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 bids cheex adieu with bbq

this weekend i said goodbye to a very dear friend. i've known for months that cheex was moving to ireland for medical school, but it didn't feel real until the day finally came for him to actually leave. he had a six hour layover at o'hare on sunday, so i was lucky enough to spend his last afternoon in the states with him. because one of the many things cheex and i have in common is our desperate love of food it seemed fitting that we take him to his last american meal:

yep. barbecue.

i've been meaning to go to smoque since i saw it on diners, drive-ins, and dives last year, and since it is conveniently located right off the blue line this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

barbecue is always something of a troubling experience for me. in my mind brisket and pulled pork exist in a violent struggle for the place of favorite barbecue item, and no matter which i order or how delicious it is i always find myself longing for the other. smoque went ahead and took care of that problem for me.

that, friends, is a half-and-half sandwich. so simple, and yet so brilliant. be still my heart. (not actually, though... i promise to eat more vegetables?)

cheex made it safely to the other side of the pond. i'm sad that he's gone, but also so excited for him as he begins his new adventure!

gnat says cheese

let's begin with a photo today, shall we?

if you looked at the picture above and immediately thought, "my god, that's a grilled cheese sandwich with macaroni and cheese spilling out of it!" then you would be absolutely correct. where can one find such a sandwich?

at cheesie's!

cheesie's is a brand new restaurant and bar dedicated to the art of the grilled cheese sandwich. the spot it occupies formerly belonged to a kickass hole in the wall mexican restaurant which closed its doors shortly after the first and only time i ever had the chance to eat there. let's be real - had it been replaced by just about ANYTHING but a grilled cheese restaurant, i would have been thoroughly annoyed. as it stands, and i am only very slightly ashamed to admit this, i was at cheesie's no fewer than three times within a week of its opening and have tried almost every sandwich on their menu.

the restaurant's walls are decorated with parodies of great works of art, which are in my opinion vastly improved by the inclusion of sandwiches. (seriously, though, what isn't improved by the inclusion of sandwiches?)

(note the bitterness in the cow's face. upon further consideration, i'm not sure how i feel about a cow coveting dairy...)

in the far corner below is my favorite, "cheesy night."

now, i make a pretty damn excellent grilled cheese sandwich. (in fact, i remembered that i had yet to blog about cheesie's while concocting such a sandwich in celebration of finally having turned in a 25 page philosophy paper...) perhaps that's why, once i had tried most of the sandwiches and the novelty was gone, i was basically over cheesie's. still, it brings me joy to know that there exists, not very far from here, an entire restaurant dedicated entirely to one of my favorite foods.

gnat (begrudgingly) catches up

i am experiencing writer's block.

gnat's chicago experiment has been m.i.a. for a few weeks now, and not owing to lack of material. i keep opening blogger, staring at the empty white box for several minutes, getting disheartened, and giving up in favor of stumbleupon or something else that requires no creative input on my part. sadly even now i'm having trouble coming up with exciting things to say about the exciting things i've done since my last update. you'll have to bear with me.

so yeah... st. patrick's day happened.

every year chicago dyes a stretch of the river green in celebration of st. patrick's day. (los angeles, which lacks both a river and a sufficient non-brown population to be very interested in recoloring it, dyes a few pints of miller lite green instead.)

...gross.

the previous weekend i tagged along with taylor and eileen to st. louis for mardi gras (another holiday los angeles is completely uninterested in) where i enjoyed gumbo, beverages in squirt guns, and entertaining encounters with fellow fat tuesday revelers in the streets of historic soulard.

here's a picture of some beads in a tree. i have absolutely nothing clever to say about them.

before leaving st. louis we stopped at the arch, where taylor and eileen (former resident and frequent visitor, respectively) sat looking entertained as i frolicked in the grass and took pictures from every possible angle...

...including the obligatory "pushing on the arch" shot below.

en route back to chicago we stopped in springfield, the capital of illinois and my former place of residence! also the home of abraham lincoln and one of the stranger sandwiches i have encountered in my sandwich eating career: the horseshoe.

two pieces of toasted white bread, topped with a hamburger patty and a handful of french fries and then drizzled with cheese sauce. i don't know who thought these four food items would go well together, nor am i sure it can really be called a sandwich. mostly i am mystified as to why it's called a horseshoe. (wikipedia offers no guidance on this issue.)

also in springfield, my old house!

yep, that's where i lived when i was three, during gnat's illinois residency round 1. the walgreen's around the corner that i used to ride my red tricycle to is still there.

i've been spring break-ing in california for a little over a week, but will be returning shortly to chicago for more adventures. here's to hoping the blogging deities bestow some fluency upon me between now and my next update.

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 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 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.