All posts by Barbara Payne, Editor

Writer/editor - food, wine, spirits, travel and fun, plus news about developments in biomedicine and about single working women
Chicago food and drink

Maggiano’s gives value – right now GF dishes help Make-a-Wishes

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You walk in to the dark-wood-paneled room and hear the strains of a Frank Sinatra song and notice the fresh gladiolas. You inhale the Italian cooking smells and get a warm greeting from the host/ess. People are helping themselves from family-style platters and bowls. It’s gotta be Maggiano’s.

Some of the best gluten-free pasta I've ever tasted.
Some of the best gluten-free pasta I’ve ever tasted.

Chicago’s downtown Maggiano’s, 516 N. Clark at Grand, was the first to open nearly 25 years ago – there are 49 locations now. And right now all of them are participating in a double-barreled promotion called “Eat a Dish for Make-a-Wish.”  They’re featuring a unique, gluten-free pasta dish on two slightly different MaW menus. When you order any dish on these menus, Maggiano’s makes a donation to Make-a-Wish. Nationwide so far, they’ve donated a total of $5 million. Read more on their Make-a-Wish blog.

The first menu, good until June 3rd includes these options:

SHRIMP & AVOCADO LEMONETTE –
PATRICIA’S CHEESE RAVIOLI – uniquely delicious gluten-free pasta with a lovely texture – hard to achieve with gluten-free. Loved the  Truffle Mascarpone cheese topping. The dish is named for Patricia because Maggiano’s is sponsoring her wish to travel to Rome, Italy. ***This item comes with the “Take a dish for tomorrow” deal (see below).
GRILLED JUMBO SHRIMP – cooked just right, with arugula, lemon and Tuscan potatoes
CRÈME BRÛLÉE TRIO – absolutely lovely, chocolate, traditional and honey. Num to all three.

Drinks include “Wish Lemonade” (peach and pomegranate infused) and a potent and tasty white Moscato-based Sangria flavored with pineapple, strawberry and cantaloupe and spiked with vodka. These are both excellent; the fruit flavoring is just enough to make it refreshing without being too sweet. Watch out for the Sangria; it does have a kick!

Available June 4 through July 8 is a similar menu except the shrimp will be served  with sweet corn relish and honey glaze, and gluten-free Flourless Chocolate Cake replaces the crème brulée trio. By the way, all Maggiano’s chefs are more than happy to discuss special diet needs with any guest, and they go out of their way to accommodate whatever you need.

***Maggiano’s offers a really good deal that I didn’t know about. Any guest who orders a pasta dinner gets the option to take home another order of pasta to eat at home the next day! Talk about value for your dollars. This is a painless way to donate to a worthy cause and enjoy some good food – two days in a row!

Also, be aware that Maggiano’s has lots of dark-wood-paneled rooms for private parties, business meetings and banquets. I’ve been there for a number of those events and they always do a great job.

Chicago food and drink

Watch Chicago hotspots on Best Bars in America

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Al Capone. Mugshot information from Science an...
Al Capone. Mugshot information from Science and Society Picture Gallery: Al Capone (1899-1947), American gangster, 17 June 1931. ‘Al Capone sent to prison. This picture shows the Bertillon photographs of Capone made by the US Dept of Justice. His rogue’s gallery number is C 28169’. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BEST BARS IN AMERICA has an upcoming episode featuring Chicago on Wednesday, May 20 at 9/8C! In the episode, Sean and Jay (comedian hosts) meet Esquire drinks editor Dave Wondrich in Al Capone’s old spot Green Mill Cocktail Lounge and get a taste of the local music with Blues legend Buddy Guy at Buddy Guy’s (of course).  They also get a lesson in gin at Scofflaw, head to visit their favorite Maria’s, stop in for a quick hangover IV, get the ‘Picasso’ treatment at neighborhood landmark and legendary comedian hangout the Old Town Ale House, and sip culinary cocktails with fellow comedian Pete Holmes at The Drawing Room.

 

Look for the Chicago episode on Wednesday, May 20 at 9/8C on Esquire Network (find it on your Dish or DirectTV or cable network).

 

Chicago food and drink

Tequila OR vodka in your summer cocktails!

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Container of lime juice with cut limes
Container of lime juice with cut limes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lime-juicy drinks are really big on Cinco de Mayo (a mainly American-concocted holiday based on the Mexican victory over the French in Puebla in 1862–not Mexican Independence Day, which is September 16). And these kinds of cocktails are big all summer in Chicago. But, did you know you can use either vodka or tequila in many favorite recipes? Yes, you can. See below.

Compliments of Ketel One Vodka, here are a couple of vodka-infused limey cocktail recipes to try:

Dutch Margarita
1.25 oz. Ketel One Citroen
2 oz. margarita mix
.5 oz. fresh lime juice
Splash of Grand Marnier

Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker. Strain into a salt-rimmed rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a lime wedge.

Fancy Mexican Mule
1 ½ oz. Ketel One Vodka
½ oz. orange liqueur
½ oz. fresh lime juice
½ oz. ginger liqueur
3 oz. ginger beer
5 cilantro leaves
1 jalapeño slice (seedless)

Muddle cilantro and jalapeño in the bottom of mixing glass. Add Ketel One Vodka, orange liqueur, ginger liqueur and lime juice and shake with ice. Strain into a copper mug or highball glass filled with ice. Top with ginger beer. Garnish with cilantro leaves and a slice of jalapeño.

English: Classic margarita with Cointreau, goo...
English: Classic margarita with Cointreau, good tequila and fresh lime juice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And now, a couple of tequila-based recipes for your pleasure:

The Margarita
salt for rimming the glass (optional)
1 ½ oz. 1800 Silver (or other agave based tequila)
1 oz. fresh lime juice
½ oz. Cointreau (Triple Sec is less desirable)

If using salt, moisten the rim of the glass with a damp paper towel. Dip in salt.  Fill the glass with ice; add tequila, lime juice, and Cointreau; and stir a few times until chilled. Serve immediately.

Fast Mexican Mule
1.5 oz. 1800 Silver tequila (or other agave based tequila)
3 oz. Ginger beer
Juice of half a lime

Combine all ingredients. Add ice; shake well and strain. Serve over ice in a highball glass. Garnish with a fresh lime wedge.

 

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Chicago food and drink

Nomacorc revolutionizes wine bottle closures

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You probably know that the argument about screwtop wine closures has been resolved. They work. They preserve the wine exactly where it is when the winemaker puts it in the bottle, according to Don J. Huffman, a farmer-turned-winemaker who’s now traveling the country to educate consumers about wine closures.

Part of the reason they do, he says, is that they are completely impermeable—no oxygen gets into that wine after it’s bottled, unlike how it does, very gradually, enter the bottle when a wine is sealed with a cork. That cork leakage is what’s behind the idea of “cellaring” your fine wines. The winemaker knows the rate at which oxygen will be entering that bottle, and so s/he calculates how many years in the cellar will continue to make it eminently drinkable. Complicated, eh? Yep, those winemakers are pretty much geniuses when it comes to this stuff.

But Huffman admits, lots of consumers don’t want a wine closed with a screwcap. He says he personally always uses an aerator to decant a wine closed with a screwcap. And his concern about these things is why he works with a company called Nomacorc. They market a new type of wine closure—a permeable cork that has several distinct advantages over regular cork, including giving the winemaker the ability to call the shots on when a cellared bottle is at its absolute prime.
 
Nomacorc says there are 10 reasons you can be glad that your wine is closed with one of their corks. And here are 5 of them:
 
  1. Eliminates faults and returns. You’ll never have to take back a bottle with a Nomacorc or deal with a broken or crumbling cork.
  2. Your wines will taste the same, from bottle to bottle, because Nomacorc uses the latest technology to control oxygen ingress.
  3. They’re easy to extract.
  4. Nomacorcs are recyclable and have a very low carbon footprint, especially compared to screwcaps.
  5. You get to experience the traditions connected with opening fine wines–smelling and looking at the cork and hearing that lovely “pop” when you open the bottle. 

Read more in a separate post about the environmental impact of Nomacorc compared to other types of closures.

 

Chicago food and drink

Move over Chicago Gourmet, here comes Chicago Food + Wine Festival

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Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago...
Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago as seen from the Chicago river (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s a new kid in town. Coming this August 28 to 30 the Chicago Food + Wine Festival will offer residents and tourists a selection of culinary events over three days in our beautiful downtown and Lincoln Park areas. The Festival includes:

  • Grand Taste tents offering food, wine and cocktail samples from local and regional artisans
  • Chef Showcase, where 40 Chicago chefs will serve tasting portions of their restaurant’s signature dishes in the Grand Taste tents
  • More than 30 interactive cooking demonstrations and
    intimate tasting sessions
  • Toast & Taste, the festival’s signature Saturday night tasting event featuring 16 of the country’s best chefs and live music
  • Last Call, late-night dessert and nightcap party; book signings; and more

Tickets go on sale today at 10 am. For tickets and more information, visit www.chicagofoodandwinefestival.com.

The Chicago Food + Wine Festival marks a compelling collaboration between C3 Presents, Tim Love (Iron Chef Champion, the co-host of CNBC’s Restaurant Startup, and the owner/chef of The Lonesome Dove Western Bistro, Love Shack, TLC Catering, White Elephant Saloon, Queenie’s Steakhouse, and The Woodshed Smokehouse in Ft. Worth, TX), and FOOD & WINE Magazine.  C3 Presents is the Austin-based event company that produces Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park, Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin’s Zilker Park, Austin Food + Wine Festival, Music City Food + Wine Festival in Nashville and more than 800 shows nationwide.

Chicago food and drink

Speaking of cupcake recipes…

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As we were in the last post, how about his astonishing recipe? For Oreo-addicts (you know who you are) who love wine, this just might constitute dessert nirvana.

Wine, Nutella and Oreo cupcake with wine filling and frosting

Oreo Nutella Nuvino filed cupcakeFor the cupcakes:

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ cup cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup Nuvino’s Red Blend Wine
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ¼ cup Nutella
  • 10 Oreos

For the filling:

  • ½ cup Nutella
  • 5 Oreos

For the frosting:

  • 1 cup red wine, any kind you like
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • salt, to taste
Wine-frosted Oreo wine cupcake
Wine-frosted Oreo wine cupcake

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 10 muffin cups with cupcake liners. Set aside.
  2. The cupcakes: In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy. Add the egg and beat to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla extract. Stir in Nutella and Nuvino’s Red Blend until evenly combined. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Place an Oreo cookie on the bottom of each cupcake liner. Pour batter over each Oreo cookie and fill each cupcake liner about ¾ of the way full. Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
  3. The filling: In a ziplock bag, place the Oreos and use a mallet to crush the cookies into small pieces. In a small bowl, combine Nutella with crushed Oreos. Set aside.
  4. The frosting: In a small saucepan, combine Nuvino’s Red Blend (see below) and sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until sugar dissolves and wine comes to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes (until the liquid is reduced to about ¼ cup or a light syrup texture). Let to cool.
  5. Beat the butter until until smooth and creamy. Slowly add in powdered sugar (1/2 cup at a time), vanilla, and ¼ cup of prepared wine syrup. Beat until no lumps remain. Taste the frosting and add salt to cut the sweetness, if you prefer.
  6. Assembling the cupcakes: Cut out the center of each cupcake with a sharp knife. Fill the cupcakes with Nutella & Oreo filling. Transfer the frosting to a piping bag fitted with a decorative tip. Pipe frosting into a swirl on each cupcake. Enjoy!

Brought to you by Nuvino, makers of single-pouch wines that might just be the future of wine packaging (right after those increasingly popular multi-liter boxes). If you live in California, you can buy their pouches of Chardonnay, Malbec, Red Blend, and Sauvignon Blanc  in lots of outlets. If you live in Chicago, order online through Liquorama.com or try one of their various wine club options.

Chicago food and drink

Buttercream glories at Magnolia Bakery

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Okay. They have absolutely no redeeming nutritional value. But who cares? Made with tons of unsalted, sweet cream butter, these  gorgeously iced cupcakes and more definitely qualify as “close your eyes” food (more about that in my upcoming cookbook 17 Ways to Eat Your Way to Happiness).

Magnolia Bakery started out in New York, has a bunch of locations there, and now makes a Chicago home at 108 N. State St. at Randolph in the Building 37 structure. I attended one of their “icing and wine” classes the other day and fell in love with not only the frosting but also the vanilla cupcake itself. Read a full Magnolia Bakery review–including the recipe for their scrumptious vanilla buttercream icing–on my Chicago Restaurant Examiner site. Get some of these for Easter/Passover.  Your guests will love you for it.

And here, for your enjoyment, I reproduce the recipe for Magnolia Bakery’s wonderful vanilla cupcakes (they said it was okay!):

Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups self-rising flour
  • 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers. In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredient are incorporated but do not overbeat.

Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Chicago food and drink

Food and drink news you can use

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Donuts for Grownups at a party
Donuts for Grownups at a party

Irish-Whiskey-infused donuts. “Donuts for Grownups” brings you the best of all possible worlds–luxurious sweet treats with a touch of spirit. They’ll cater these things at your event—fresh out of the donut-making thingamajig. OMG, they’ll even let you pick your liquor (vodka, bourbon, Bailey’s and more). Brought to you by Sweet Dreams Mini Donuts and Uisce Beatha (ish-kia-ba-ha) Real Irish Whiskey. Just in time for St. Patty’s Day, people.

Farmers Fridge fresh mason-jar snacks and salads
Farmers Fridge fresh mason-jar snacks and salads

Farmers Fridge. A vending machine with super-healthy, fresh foods? Yep, put in your dollars and out come nutrient dense, locally grown salads, meals and snacks that taste great and fill you up. The salads and snacks are handcrafted in portable Mason jars each morning in a local Chicago kitchen and then stocked in over 14 locations around the Chicagoland area daily. Starving before or after the gym or need a quick lunch? Their Cheater Salad sounds fabulous (romaine lettuce, turkey bacon, white cheddar, hard-boiled egg, sunflower seeds, corn, carrot, organic cucumber, grape tomatoes and honey mustard dressing) at under 400 calories.

Italian olive oil, both oil and an oil bottle ...
Olive oil & bottle from Northern Italy, at the lake Garda (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Olive oil is like gold these days. Extra virgin olive oil in Spain and Italy has doubled in price in the course of a single year, according to experts at Sol&Agrifood. Still, prices in Spain, at 3.40 €/kg (vs.  1.80 €/kg a year ago), are just half that of Italy, where wholesale price is consistently quoted above 6 €/kg (vs. 3 €/kg in 2014). Get the straight dope here from the good folks at some of these Chicago vendors: City Olive, Oh, Olive! at the French Market, Old Town Oil, and Eataly’s Olive Oil specialists.

 Divine Chocolate Bars. Fair-trade, fabulous and non-GMO, this stuff comes in milk and dark and in flavors like raspberry, toffee & sea salt, hazelnut truffle, mango coconut and more. Several of the dark versions have the levels of cacao you need to get all the antioxidant benefits of serious chocolate.
Divine 70% dark chocolate bar
Divine 70% dark chocolate bar
Chicago food and drink

New online TV show “America Cooks with Chefs” highlights tasty, healthy eating

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A lot of us busy Americans battle with weight while we also struggle to find time to cook. It’s a tough combination to overcome.

Ora TV, a new television platform that puts out some unique and fun shows (love William Shatner’s Brown Bag Wine Tasting), now brings life to the concept of pairing healthy, chef-made recipes with tips from America’s most popular weight-loss program, Weight Watchers. In the first season, a lucky few folks got picked to cook simple dishes with James Beard award-winning chefs on live TV–and we get to learn along with them. What’s not to love?

Check out this episode where Chicago’s own Chef Tony Mantuano of Spiaggia, one of America’s finest restaurants, shows Victoria Phillips (Lake Forest, IL) how to dazzle her two kids with a quick and easy-to-make pasta/zucchini/tomato salad with pan-seared salmon.

Chicago food and drink

Casual comfort food, fast, at Red Robin’s newest Chicago Burger Works

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A burger with fries from Red Robin Go...
A burger with fries from Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Red Robin has just opened a new Burger Works location at Madison and Wells, and the place was already jumpin’ only 3 days later, in the middle of a workday afternoon. You can easily satisfy your hungry-man-woman appetite here with a nice selection of hefty, fire-grilled hamburger sandwiches, all in the $6.50 to $7.00 price range. The turkey burger is fat and juicy like a real burger, with the feel and texture of a piece of sausage. Try a Guacamole burger with guacamole, swiss, bacon, tomato, onion, and lettuce.  French fries, ordered a la carte, are crisp, salty and tasty. Sweet potato fries are delicious, though very thinly cut, and served with their signature Thai Chili Ketchup, a gently zingy mix (homemade chili sauce mixed with regular ketchup).

They offer cheeseburgers and chicken tenders for the kids anytime, and burritos and sandwiches and potatoes for breakfast, plus even oatmeal and orange juice.  And if you want a hamburger for breakfast, this is the place to get it.

Red Robin’s got 500 restaurants in the US and has been serving hungry folks for 40 years. At the Burger Works locations they take the most popular items from the full-serivce Red Robin locations and make the menu from those. The point is good food, served fast (under 5 minutes). The day we visited the average time from order to service was 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

To keep the menu fresh, RR rotates the regular menu with new items. The goal is to be great at a few items rather than just okay with a lot. They make some lovely shakes – soft serve whipped up with other flavors and ingredients. The Salted Caramel was very nice; the strawberry tasty. So thick and slow to melt, they’re more like dessert than a drink.
The new location plans to be open weekends for all the downtown denizens who live nearby and perhaps want to satisfy a craving for tasty, filling food at a cozy, comfortable corner shop instead of going out to a fancy restaurant. You will feel welcome here, and and their Red Robin Burger Works menu offers nice options to get yourself well-fed.