gnat's triumphant return to hot doug's

it's been almost a year since my first hot doug's sausage superstore and encased meat emporium experience. in one sausage, dubbed "the mountain man," i ate four animals: elk, venison, buffalo, and antelope. now, that is an impressive number of unusual animals and yes, it was delicious, but the return visit makes that first trip look like child's play.

it started on saturday morning when, after my previously described incident with the turnstile, i met the andrews and christine on the red line to begin our journey. hot doug's is a train, a bus, and walk away, otherwise i might go more than once a year. upon arriving we made our way to the end of the line, which was already wrapped all the way around the building at 11:15am.

while we waited, pondering our meaty options, we were given this visual aid of typical sausage fare to contemplate. unfortunately it was mostly useless as a shockingly small percentage of hot doug's encased meat offerings feature pork.

once we made it inside we completely ignored the regular hot dog menu and went straight for the specials. we selected seven (yes seven) favorites and had a seat.

our selections were as follows. apologies in advance for the horrible picture quality (and to my models who likely were unaware they would be photographed when they embarked on this field trip).

andrew holding the apple, pear and port elk sausage, with cherry-fig mustard and caramelized onion marmalade cheddar cheese in one hand (don't ask me which) and the smoked antelope sausage with black garlic confit aioli and chipotle-cheddar cheese in the other.

christine with the smoked shrimp and pork sausage with cajun remoulade and goat cheese drizzled with honey, and the rosemary and garlic smoked chicken sausage with chipotle dijonnaise and carrigaline smoked farmhouse cheese.

andrew got  the wild rice and asiago smoked bison sausage with smokey bacon sauce and garlic-cheddar spread and a repeat of the shrimp/goat cheese/remoulade.

and yours truly with the smoked portugese linguica with saffron rouille and aged iberico cheese. with a side of cheese fries, because i needed more sodium in my life. (there were also duck fat fries. i don't have a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it.)

after typing a few of those out i'm not entirely convinced that some of those words aren't made up or the ingredients added for the sake of name embellishment. i've provided handy dandy links to the ones i was most certain weren't real.

in any case, we tried each sausage by the bite and pass to the right method, then each struggled to the end of our own. my favorite was the shrimp sausage, and not just because i enjoy the word "remoulade" so much. 

we performed admirably:

then made the somewhat painful walk back to the bus.

i don't know who secret robbie is, and while i question his claim that "encased meats" are the finest words in the english language (a pretty strong statement, when there are so many other excellent words which are frankly more fun to say, like denouement or neurofibromatosis) i do agree that encased meats are delicious and worth the trip to the undefined, faraway neighborhood where hot doug's (and literally nothing else) can be found.

gnat: a true chicagoan?

i had intended to write this post yesterday, my 500th day of living in chicago. i realize that 500 days of chicago residency is a totally arbitrary milestone, but it was either this or one year six months, or two years, and who knows where i'll be by then.

in any case, 500 days seemed as good a time as any to ask myself - am i a true chicagoan? sure, i've been here for more than a year. i've gotten the hang of dressing for weather, and i am more than proficient at getting just about anywhere by CTA (and getting home by CTA while toting a variety of strange and unwieldy items).

this thought process began a few months ago when taylor moved to los angeles, practically into my old backyard, to start at a job in the hospital i worked at before moving here. we started talking about what experiences she would need to have to qualify as a "true angeleno" - angeleno being a word that is technically more correct than "los angelean" or any other permutation thereof, but is still rarely used by any person actually claiming to be from los angeles. because taylor, who spent a few years in chicago as a kid and lived here long before i did, and eileen, who was born and raised in the south suburbs, have for the last year or so observed amusedly my alien-like reactions to all things new and unfamiliar in chicago life, i asked them to put together a list for me to check my "chicago-ness" against. here's a summary of what they came up with:

1. you've been to a cubs game inside wrigley field (unless you're a sox fan, in which case you pride yourself on never having been - pick a side, north or south)

ok, so i watched a cubs game from a rooftop across the street but i've never actually set foot inside of wrigley field.

i'm tempted to proclaim this requirement null and void, as i am generally not a sports enthusiast anyway (unless UCLA is playing, that is) and my only motivations for attending this game were novelty and wanting to entertain baseball-loving visitors. i have no real allegiance to either the cubs or the sox, let alone to both. perhaps part of being a true chicagoan is giving a crap about baseball, in which case i'm 0/1.

2. have spotted vince vaughn


now 0/2 - i've never seen vince vaughn, although apparently he's all but ubiquitous in chicago and lives mere blocks from me. i thought celebrity spotting was an LA thing?

3. know the correct order at the billy goat


double cheese, unless of course the special is a triple.

i have never been to the original location, only the ridiculously shady one located under michigan avenue, but i know my order - 1/3.

4. say you won't go to navy pier because it's too touristy, go anyway because there's cool stuff there but complain the whole time about the tourists


guilty many, many times over. i've even ridden the ferris wheel, which in my opinion is a waste of $6.

yeah, navy pier is a long cement walkway packed with sweaty, slow-moving tourists, but sometimes it has cool things like oktoberfest or the stained glass museum or the snow sculpting competition. the end of it even has a view that's not half bad.

 that said, i would never admit to having enjoyed a trip there. 2/4.

5. refer to the willis tower as the sears tower


pretty sure the whole country does this, in fact i'm pretty sure i didn't know that the name had been changed to willis tower until i moved here. oh well, 3/5.

6. take visitors to the top of the hancock for the view, not the observation deck, and know that the best view is from the planetarium


this is my favorite one. the hancock is two blocks from my apartment, and i have taken every single person who has visited since i've lived here to the signature lounge at the top. (observation deck? what observation deck?)

yeah, it's really nice, and you can hang out and enjoy it while you sip a refreshing overpriced cocktail (or use the restroom, if you happen to be a lady), but there's something very big and distinctive missing from this picture - the hancock tower. you're on top of it. that's why i also take visitors out to the end of northerly island, by the planetarium.

in fact it one of the first places i visited after moving here, way back in the days when i lived in the south loop, and it quickly established itself as one of my favorite places in chicago. 4/6.

7. know the lyrics to "bear down," or at least know the chorus of "bear down" and mumble along with the rest


we've covered my feelings on sports, right? 4/7.

8. never put ketchup on a hot dog


duh, ketchup is an abomination. i never put ketchup on anything, it's an adulteration of one of my very favorite things on this great earth - tomatoes.

i'm tempted to amend this one to knowing all of the things that come on an authentic chicago dog.

pickles, onions, sport peppers, tomatoes, neon green relish, mustard, and celery salt on a poppy seed bun. i can also tell you that the hot dog above is not actually authentic because it was grilled, not steamed. 5/8.

9. can ride the L standing up without falling over


not only that, i can do it while reading a book.

i briefly considered giving myself only half of a point for this one - this morning while rushing to catch the red line (i could hear the train arriving as i got into the station) i had an incident with a turnstile in which one leg made it through and the other got left behind, causing me to half jump over the bar, only narrowly avoid faceplanting, and incur a massive bruise which is still spreading over my right thigh. it turns out that the train i heard pulling in was heading opposite the direction i was going. because this spectacular fail was turnstile related and turnstiles are not, to the best of my knowledge, associated with chicago more than any other place, i'm still giving myself 6/9.

10. have had deep dish at giordano's, gino's, and malnati's and established a preference


some time last november gnat's chicago experiment declared giordano's it's favorite chicago pizza after a near comprehensive review of deep dish options (including giordano's, malnati's, pizano's, and pizzeria due, but excluding gino's which i've only ever heard bad things about anyway).

deep dish is totally delicious, but i still refuse to classify it as pizza. it's more like a casserole that happens to use the same ingredients as pizza. in true chicagoan fashion, i can even tell you that giordano's is not technically deep dish pizza - it's stuffed pizza, which believe it or not isn't the same thing. it's still the best. 7/10.

11. this one was a rule about what you're supposed to call the freeways. my bad, highways. 


turns out "freeway" is something that only californians say. who knew? my knowledge of chicago's "highways" are so limited that i can't even sort this bullet point out. i don't have a car here, and have driven a grand total of 7 blocks in this great city (from my apartment at 18th and michigan to the jewel on roosevelt and dearborn, one time back in the south loop days) so i'm going to go ahead and say i'm 7/11. there was another rule about navigating side streets when the freeways are backed up, to which the obvious answer is no, i can't. i live far away from the freeway, and public transportation operates on surface streets. i do, however, appreciate eileen's description: "you've been stuck in traffic and know the side streets to get out, and you take them even though you know there's a good chance you might get shot."

12. know that any sunny, calm day above 60 degrees is meant to be spent outside, or wishing you were outside


ehhhhhhh... in my book, 60 degrees is pretty chilly. ask me again in two months, though, and i will be begging for 60 and sunny so i can frolic outdoors, so 8/12.

13. own a long down puff coat, but don't wear it unless it's below 20 degrees. or just don't own one, because 20 degrees isn't actually that cold and you aren't going to be outside for that long anyway.


ok, disagree disagree disagree. it's a 15 minute walk from my apartment to school or work and no good public transportation option exists to get there, so i'm exposed to the elements for a long enough time that i need my sleeping bag coat once it gets below 30. i even wear my sleeping bag coat to potash around the corner, but that's mostly because it has big pockets and i don't like taking my purse.

when it comes to winterwear, though, i've definitely had my fair share of failures. anyone remember the time i was running late to class and ended up wearing these shoes during a snowstorm?

because that happened. 8/13.

14. know that the best sausage is polish, the best beef is italian, and you always say yes to peppers


in light of a food field trip i took just this morning, i'm going to leave the sausage discussion for another post to come very, very soon.

i do love italian beef, and last july did a scientific comparison of italian beef options with jalees and nicole. in the same afternoon we tried both portillo's and al's #1, which happen to be across the street from each other.

we ruled that al's italian beef was better, but after trying mr. beef several months later while eric and laurena were in town i decided that it was my favorite. somehow i don't have any pictures. guess that means i have to go back.  9/14.

15. blame the chicago fire on a cow, and blame the cubs losing streak on a goat


before i went to see the cubs play i did some research on the curse of the billy goat, and as i am part greek and thus a little superstitious i am inclined to believe it. as for the cow - sure, why not? 10/15.

16. be aware that you should avoid o'hare at all costs, but buy the cheapest plane tickets available and then complain incessantly about having to to go o'hare


i've had delightful experiences and miserable experiences at both midway and o'hare, and i think that being able to navigate o'hare without issue (which i can do) is also a pretty good mark of a real chicagoan. virgin america only flies to o'hare, and i bought my thanksgiving plane tickets for $90 each way, so it looks like i'll be continuing to fly in and out of o'hare until southwest lowers their airfare. i will say that o'hare is a pain in the ass to get to, so i do a considerable amount of complaining whenever i have to go. 11/16.


17. have a fight with a cabbie about the best route to take


not only have i done this, but it was on the night that i moved here AND i did it in a foreign language after i called him out for talking about me to his friend on the phone. i'm giving myself two points for that one, after all i'm the one making up the rules here. 13/17.


18. love the "snl superfans," because you see these people in your home, your neighborhood, or your local bar cheering for da bears


i only just now youtubed "snl superfans" and am watching it for the first time. what's funny is that i totally get it - they really are everywhere. i still don't think i get points, at least not until i've had a chance to watch all of the sketches. 13/18.


19. go swimming in lake michigan, vacation in a small town along the lake


i don't know if you can call it swimming, but i have waded around in it. i have never made my way out of chicago along the lake in either direction though, unless you count evanston. since you can actually see chicago from evanston, i think it doesn't qualify. 13.5/19.

20. know what the stars on the chicago flag represent


the battle of fort dearborn, the chicago fire, the world's fair, and the century of progress expo. 14.5/20.


not great, but not awful. by this list, i suppose i almost qualify. still, everyone i've asked and everything i've read has some different idea about what it means to be a true chicagoan. some cite the die-hard love of your sports team, even when they lose, some think the most important quality is the slight insecurity about being a "second city" to new york despite fierce pride in being from chicago. in the nature of scientific research i took two online quizzes to test my chicago-ness. one, on quizilla, proudly declared me a chicagoan after i demonstrated that i could answer questions about which train lines go where and whether or not the direction of the river's flow was really reversed in the late 19th century (it was). on another, furnished by the chicago tribune, i scored a pathetic 4% as the questions were mostly about specific events and people that anyone living in chicago in the 80s and 90s would remember.

the real answer is that of course i'm not a true chicagoan. any real chicagoan would say i wasn't - i wasn't born here, i didn't grow up here, and as one article i read put it, chicago is not in my soul. in fact, true chicagoans wouldn't even consider someone like eileen, who was born and raised in the suburbs just outside of the city proper, a true chicagoan. stark definitions and border drawing aside, i know that it doesn't matter if i live here for a few more months or the next ten years - i will never be a true chicagoan. even if i explore every corner of the city,or equip myself with all of the knowledge there is about its history or sports teams or culinary idiosyncrasies, or master the art of going through turnstiles, as much as i love chicago now and as much as that love may grow as i continue exploring what it means to be a "true chicagoan" my heart will always be in california. wherever i may go, california is who i am.

so, thanks chicago, for letting this californian play dress-up as a chicagoan for so long. i've had 500 great days of chicago living, and i hope the ones that remain, however many they are, continue to be awesome.

gnat fabricates milestones

today is my 500th day of chicago residency!

perhaps that's why i've grown so complacent about blogging... after all, i'm more than settled in and chicago life has become very routine. i wake up, depending on the day i go to either work or school, i come home and make dinner, i study, i watch jeopardy!, i go to sleep... it didn't take typing it out just now for me to be certain that none of this is at all blogworthy.

maybe this is a good thing. maybe i've become a jaded chicago resident with no more curiosity and wonder in me because i've done all of the touristing there is to do. maybe i need to stop making excuses and set aside more time for exploration.

(maybe all of this is foreshadowing for a post that i meant to write today but that will have to wait for tomorrow due to my getting sidetracked by a culinary adventure... we'll just have to wait and see.)

gnat revels in fall colors (and summer temperatures)

last year i was on my toes, watching the trees for the first sign of yellow so i could document their gradual change over the course of the season. this year they snuck up on me - before i had the chance to notice, the foliage had erupted into yellows, oranges, and deep reds, with of course a stubborn few that are holding onto their green. i say keep at it, green trees. i don't really want it to get cold either.

that said, we have been fortunate enough to have absolutely perfect weather for the last week and a half or so. the sun is out, the skies are clear, and the temperature is hovering in the 75-80 degree range. it's sort of like we have the best of summer and fall at the same time.


this has, sadly, been a detriment to my productivity, as i spent most of this weekend and large portions of the first half of this week lying on the grass with a book in various locations, attempting to soak up as much sun as possible while i still can.


according to weather.com, it's all coming to an end this evening beginning with light showers, then rain, then a sharp dip in the temperature that chicago is unlikely to recover from for the remainder of the year.


the fall purists keep reminding me that what comes next are the crisp days and sweater-and-scarf temperatures, which are refreshing and satisfying in their own right. i don't disagree, but i'll be sad to see summer go for good.

more fall foliage updates to come - i anticipate that after tonight's rain, those trees with weaker constitutions will wind up mostly naked. as for now, i'm taking my book and heading to the park.

gnat celebrates national taco day

it's no secret that i am basically obsessed with tacos. i wish i could remember exactly when my love for them began - my best guess is that it was senior year in high school, before my move to LA and before i learned that there was so much better out there than rubio's fish tacos. in any case, they now occupy a large, delicious place in my heart (and probably also my coronary arteries). for the last four years, taco tuesday has, in some form, been a weekly staple, and longtime readers may remember my experiments with duck tacos, greek tacos, and spaghetti tacos... yeah, that last one was a mistake.

in light of this, i'm ashamed to admit that until about 10am yesterday i was totally unaware that it was national taco day (or that national taco day was a thing to begin with), and on a tuesday of all days! evidently it's on october 4 every year. luckily eileen alerted me to the oversight and we scrambled to make taco related dinner plans. after an extensive google search of hole-in-the-wall taco joints in the area, we settled on taco and burrito palace #2, mostly by virtue of its name:

i wish i had been hungrier so i could have eaten one of each type. as it was i managed one chicken, one carne asada, and one al pastor.

by the time eileen and i got our food i had been anticipating the first bite for over nine hours. that may explain the strange giddy expression i'm wearing below... the delicious horchata on the right probably helped.

because national taco day is an important holiday to be celebrated with loved ones, i texted friends and family early in the day to go out and eat tacos and send me photographic evidence of their feasts. this turned out to be completely agonizing as pictures started pouring in long before it was time for dinner.

jalees and his coworkers visited el taco llama in the valley (and sent me several more spectacular hunger inducing photos that are not shown below):

lily, liz, and jason ate at taqueria guadalajara in davis:

sarge and my sister alex narrowly missed each other at acapulco in westwood:

my cousin neil and his girlfriend leah went for tacos (but no hot dogs) at la chiquita y el chiquilin street tacos and hot dogs in sylmar:

kieng had don antonio's in west LA:

kelly got takeout from pili's tacos, also in west LA:

taylor, who is new to southern california and was not sure she could find tacos in orange county (cute) ended up at trejo's in huntington beach:

and joey in tuscon chose to celebrate with double-deckers from taco bell:

some chose to make tacos at home. jimmy in new york:

becky and jeff in new orleans:

and my parents (who are sort of adorable) in nor cal:

we may have all been miles and miles from each other, but i feel like every one of them celebrated this, the holiest of taco tuesdays with me. national taco day - the holiday that brings people together!

gnat expounds on a terrifying weather phenomenon

when i was three years old, my family picked up and left sunny southern california and moved to this house in springfield, illinois for my dad's work. my parents had only ever lived in egypt and los angeles, so it's no surprise that it only took one winter for them to decide that snow and ice were not for them. as we prepared to make the move back to california, the people of springfield expressed their alarm at the idea. weren't we afraid of earthquakes?

i ask this of the midwest - how in the name of all natural disasters are earthquakes scarier than tornadoes!?

this is actually a debate i've been having with andrew (who grew up in iowa, where tornadoes are a thing) since shortly after i moved here. i firmly believe that tornadoes are way scarier and more destructive than earthquakes. the typical earthquake causes you to wake up wondering why your picture frames are slightly askew on the wall, whereas the typical tornado picks you and your picture frames up off the ground and carries you to a different state. yesterday i expressed my disappointment at having lived in the midwest for almost a year and a half and not having seen a tornado. it was my belief that they happened all the time and that surely by now i would have experienced one. in fact, the day i moved here my connecting flight out of las vegas was grounded for several hours because of a tornado watch in chicago. do i possess some kind of tornado repellant quality? andrew's response shocked me - in 26 years, he has never once actually laid eyes on a tornado. at that moment i considered the argument automatically won. in case any doubt still existed, i consulted wikipedia for some data.

in the year 2011, there have been no earthquake related casualties in the united states. there have been approximately 550 tornado related casualties, 159 of which occurred during the may 22 joplin, missouri tornado. granted, this is atypical - there have been more tornado related deaths this year than in the last ten combined. in fact, 2011 has been the deadliest tornado year since 1936. the deadliest earthquake in california history (the 1906 san francisco earthquake, 7.9) was devastating not because of the quake itself but the fires that followed it. the two deadliest in my lifetime, the 1989 loma prieta (7.1) and the 1994 northridge (6.7), killed 63 and 33 people respectively. following the northridge earthquake, massive changes were made to building codes and existing structures were retrofitted to reduce the destruction caused by future quakes.

(please note: this discussion is limited to california earthquakes. earthquakes everywhere else in the world, yeah, fine, they're totally terrifying. take for example the 9.0 that hit japan in march. way scarier than a tornado.)

in the process of compiling all of this hideously depressing data, i also discovered that there is a natural phenomenon called a fire whirl, which looks like something out of a harry potter movie. it is literally a vortex of flame. they are very rarely captured on film, in fact a google image search for "fire whirl" turned up no results that weren't disappointing. i did, however, find a video.

what are your thoughts, internets? are tornadoes scarier than earthquakes?

gnat procrastinates

coming to you live from elly's, where i am sitting in the corner (creepily taking covert pictures with my phone) attempting to get some work done.

i am outfitted with an endless supply of decaf and bopping to the 80s pop pandora station over the speakers. send me your productivity vibes, internets!

gnat's quarter century: complete with flaming cheese

so, i should start by telling you that ever since greekstravaganza and my failed attempt to recreate saganaki (flaming cheese) in my kitchen with cooking sherry, i have been itching to use the "things on fire" tag again. unfortunately there has been a total lack of things on fire in my life since february... i suppose this is not a thing that people normally complain about, but for months i have been impatiently awaiting the day when i would triumphantly tag another post "things on fire."

anyway - the day started like most others, with a pot of coffee and several quality hours on my word processor. thus is the glamorous life of a graduate student. then, because it's tradition (fine, i've only done it once) i walked to the chicago city farm stand on clybourn and division for birthday tomatoes:

cara came home with treats of a delicious though slightly less healthy variety, in the form of blue cheese walnut praline, cookies and cream, vanilla, and key lime cupcakes from more:

we were joined at the apartment by aleck, eileen, lisa, and cara's visiting friend austen, and trekked over to greektown for dinner. believe it or not, i hadn't been since my first visit to chicago almost two years ago. there are several greek restaurants in the area (and a walgreen's whose sign is written in greek letters), we settled on greek islands.

i was not prepared for how much food i was about to consume. really, in deciding on greek birthday dinner i hadn't thought much further than the very first course - wait for it...

CHEESE ON FIRE!

this fellow is less enthused by the fact that the cheese is on fire than any of us were (or maybe just me, whatever) but we'll chalk that up to the fact that he gets to do this several times on any given night. i also made him hold off on putting it out with the lemon until i could get a decent picture, which may be why he's so cranky.

after the flaming cheese there were gyros with tsatziki and skordalia (garlic potato spread),

followed by a greek salad, of course,

and then several family style plates of greek favorites. clockwise from the bottom, greek rice pilaf, spanakopita, pastitsio, potatoes, keftedes, and moussaka.

i don't know what these people were thinking when they designed this menu. it is way too much food to eat even a fraction of comfortably.

then (why!?) they gave us dessert. baklava, galactoboureko, and some spice cake that i didn't recognize and concluded that it must not really be greek.

like i said, this is way too much food to eat even a fraction of comfortably. we took something like four boxes of food home with us and somehow i STILL wound up so full that i immediately fell asleep upon arriving back at the apartment. how's that for a wild birthday celebration?

excellent variety and sheer volume aside, the food at greek islands is good but not spectacular and i'll probably try a different restaurant next time i'm in greektown. still, they fulfilled my only prerequisite for an amazing birthday dinner celebration - things on fire. (lies. other prerequisite: awesome people to share it with - check!) i'll save you all my expounding on how old i feel (except to let you know that as it is now officially fall and the temperature has started to dip, you can look forward to my whining about aching joints in addition to all of my typical complaints... you're welcome.) and wrap up instead with a big thank you for everyone who helped celebrate my 25th (gah) birthday, last weekend in california and this week in chicago. you're wonderful!

gnat hangs on to summer for dear life

today, for the first time in months, i had to throw a scarf in my bag on the way out of the house.

four days ago i was here:

i haven't talked at all about the beach, or the "beach" as i call it (complete with mocking finger-quotes, much to the chagrin of any native chicagoan in the near vicinity). i prefer instead to call it the lakeshore, though according to wikipedia's definition of a beach it qualifies. go ahead, call me a snob - i miss the sound of crashing waves and the smell of saltwater. in any case, it's a nice place to go read a book on warm days, and last thursday was no exception.

one thing i really enjoy about chicago's beaches is that they're so close to the rest of civilization. beaches in california tend to feel really far removed from city life. in chicago they're literally across the street from each other.

this picture was taken from north avenue beach, which is a little further from downtown, but at the oak street beach a few blocks north of my apartment the hancock tower and all of the buildings around it are literally looming right on top of you. it's a little bit surreal - to one side of you the expanse of lake michigan, to the other side a 96-story skyscraper. it makes for a very different beach experience than i'm used to.

anyway, on thursday i went to the beach. i didn't stay long, because it was uncomfortably hot and humid. today (monday) i took a scarf out with me and had to use it. it's labor day, which traditionally marks the end of the summer season, but i have my fingers crossed for a few more weeks of sun...