to the famed encased meat emporium, the sausage superstore of lore, hot doug's! we braved the 50 minute schlep to a neighborhood that even google maps doesn't have a name for (let's call it west and kinda north somewhere) and stood outside in the bitter cold (have i mentioned yet how cold it is here? because it's pretty cold) in a line wrapped around the building for hot dogs. but not just any hot dogs:

the game of the week! can you read that? it says:

"the mountain man (a damn tasty combination of elk, antelope, venison, and buffalo) with blackberry mustard and goat cheese"

i had never eaten any of those animals before (i had seen them in zoos, not the same thing) and though blackberry mustard sounded questionable i am a fan of anything with goat cheese on it. pictured here with duck fat fries!

(upon checking the website just now to verify my description of this item, i found that the weekly special had been changed to smoked spicy alligator sausage with shrimp remoulade. holy crap, i need to go back tomorrow.)

delicious. totally worth standing outside and not being able to feel my toes for 45 minutes. mission accomplished... for now.

gnat learns an important lesson about appropriate footwear (and priorities)

i neglected to look out the window before leaving for class this morning.

had i looked out the window, i would have, no doubt, noticed that it was snowing. had i noticed that it was snowing, i might have rethought my choice of shoes. had i rethought my choice of shoes, this:

might not have happened.

what's sad is that i own boots that are suited to this weather, but i walked out, noticed it was snowing, did a quick assessment of the situation, and came to the conclusion that if i went upstairs to change my shoes i would be late for class. so instead, i trudged out into the snow in my little ballet flats (which, to their credit, have excellent traction, but do absolutely nothing in the way of warmth/dryness). i did, however, make it to class on time, so i guess that's a good thing.

yep. i may masquerade as a chicago resident but it turns out i'm still an idiot from california who assumes there's no reason to check the weather in the morning (and risks frostbite in the name of punctuality).

gnat appreciates german culture

apologies in advance for the poor photo quality in today's post - i gave my camera carmine II a break in favor of iphone photos, mistake!

my friends and classmates andrew and andrew are organizers of a student group called the beer appreciation club (BAC), with which i have attended many exciting beer related events. the other night i received the following email:

"Did you know that there is a direct correlation between German beer and being good at science? That's why there are so many medical eponyms named after Germans, like Alzheimer's disease and Wegener's granulomatosis. If you want to be good at science too, you should join us for delicious Teutonic food and drink at GERMAN APPRECIATION NIGHT"

because i am a lover of both science and beer, i hastily RSVP'd yes and last night headed out towards lincoln square to the chicago brauhaus - a venue chosen specifically because it offers beer in glass boots, or "bierstiefeln."

whether passing a giant boot of beer around without letting it touch the table is actually german tradition or just passed off as such by the movie beerfest i honestly do not know.

we were expecting a bar but actually found ourselves in a bavarian lodge type restaurant, replete with long tables of rowdy patrons, a live band, and adorable old guys showing off their sweet moves on the dance floor. we ate traditional (read: stereotypical) german food:

i recognized exactly zero of the varieties of beer offered, but ended up with kostritzer black bier that i really enjoyed (served in what i've only just now discovered isn't technically called a "stein" unless it's made of stoneware. thanks, wikipedia.)

whether or not this field trip has made me better at science is uncertain, but thanks to the BAC and the chicago brauhaus (including the german "microneighborhood," or really the block of north lincoln avenue on which is located) i am feeling more appreciative of german culture here in chicago.

gnat transitions smoothly back into chicago life

ok, so all i've done since being back (besides going to class) is attempt in vain to get over a cold (which i picked up, believe it or not, while still in california -suck it, cold weather). still, today i am overwhelmed with this feeling of excitement about being back in chicago. i'm in such a good mood, in fact, that even though it's freezing outside (technically, way below freezing) i actually kinda like it. i've procured a massive coat which is reminiscent of a sleeping bag and let me tell you, its ability to keep the cold out is downright miraculous.

tonight my "practice of bioethics" class met at a tapas restaurant near my apartment called 1492 - the idea being to expose us to accomplished people in our field and teach us how to network over dinner. i tell you this because had i not been sitting with people to whom i needed to appear to be a serious, aspiring young scholar of medical humanities and bioethics, i would have taken pictures of all of the food.

it was my first tapas experience, but because i can't provide pictures i will spare you an in depth analysis, suffice it to say that everything was delicious. i even (accidentally) ate some crostini type thing with a huge mushroom (basically the only food i will not eat) on it and didn't hate it. still, the whole idea of tapas feels utterly impractical to me so i am unlikely to go back.

in other news, my girl guy was in fine form today, undeterred by the cold he gave a several hour long performance of "this little light of mine" on our corner.

gnat breaks radio silence

happy new year! did you miss me?

so, i'm still in california, albeit only for about 20 hours longer. my boarding pass has been printed, my laundry is done, things are mostly sorted and packed. the weather has been checked - no snow in the forecast, so fingers crossed for no delays. tomorrow's high will be 19 degrees. ("feels like" 7. excellent.) lets be real kids, this is probably the last entry i will write for months in which i don't complain about how miserably cold i am. brace yourselves, i know i am.

i never make new years resolutions but i decided to make one this year, which is to take more initiative in exploring and enjoying chicago. my january wishlist includes but is not limited to the following:

- blackhawks game, preferably with someone who a) understands hockey and b) is patient enough not to care that i will require constant explanation of the action

- revisiting al's #1 beef (remember why?)

- snow days chicago, which includes a snow sculpting competition. and dog sled races. why not?

- field museum

- hot doug's. (how have i still not been here? duck fat fries that don't result in unsightly and uncomfortable duck fat blisters, yes please!)

stay tuned for these adventures and more, and to find out if my girl guy is still standing out there singing even though it's 13 degrees below freezing!

gnat eats sin city

gnat's chicago experiment is taking a hiatus from chicago. thus, in lieu of real snowflakes, here are some fake ones courtesy of the mirage hotel and casino in las vegas:

yes, i went to las vegas, and in keeping with what seems to have emerged as a trend in "gnat's chicago experiment" the only thing i'm going to talk about is the food. actually, over the course of the weekend there were several exciting food experiences including the PANDA SANDWICH which, i wish i could say was self explanatory but upon some reflection i guess it isn't.

it starts with four slices of pizza, a three entree combo from panda express, and four willing food experimenters (not pictured):

the chow mein goes on first, then the other entrees are layered on top:

and that, my friends, is a panda sandwich. simple enough, no?

shockingly delicious. survey says orange chicken and chow mein are the best toppings, broccoli beef didn't cut it, and kung pao chicken was forgettable at best. comes with 900% of your daily recommended sodium. all you need is $4 and a dream.

also, because they are my absolute favorite thing about vegas, there were piles, nay, mountains of crab legs.

there would be better pictures if i didn't have to clean all the crab gunk off my hands to handle the camera.

also notable in vegas, pastrami sandwiches from capriotti's (all this talk about food is making me hungry), betting on horse races, a superman snuggie (yeah, you read that right... are you jealous? because i am), more cowboy hats than i have ever seen in one place at one time (the national rodeo championships or something like that were at the MGM this weekend), and, well, other vegas type stuff. read about it on "gnat's las vegas experiment." or not, because that's not a real thing.

so now i'm back in california, (still) writing papers and basically bumming around for the holidays. yeah, ok, it isn't going to be a white christmas, but all of the palm trees have christmas lights on them and i think that's kinda neat.

gnat experiences falling snow for the first time in over two decades

i woke up this morning and looked out the window and there were white flecks lazily and confusedly floating down, up, sideways, in circles, in every direction, really - SNOW. yes, friends, today, for the first time since my family left illinois 20 years ago, i saw snow fall.

after taking several photos from my living room window, i threw on every item of clothing in the immediate vicinity so i could go outside and stand in it.

once the initial giddiness had passed (i'm totally lying, it's been several hours and i still can't stop looking out the window) i found something magnificent sticking to my sweatshirt:

guys, SNOWFLAKES ARE REAL! to think, all these years i thought snowflakes were a mystical imaginary entity created to keep me busy with scissors and coffee filters in arts and crafts during the winter months. no, snowflakes are an actual thing, and they're seriously amazing, and you can bet your ass i stood outside my apartment in the cold for several minutes, like an idiot, fumbling with my camera to capture the little bits of magic stuck to the front of my sweatshirt before they melted.

so much for considering myself...

an (honorary) today's chicago woman! i don't know if i've talked about the honorary street names yet, they're all over the city and some are pretty amusing. i spotted this one yesterday on ontario outside the corner bakery by school where i study. i wonder if my snowflake photographing stunt disqualifies me?

in far less exciting news, it's time for a FALL FOLIAGE UPDATE!

so, there's no more foliage. the city of chicago was nice enough, though, to replace it all with little christmas lights, which i almost like more:

speaking of christmas, the city is starting to get ready and i'm glad i get to see it before i retreat to california. my girl guy has taken a break from his favorite two lines of music and has instead been regaling us with christmas carols. there's a tree up at the hancock center down the street from the apartment:

and the tops of the buildings are all lit up green and red. here's the hancock tower:

the temperature has barely dipped below 20 and cara and i are already desperately struggling to keep warm. because it felt more winter-y, last night in lieu of taco tuesday we had posole, my new favorite soup, with homemade tortilla chips:

(you may be surprised to see the avocados floating in there... cara brought them back from california after thanksgiving.)

there's a very little part of me that's sad that tomorrow i'll be leaving the novelty of "real winter" behind for california's 50 and 60 degree december lows. there's a much bigger part reminding that little part that i'll be back for the VERY real january and february and that REAL winter does not mean the 20 degrees and fun little flurries of snow i'm so excited about right now...