gnat cries wolf

after two days of anxiety, tense conversations, visits from supportive friends, and general freaking out, cara and i signed the forms to say that we have withdrawn our intent to sublet the apartment.

(it was only fitting that we celebrated with a cupcake from more)


what this means is that i'm staying - until when exactly, i'm not sure, but i will not be vacating at the end of march.


it's dramatic, i know, but coming that close to giving up the apartment felt something like the chicago residency equivalent of a near death experience. until the end was staring me in the face, i didn't realize how much i wasn't ready for it. my life in chicago has become routine - i guess i've lost my sense of wonder, or at least my will to act on it and take advantage of everything the city has to offer. it's time to shake off the complacency and really enjoy what remains of my time here. i want to be sure that when it actually is time to leave, i don't do it with feelings of regret.

that said, it's time to make a bucket list. what things do i absolutely need to accomplish before i leave? what things do i need to go back and do again? help me interwebs - i want to do this right.

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 celebrates one year

i'm posting today from the floor in terminal d of laguardia international airport in new york. exactly one year ago i was sitting on the floor at las vegas mccarran, waiting for a flight that had been delayed due to a tornado watch in chicago and wondering what the hell i was getting myself into. that's right, today marks the one year anniversary of my chicago residency. i can't say this year has been anything at all like what i expected it would be, but i suppose that isn't surprising and it certainly isn't bad - quite the opposite, in fact.

it looks like i'm stuck here for at least a few more hours, but if i ever make it back to chi i think a celebratory cupcake from more is in order.

gnat prepares herself for fall (and it doesn't show up)

no joke. check out my closet - sweater for days:

(yes, i arrange my sweaters by color.) it's beautiful out, no sweater necessary! i can hardly believe it. isn't october almost over?

the sky actually is that icky gray color, though. weather.com predicts that over the next ten days we'll dip down into the high 50s with some scattered thunderstorms. it's crazy, by now i figured i would be dealing with snow... ok, maybe not snow but also not this.

IMPORTANT NOTE: sweater collection or not, i would be just fine if chicago decided not to do winter this year and it just stayed 70 degrees out for the next few months. none of the above is intended as a complaint. the below, on the other hand, is.

there's this guy who has been hanging out on the sidewalk across the street from the apartment for about three weeks now, i call him my girl guy. i call him my girl guy because for hours on end he stands out there, singing at the top of his lungs, on a loop:

i got sunshine on a cloudy day, when it's cold outside i got the month of may

i guess you'll say, what can make me feel this way? my girl (my girl, my girl, talkin' 'bout my girl, my girl)

again. and again. and again. not the whole song, just the first few lines. for hours and hours. almost every day. if i sound frustrated it's because he's out there right now, and my efforts to drown him out by closing the windows (which is a shame since it's so nice out...) and turning the volume on the tv way up are failing. the guy's got a set of lungs on him. he's making me crazy.

in the interest of preserving happy thoughts, here are some pictures of cupcakes:

and even more cupcakes:

no, i didn't eat them all by myself.

and now it's time for a FALL FOLIAGE UPDATE!

still yellow! not a lot of orange yet, some scattered reds, some have skipped yellow and are half green and half bare. all the trees outside my window missed the memo and are still completely green. maybe that's because it's 70 degrees out.

next time on gnat's chicago experiment: gnat bites her tongue and posts pictures of herself wearing all of her sweaters at the same time and STILL freezing her ass off (probably).

gnat turns 24!

after morning class and some quality time at the lib, i started off my celebrating with a walk over to the chicago city farm heirloom tomato stand. i was hoping to leave with heaps of large, juicy, colorful, misshapen heirloom tomatoes, but the walk over took significantly longer than i anticipated and this was all they had left:

worth it. these little guys accompanied me on the rest of the night's journeys,but only about half of them made it home.

then i hopped on the train to meet daniel for dinner at xoco, (the name of which i mumble ambiguously and pronounce slightly differently each time i say it) a rick bayless restaurant which serves almost exclusively tortas. a whole restaurant just for sandwiches - how could it be bad?

daniel tried the ahogada:

i had the milanese:

both were crazy good. my new personal goal is to try every torta they make (except the one that has mushrooms on it). two down, eleven to go.

also at xoco, we had fresh churros, ice cream, and the best damn hot chocolate i have had in my recent memory.

post dessert we met cara, aleck, kristin, and a few of my classmates at clark street ale house ("if you can't get into heaven, go straight to ale!"), which has one of the most intimidating beer lists i have ever encountered. our server was able to help me out with my selections, and in exchange we shared some tomatoes with her.

the night ended with a big surprise from cara and aleck:

cupcakes from more! i look sheepish because i basically ruined the surprise by breaking up the gathering before cara had the chance to reveal the takeout boxes she'd been carrying in her bag all night. oops?

coconut mango and (i believe) chocolate chocolate:

three months into my chicago residency, i know a small but mighty contingent of kickass people who came out and made it an awesome birthday. and there were sandwiches. and tomatoes. i win.

gnat prepares for her last day in california

yes, the one month mark of my california stay is fast approaching and with it my impending return to chicago. here's a sampling of the things i did while i was here:

i spent the first week fluishly and furiously (like fast and furious but with more phlegm) knitting from the couch in my parents' living room.

i made my way south to LA and back (twice) to see some of my favorite people and eat some of my favorite foods, including this pizza from enzo's in westwood:

it's just so damn satisfying.

i visited san diego and celebrated maya's birthday and larry's newly awarded permanent residency. (hooray for no longer having to worry that he'll get deported!)

can you find anything wrong with this picture?

i saw some free (well, almost free) music that would have caused 15 year old me to flip out at the del mar racetrack:

i collected some evidence that we have seasons here in california, too:

and, perhaps because i've begun to miss living right on top of a purveyor of silly flavored cupcakes, i baked.

blue moon orange with honey cream cheese frosting:

and irish car bomb cupcakes (guiness chocolate cake, whiskey ganache filling, bailey's buttercream frosting) for very late celebrating of daniel's birthday.

all of this and more! sadly most of the trip went undocumented, owing to carmine's accident early on. he couldn't be fixed, so tomorrow i'll pick up his replacement - carmine II. thank you, accidental damage warranty. also tomorrow, packing. not looking forward to that.

stay tuned, only one more day before gnat's chicago experiment is actually about chicago again.

gnat has more visitors

and (more) more cupcakes, which cara and i got to reward ourselves for the rapid progress we've made in apartment arranging. (total bs. we still don't have a couch, a table, chairs, a vegetable peeler...)

we tried the goat fig merlot and salted caramel:

the goat fig merlot had a slightly cheesy cake with fig filling and red wine tinged frosting. the caramel had caramel flavored cake, caramel flavored frosting, and caramel oozing out of the center. go figure.

the next day (yeah, i'm pretty ashamed about this) i took eric, laurena, and maya, who are in town for a visit, into more to show them the ridiculous selection. we walked out with MORE more cupcakes. this time we went with cookies and cream and gin and juice.

i have no idea how or why anyone would make a gin flavored cupcake, but they did it.

i also learned a valuable lesson, which is that if you walk into the shop 15 minutes before closing and buy one cupcake you will probably walk out with a few free ones to keep it company.

we brunched at orange restaurant, home of frushi, fruit sushi, which is as silly as it sounds. the flavors of the day were pineapple with blueberry rice and kiwi grape with coconut melon rice.

they were significantly more difficult to eat with chopsticks than actual sushi.

despite my usual dislike of sweet breakfast fare, this week's pancake special at orange was too intriguing to pass up. four sets of silver dollar pancakes, each with a different combination of citrus, herb, and cheese.

with the exception of the grapefruit cottage cheese, these were very tasty, but they did leave me aching for eggs over-easy and fried potatoes. lesson learned. salty breakfast food is the only breakfast food for me.

we spent the day at the lincoln park zoo and the wizard of oz park, and once we had worked up an appetite we stopped for pizza. yeah, more pizza. this time the culprit was lou malnati's in lincoln park.

we chose to enjoy our pizza al fresco in a nearby park while sipping on a communal two liter of diet coke. it was the ultimate in classy dining.

even if it wasn't, the pizza was still delicious.

also notable this week was my first taco tuesday since leaving california. i was so excited that i had tacos not once but twice at two establishments across the street from each other in the course of one evening. i'm sensing a theme here.

gnat continues to move across town, solely by virtue of the chicago transit authority

i spent this week lugging suitcases back and forth across the city on the bus and i'm down to two more trips worth of stuff at the old apartment. while here, i took some scissors to the leftover ugly chair and made some improvements:

now it's convertible!

for ugly chair comfort either sitting upright or lying down.

yesterday while hanging out at the new place i decided to explore food options in the immediate vicinity. a quick trip around the corner brought me here:

johnny's grill. home of possibly the greasiest food i have ever eaten. i decided on the gyros special, the first greek food i've eaten since arriving in chicago. (there's a LOT of greek food in chicago and you'll be hearing about more of it sooner than later.)

on my way home i noted that there is a small cupcake shop just steps from my front door called more and decided to check it out. i selected a cupcake that cost almost as much as my lunch.

bleu cheese walnut praline. sounds ridiculous, i know, but i was between this cupcake and a blt flavored one (yeah, blt like the sandwich) and the girl who rang me up said the blt had ranch dressing flavored icing. no thanks.

after examining the cupcake for a bit and photographing it from several angles i finally brought myself to taste it. maybe you can't tell from this picture, but... the cake is definitely bluish.

the frosting was delicious but the cake tasted like, well, bleu cheese, and while i do love me some bleu cheese on a nice cobb salad i think i've decided that bleu cheese cake is not for me.

living so close to a (ridiculous and exorbitantly expensive) cupcake shop with so many silly flavors promises to be dangerous, but i figure if i try one every few weeks i'll have made my way through their lineup by the end of the year. therefore, more cupcake (get it) stories to come, i'm sure.